Something is wrong with pet food.

Has anyone ever gotten a good whiff of what that stuff smells like? Wow. I'm not even sure how it is legal. When I was younger, a friend somehow managed to get me to take a bite out of a Milkbone. That is some stout stuff. It was nowhere near a treat. There was absolutely nothing appealing about it. It almost tasted like eating what you would assume rotten tree bark would taste like. I'm sure pets only eat it because they have no other option. I'm assuming that's why they go crazy over table scraps. If someone were to invent a pet food that was halfway appealing, they would make a fortune. I think it should taste as close to human food as possible, just designed with dog's digestive systems in mind.

What are your thoughts on it?

Side note: Milbones somehow look a lot better than they taste.

Well, you can't judge pet food based on what humans like to eat. There are some top quality dog and cat food that is indeed nutritional for dogs and cats.

Milkbones are a treat for dogs and many dogs seem to like them.

How many treats for humans are really HEALTHY for humans? Why aren't candy bars illegal?

My dogs think olives or onions are NOT very appealing. When I am cooking and by accident, drop a piece of onion or an olive on the floor, they will sniff at it, bite it and then, spit it out. I love olives and cooked onions. Yum.

So, I guess, each to their own as to what food we think is appealing.

Well, pet food is pretty much a horrible thing to feed our animals anyways. If you really look into what is contained in most dog foods, it's pretty gross. I try to buy better food for my dogs, but I still get them kibble, and I'm sure it's still pretty much garbage to them. I'd like to feed them even better food, but, unfortunately I just don't have the money right now.

Hi everyone. This issue is important to me..... I am taking care of a small group of feral cats, and have limited funds to spend on them. I feed them kibble and I do actually cook for them! Even though my money is limited, I feel I need to give them the best food I can... If I ever do manage to entice them inside I will start feeding them canned food as well as the kibble but for now, since I have to feed them outside, I don't want to deal with the odor of the wet food attracting other critters.

Researching the contents of pet food seems like a good idea in general. There is a really wide range of quality out there it seems!

I honestly don't see what the big issue is. Yes, I love my pets. Yes, I want the best for them. But I'm not going to spend a ton of money paying for 'better' food for them. When I was young, I ate plenty of stuff that wasn't at all healthy for me. My mom was a single mom until she met my step-dad, so money was tight. She'd buy the cheap junk food, and we'd eat it. It didn't kill me, and it didn't hinder my growth in any way. Maybe it wasn't the healthiest, but it had no serious ill effects; in fact, I don't think it had any at all, as long as I remembered to exercise often enough.

If the food were really that bad for the pet, they wouldn't eat it. If it was really all that disgusting to them, they'd refuse it. My cat has turned down certain brands before, and so we bought her new ones that she approved of. You just have to find the right match for your budget and your pet.

Besides, why would you even base the quality of pet food based on our human tastes? You do realize that animals, when living in the wild, eat raw meat and such, correct? We would be appalled by that, but they like it. Just because something tastes horrendous to you doesn't mean it tastes bad to your pet.

I recently saw a article about the leather chew toys are not healthy for animals, that some even contain toxic ingedients. My dog always loved chewing on them but sometimes would get them stuck in this throat and we would have to pull the ragged pieces out. I think real bones from the butcher are the best treat for dogs. We would get a package of beef bones and cook them and give that to our dog drather then taking a change on the leather flavored chew toys.

I try to buy organic canned meat for my cats, I see them as my children so why wouldn't I want them to eat healthy and just as good as I do. Beats paying a large vet bill because average pet food is just disgusting and bad for your animals. I'm sure the organic isn't perfect either considering it's canned food, but at least it's grain-free.

Once in awhile I'll cook homemade plain chicken for them as a treat, they go crazy! Eventually, I want to feed them a homemade raw diet. It sounds really intense with cat food though, you need a bone/meat grinder and you have to make sure it has sufficient vitamins. Sounds like it would take a lot of time.

I don't think pets eat anything you put in front of them. I've seen animals reject food and treats plenty of times. They like what they like and just like humans, sometimes what they like isn't necessarily good for them. You have to read the labels on pet food and treats just like with human food. Pets can't tell you if they have indigestion from eating something; if you don't see obvious signs you may not realize there is something wrong.

If you do a search on some of the most popular brands of pet food sold in grocery stores, you'll be shocked at some of the horror stories. It makes you really want to make your own, but that has to be done right so it contains all the right vitamins and nutrients.

I just keep wondering why the groceries don't sell the better, more expensive food. Most pet owners would gladly dish out more money for better quality.

I have often wondered why people cook meat for their cats and dogs. I think most carnivors would prefer to eat fresh raw meat. It is only humans, as far as I know, that cook meat before eating.

There must be a reason why tinned pet food smells so bad, and I reckon it is to make it more appealing to the pet. Perhaps it makes it smell more like raw meat than what it actually is.

I know many cats and dogs also like eating human food, and they can be fed leftovers from the table in addition to pet food, but it is important to be aware that some human food is actually toxic to animals.

With dog food I had thought that they tasted that way since dogs have sharper senses and probably things tasted different to them. The cause's comment that dogs love table scraps got me thinking though so I researched on what's in kibble. I got shocked that I read an awful lot of articles on companies using dirty vegetables, near rotting meat and too much grains as extenders. I think I need to read labels more carefully and research on the manufacturer and their practices. I'm thinking of going to my vet and asking about making my own home made dog food.

(02-20-2013, 03:02 PM)wolfpacklovin Wrote: I try to buy organic canned meat for my cats, I see them as my children so why wouldn't I want them to eat healthy and just as good as I do. Beats paying a large vet bill because average pet food is just disgusting and bad for your animals. I'm sure the organic isn't perfect either considering it's canned food, but at least it's grain-free.

This is the way I feel about the issue, too. We've switched to totally grain-free because it was a necessity for her health... but after all the research I've done, I'm sure that we would have eventually come to the same conclusion even if it hadn't been a necessity. My feelings on this apply to dry and wet food equally. And yes, before we switched, I came across some *really* disgusting canned cat food... and some of it she just sniffed at and walked away. That's totally unlike her, so I figure there must be some pretty bad ingredients hiding in certain brands.

Most of the commerical pet foods are simply toxic. They are not the equivalent of "junk food" for humans: they are worse. "Junk food" at least has certain minimum safety standards to ensure that they are safe to eat in the short term. There are no such restrictions on pet foods. Quite simply, the companies who make pet food do not care at all about your pets' safety. All they are interested in is making an easy profit. Due to the lack of laws regarding pet food safety, the companies can get away with putting anything they want in. There have been cases where pet food has been found to contain more than the acceptable level of toxic metals such as lead based on the guidelines for children. When you consider that your pet is likely to be much smaller than a human child, the effect on them is going to be much greater. In addition, the meat they use in pet food is normally whatever the meat industry cannot legally give to people. For example, they often use meat from animals who died of disease or who were found dead prior to slaughter. We stopped buying pet food and started cooking for our pets when we realised how terrible the commercial pet foods are.

You do draw a bit of an interesting comparison, dogs would like to eat most of what I like eat, how come I wouldn't want to eat their food? The fact of the matter is though, probably the healthiest diet for a dog would be a raw diet that's planned for optimal nutrition. Now, I'd bet there aren't too many raw meats that would smell too good to you. That being said, I do feed my dog kibble, but I try to get her the absolute best kind that I can. I would recommend checking out this website I found http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com, it gives ratings for a ton of different brands and even breaks down the ingredients for you. They don't, however, rate how the food will taste for humans.

All pets if you let them will scrounge from your table.
Animal foods are produced for animals, with all the nutrients, vitimins and minerals that they require.
The fact it smells unpalatable to you, is immaterial.
You do far more damage to your pet feeding it scraps leading to internal problems and obesity.