The Connection Between Dog Food and Dog Vomiting

To most people, for over fifty years, commercially manufactured bagged kibble and canned wet food has been synonymous with kibble.

James Spratt of Cincinnati, Ohio invented first processed dog biscuit in 1860. I wasn’t until World War II that commercial dog food manufacturers began to promote the ease of kibble and canned food onto financial struggling families. No one considered the quality of the food or the ingredients. This new time saver had to be better than the table scraps that domestic animals enjoyed at the time, right?

Wrong!

When pressed, those early commercial dog food manufacturers agreed that feeding dogs meat, vegetables and some grains was better for the dogs than the processed kibble. Since it was made using meat scraps, meat- by-products, and factory waste, such as saw dust and grain husk, it was cheap to manufacture. It sure was convenient, but was it healthy? Generations later, with dog diseases commonplace, millions of people do what their parents and grandparents did- they give their dogs manufactured dog food.

The commercial pet food industry has been a win-win operation for everyone involved. Instead of paying for removal and disposal, grain farmers and slaughterhouses actually made money selling left overs to dog food manufacturers, that were unfit for human consumption. Unaware dog owners were easy targets for slick Madison Avenue advertising agencies. Purina pushed the envelope when they developed an extrusion process; a technique that puffed up the kibble before drying, making it appear like more than it actually was.

A massive media campaign against feeding your pets table scraps was introduced by The Pet Food Institute in 1964. Without any scientific basis, Veterinarians throughout the world jumped on the bandwagon. This campaign was responsible for millions of pet owners feeding their four-legged family members nothing but this inexpensive, convenient product, which was passed off as food.