[Mutts and Cats]

Hi Patricia A. I’ve been chatting with you on the Raw Food Recommendations post. This post caught my eye, and while I’m afraid that I don’t have time right now to read all of the replies, I just thought I would weigh in on this topic.
Not long after FDA first released their concerns about the connection between DCM in dogs and grain free food I had a dog die suddenly of DCM. So I jumped in and did a sh** load of reading on the subject. In the end, I concluded that most dog food manufactures were taking advantage of peas and other legumes to boost their protein numbers and increase their profits. And it made me REALLY angry that the fairly expensive brands I had been feeding were doing it too. So after that I refused to buy any dog food that didn’t disclose the percentage of meat ingredients or the percentage of protein from meat (or other animal ingredients).
As for grains, I’m on the fence. I went back to feeding just a little bit of grains for a while, but now I have a dog with some serious, elusive, health issues and I’m back to no grains. I tend to think that for a healthy dog, some grains may be good – but then again gluten grains are hard on the digestive tract, so . . . I don’t know.
I’m also a little on the fence about peas/legumes, but have decided in very small quantities they are ok. However, they are high in lectins, which I don’t dismiss as a potential problem for some dogs (and people – “The Plant Paradox”).
But I will never change my position on the issue of protein from meat. Dogs and cats need to get their protein from MEAT.
Well, I said that I would quickly weigh in and this got quite long. I will come back when I have more time and read all of the replies, because it looks like there is some good information here.