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hello welcome to vmc i'm dr m today
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we're going to start covering the topic
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of nutrition for our cats and dogs join
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me you'll learn something
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so the first thing to know is that the
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term nutritionist is not at all a
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protected one what that means is that
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any person can call themselves a
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nutritionist or a feline nutritionist or
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a canine nutritionist
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or a pet nutritionist any of those
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titles mean absolutely nothing the
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person who is calling themselves this
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may have zero training they might have
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outdated training they might have
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non-research based training there's no
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way to tell and so if anybody is calling
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themselves any of those things
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completely disregard whatever
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information they are sharing the only
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acceptable options to look for when
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looking for pet nutrition titles
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are either a board certified veterinary
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nutritionist
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or
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a veterinary technician who has
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specialized in nutrition both of these
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programs involve years and years of
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studying at a university level they also
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require continuing education every year
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they also require the individual to be
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involved in nutrition research and there
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is a residency program that the person
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has to complete and at the end of that
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residency there is a notoriously
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difficult board exam that has to be
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passed in order to
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call yourself a veterinary nutritionist
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or a veterinary technician who's
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specialized in nutrition the other key
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component about these actually
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trustworthy sources of pet nutrition
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information is that they will form a
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team with your veterinarian so your gp
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vet clinic
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will be looped in as part of the team
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having that clinical component is
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crucial when discussing nutrition as
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there are so many different factors that
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will affect the nutrition choices that
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are made for an individual pet
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their age their lifestyle their body
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condition score their medical history
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all of those things matter and will
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influence nutrition choices it should
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also be noted that a
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gp veterinarian like myself as well as
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the accredited specialists
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we will all have a very in-depth
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background that covers how to
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read research papers
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what sort of weight to put on their
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findings and even reading these studies
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is often a bit challenging and can be a
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bit of a slog to get through them and so
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you need people who have years and years
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of training who know how to parse that
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information and then
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most importantly apply it to the real
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world it's also very important to
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remember that we look for consensus
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statements
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if there is you know
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90
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of a group of experts are saying this is
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what we should be doing
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and then there's the lone
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voice on the other side saying no that's
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wrong the chance of this lone voice
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being correct is essentially zero and so
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these lone voices need to be ignored and
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we need to be looking at consensus
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statements from experts when we are
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guiding decisions on what food is best
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to feed our pets first it's very
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important that we remember that the
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ingredient list has nothing to do with
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food quality and this is really
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important to know because so many people
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use the ingredient list as their main
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way of deciding if they're going to
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purchase the food or not and some
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unreputable food companies know this and
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so they will manipulate the ingredient
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list in ways to make things sound better
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what we actually care about is the
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bioavailability of the micronutrients
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that are in the diet so think about this
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for a minute
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can your pet actually use
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the vitamins minerals proteins fiber and
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everything that's in these diets
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to the degree that they need to be able
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to the ingredient lists
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are ranked by weight
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and so food companies will put in this
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is a
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a very common marketing scam
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they'll say it's meat first and they'll
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have chicken listed first in the
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ingredient list but what they didn't
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tell you is that they weighed the
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chicken while it still had all of its
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water weight
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then once it's going through the process
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of being formulated as kibble or canned
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food
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a lot of that moisture is removed and
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the actual protein that you need from
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that chicken that's remaining is far far
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far less
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than what they are leading you to
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believe if you look at the ingredient
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list
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and so food that has say chicken meal in
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it but if that's in there those diets
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are actually more likely to have a
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better
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quality
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protein source
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because the meal already has
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the water weight taken out of that
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ingredient before it's weighed the other
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thing that ingredient lists don't tell
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you anything about is the quality of
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each individual ingredient are these
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ingredients
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top quality are they incredibly poor
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quality and therefore less nutritious
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who knows the ingredient list sure does
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not tell you the ingredient list also
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does not tell you the proportion of
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these ingredients like i said it just
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lists them in order of weight and it
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also tells you nothing about how well
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your pet can use that ingredient if the
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ingredient is being ingested but all of
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it's just leaving the pet in their feces
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then it hasn't helped your pet at all
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and so an ingredient list is useless
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when you are attempting to assess the
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quality of a pet food another thing that
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people will use are
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websites there's a few notorious ones
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that claim to assess the quality of the
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food and rank them
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don't use any of these websites they're
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useless the reason that actual experts
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don't put forth these websites is
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because
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the foods change all the time and it
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would be impossible to keep it up to
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date
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if you actually look into who's running
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these websites one of the most popular
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ones is actually run by a human dentist
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who has zero education in pet nutrition
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and is putting out horrifically wrong
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information don't use these things at
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all the people running them are not
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experts i want to remind you to
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subscribe if you haven't already and
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don't ever hesitate to comment with
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future video topic ideas that you might
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have for me i'd love to hear from you
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all right let's go on to the standards
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that you should expect from your pet
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food manufacturer so essentially you are
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trying to assess the quality and the
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nutritional expertise of this company
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now the world small animal veterinary
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association or wsava
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has a tool kit to help people with
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deciding which
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food they should be feeding to their pet
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and their recommendations are research
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based and are excellent and these are
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the standards that i use when picking
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food for my own pets as well as making
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recommendations for my patients their
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first standard is that the manufacturer
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must include at least one
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full-time veterinary nutritionist so
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there are a lot of companies that will
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hire a veterinary nutritionist but then
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they will have an entirely different and
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unqualified person actually formulating
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the food that's why standard number two
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states that it's very important the
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person who actually formulates the diets
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needs to be a board-certified veterinary
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nutritionist and often these people will
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also have a phd in animal nutrition the
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third standard that wsava has is that
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the manufacturer owns the plant where
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the met where the food is being made
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if they do not own the food
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manufacturing plant their ability to
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control the quality of the formulas goes
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down dramatically and they simply will
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not be able to put out an excellent
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product this leads us to the fourth
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standard and that is considering the
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quality control measures that the
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manufacturer has in place these
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companies need to be testing the
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ingredients that go into the formula and
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they also should be testing the end
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product to make sure that what they are
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making
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meets the standards that the veterinary
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nutritionist has made for that
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particular formula so they should be
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testing for nutrient content to make
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sure there are no pathogens like
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salmonella or e coli
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and also make sure that there are no
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aflatoxins in their products this also
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means that the manufacturer should be
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doing audits of all of their suppliers
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there are a few companies that are not
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ws ava compliant who have multiple times
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blamed their suppliers for issues that
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have come up in the products that
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they've been manufacturing it's not on
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the supplier the manufacturer needs to
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make sure that the product they produce
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is meeting the standard next up is the
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afco label
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now this standard
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is what we used to judge pet food by and
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it's woefully inadequate
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you can get a pet food onto the shelves
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of any store simply by passing afco
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regulations and this involves either a
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very short feeding trial to a small
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number of dogs where essentially if they
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don't die the food passes or by running
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the ingredients through a computer
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program to make sure it should meet the
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requirements that are the bare minimum
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for keeping an animal alive afco
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standards alone are not near good enough
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when
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looking at pet foods the next wsaba
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standard is whether or not the company
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is
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doing any research in the area of pet
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nutrition
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and if they are that research should be
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published in peer-reviewed reputable
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journals if there are pet food companies
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that are not doing any research they
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aren't actually invested in this and
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they are not going to be producing the
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most current and best nutrition for our
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pets and if they can't get their studies
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published in a reputable journal then
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that means that the research was not
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well done and needs to be ignored the
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manufacturer also needs to be able to
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provide a nutrient analysis for anything
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that you might ask them about whether
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that's calcium or sodium or protein
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levels
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and they should not be giving you a
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guaranteed analysis that's essentially a
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minimum or maximum number which is
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worthless if they are actually testing
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these products in the way that they
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should they should be able to tell you
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exactly what is in the formula they are
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producing ideally this would be provided
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in an energy basis i.e it's this many
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grams of this micronutrient per thousand
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calories say it should not be provided
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to you in an on and as fed basis because
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that does not account for the different
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energy densities from formula to formula
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and so you know some kibble might be 300
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calories per cup another might be 450
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calories per cup the company also needs
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to be able to provide to you the
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calories of any food on a weight basis
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so how many calories per cup or how many
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calories per 100 grams of this formula
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are in the product if the company can't
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tell you that that's a huge problem the
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last standard really looks at the ethics
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of the company is the pet food
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manufacturer bashing other companies
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often when they do this it's using
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fear-mongering or information that's
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false and just
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sounds good but in reality isn't true
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the bottom line is to make sure that you
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take your pet nutrition information from
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an actual qualified expert and then you
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need to be evaluating the company that
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you are buying pet food from to make
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sure that they meet the wsaba standards
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if they do not meet these standards do
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not feed that pet food to your pets
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we will delve into
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um
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some issues that are arising from
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companies that do not meet wsa va
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standards in part two of this series so
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join me for the next video i look
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forward to talking with you then
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[Music]
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you
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