Dog diabetes is a subject that exemplifies all that is wrong with the modern veterinary nutrition landscape.
It is a horrible, deadly disease. One that causes dogs to suffer and their owners to hemorrhage money. But despite all this (and despite being noncommunicable) it is nevertheless growing more prevalent by the day.
How could this be? Don’t we all love our dogs? Aren’t we constantly being told that our devotion to their health and wellbeing at an all-time high? Isn’t veterinary medicine being practiced at the most sophisticated level in the profession’s history?
To my eyes, the problem at the heart of the chronic disease epidemics plaguing cats and dogs in the United States is the outsized and disingenuous role that legacy pet food companies play in shaping what practicing veterinarians believe about nutritional science. All too often this unholy arrangement causes well-settled science and all semblance of common sense to take a backseat to profits.
And nowhere is this reality better demonstrated than with dog diabetes.
This makes it vitally important for the owners of diabetic dogs to understand the truth about the disease — what does the science actually say, what are veterinarians being taught, and where do those two bodies of information diverge?
I may be a complete fraud with a massive conflict of interest, but I did spend four years writing a book about bad science and misinformation in the veterinary nutrition community. And I know as much as anyone on the planet about the “dirty tricks” being practiced by Big Kibble.
As you’ll see, some of the facts are scientific in nature while others have to do with the cultural matters. If your dog has recently been diagnosed with the disease (or you’re afraid that such a diagnosis may be forthcoming) and you want to make sure you know enough about it to be an informed participant in her treatment plan, this one’s for you.
