For a number of reasons the pet food manufacturers are in control by which I mean that they can create cat and dog food which need not be as good as it should be because:
- As mentioned previously, the laws regarding the quality of pet food are not sufficiently enforced to make them truly effective;
- The labelling including the labelling of the ingredients is oftentimes misleading and confusing. I defy almost anyone to understand what the list of ingredients truly means unless they have made a deliberate attempt to study the matter conscientiously. You have to be an amateur sleuth and scientist to get the bottom of cat food ingredients;
- There is, I would argue, regrettably, an element of apathy amongst cat owners regarding the quality of the cat food that they serve up to their cat companion. This does not apply to everybody, of course. But it must apply to the majority of people otherwise the pet food manufacturers would not be able to get away with what they get away with.
The above factors allow the pet food manufacturers to get away with a failure to produce best quality pet food and on some occasions the quality is plainly bad and in violation of federal or national laws but things just go along as normal. Nothing really happens for the better. This is despite the fact that there are someone wonderful advocates who fight the good fight in trying to improve the quality of pet food. Their voices are loud and persistent but despite that nothing really changes.
Ultimately not enough force is being exercised against the pet food manufacturers to change their ways. That force should come from the consumer and from the authorities who enforce the law. There is a degree of apathy from both quarters. I believe that the pet food manufacturers know this which engenders complacency. They are almost untouchable.
There needs to be change and ultimately that change can only really come about from consumer pressure. Not enough consumers, by which I mean cat owners in this instance, are sufficiently concerned about pet food quality or informed well enough to understand its quality or lack of it. The food is there on the shelf of a supermarket and therefore it is okay as far as they are concerned. That is about the sum total of the amount of consideration that they give to the quality of the food that they are serving up to their cat.
It is disappointing because as one of the best known cat food advocates states 30% of pet food in the USA can legally be described as adulterated! I don’t know the position in the UK but it is probably similar.
The very existence of dry cat food and the suggestion that it can constitute the only diet of a cat reinforces what I am saying. It is probably now recognised that dry cat food by itself is not a good diet for the simple reason that is is dry and lacks sufficient moisture. This can have a negative effect on health. Yet many cat owners only give their cat dry cat food.
