.jpg)
A recent survey conducted by polling company Ipsos Public Affairs on behalf of Iams found that most people consider ingredients the most important factor in what type of food they buy for their pets. The pet’s personal preference was frequently the second most popular factor, followed by price and then recommendations from friends or veterinarians.
What’s got many pet websites and news agencies in a tizzy is the least most considered factor when people purchase pet food: age. Not the age of the food, but the age of the pet. Only one in ten people said that the age of their pet was the first thing they considered when buying food.
Many animal advocates are alarmed by these findings because a pet’s age is of great relevance when determining what food it needs. Puppies and kittens, just like human babies, need special a combination of nutrients to assure their healthy development. In the same vein, senior dogs and cats require certain supplements in their food to keep them hale.
If I took the survey at face value, I would maybe be feeling as alarmist as many other authors reporting about the survey. However, to compose this article I took my information directly from the source: the published poll results on Ipsos’ website. I didn’t find enough information there to immediately make me concerned for the welfare of the American pet.
No details were published about the actual pets owned by the 1,000 people interviewed for the survey. The first thing I’d want to know is how old are their pets. Maybe most of the people polled had pets between the ages of 1 and 7, for whom special food isn’t needed barring any individual medical concern.
Most pet owners I know understand that baby pets need baby pet food. But once a pet reaches one year of age it doesn’t need specially formulated food; therefore, age wouldn’t be an important factor in determining what to buy for it. If I knew someone with a pet between the ages of 1-7 or so (depending on the species of animal), I would tell them to first consider the ingredients in the food, not the age of the pet.
Perhaps the concern is that while most people know to buy puppy or kitten food, they might not think to purchase senior food when their pet reaches the relevant age. I don’t really know anyone who has a senior pet, so I can’t say from personal experience whether many people remember to start buying special senior food for their pets.
While I’m not ready to start railing about the indifference of the average American pet owner, I do think it’s important to try to consider all of the factors affecting your pet when deciding what to feed it. But the truth is, for most of your pet’s life you won’t have to worry about its age when buying its food.
For this topic I’d fall back to my usual advice, which actually coincides with one of the other least-considered ideas from the survey: veterinary recommendations. Because cats attain senior status later than dogs, and different dog breeds reach it earlier than others (larger dogs tend to become senior sooner), the vet will be able to recommend at what ages for your individual pet you should start and stop using age-specific foods.
Related Articles:
How to Decide What to Feed Your Pet
Do You Feed Your Dog People Food?
*(This image by Rusty Haskell is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.)
