A viewer asks: “Dogs have some of the same problems humans have as they get older, problems such as cognitive issues, heart disease, arthritis, even cancer. I was thinking maybe it’s because of lack of nutrients in the dog food. Is low-quality pet food a significant cause of illness in dogs, cats, and other animals kept as pets by humans?” What is Creator’s perspective?

We cannot answer yes or no to a question here about whether this happens or does not happen, it is a question of individual circumstances, food sources and organizations, and the degree to which there might be a problem serious or minor in nature, and so on. There are many, many variables and individual scenarios as well as the issue of consistency of quality over time, where some suppliers might be uniformly of high quality and others more variable, where certain batches from time to time are substandard, with respect to the average quality and content, with regard to nutritional coverage. We would say most major brands in Western countries do a creditable job of providing basic nutrition for personal pets. Dealing with larger animals, that are more like a farm animal that are sometimes used as pets, the most prominent being horses but sometimes other livestock are elevated to that status by sympathetic owners, will be more variable because they are often locally obtained rather than through manufacturers supplying whole regions, nations, and sometimes multiple countries. Most such suppliers do a decent job of providing what is represented, in terms of nutritional support, being adequate and the level of quality consistent. There are many examples, particularly Asian countries and Third World nations where the oversight is less stringent and, because such pet foods are intended for overseas sales, there is less concern by the governments in what those companies are doing, and that has led to some horror studies about toxic contaminants, inappropriate additives like preservatives, and so on, being used through negligence. Some pet owners have an inner knowing that there is safety in variety, and that is a good general strategy, to not stick with one brand of pet food for life but vary the source of food in a somewhat consistent way, at least so there is never a very, very long span of time using food from only one source, and that is a kind of insurance. It will dilute things that are deleterious, through at least lowering the overall magnitude of exposure over time, as well as provide opportunities for some nutritional variety in having foods from differing sources rotated from time to time. This may help the animal as well avoid severe boredom or a kind of habit that is like an addiction as there may be times along the way when the primary foodstuff is unavailable. So exposing pets to some changes will condition them to expect this as a normal occurrence and minimize behavioral resistance to change.