BVA publishes guide to pet diet conversations
The guide addresses queries abour raw food, as well as vegan and vegetarian diets.
The British Veterinary Association (BVA) has published a new resource, designed to support veterinary professionals to lead conversations about clients’ pets’ diet.
The resource provides information for both veterinary professionals and their clients, to support them with making evidence-based decisions for dogs and cats.
It was created following the results of BVA’s Voice of the Profession survey, which revealed that 94 per cent of companion animal veterinary surgeons had clients that fed their pets a raw diet. There were also 42 per cent with clients that fed meat-free diets and 29 per cent had clients feeding insect-protein.
However, the data also suggested that clients were not routinely discussing dietary choices with their vet. Data revealed that 6 in 10 veterinary surgeons were unsure how many of the pets they saw were being fed a meat-free diet.
The guide includes a range of posters and graphics for BVA’s members, developed following recommendations from a panel of experts.
BVA says that the advice does not attempt to identify the ‘best’ diet for individual pets. Instead it focuses on supporting pet owners with meeting their pet’s nutritional needs while meeting their own lifestyle choices.
The guide addresses queries about vegetarian and vegan diets, as well as exploring the topic of raw food.
Elizabeth Mullineaux, BVA president, said: “When it comes to pet diets, there’s so much opinion available to pet owners from breeders, family, friends, online influencers and others, it can be difficult to know which information to trust. We want to support all members of the vet team to feel fully confident in their conversations with clients around alternative dietary options.
“Our new resource will improve the information available to both vets and clients, supporting owners to make healthy, informed choices for their pets.”
BVA hopes that future research will provide better evidence and improve understanding of alternative diet types. It urges veterinary teams to continue recording nutritional histories and their resulting issues on practice systems, which will create a thorough evidence base on these diets and their impacts.
The organisation is also campaigning for changes to veterinary education, which could include an emphasis on the importance of nutrition, as well as better labelling of pet food products.
The resource can be accessed here.
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