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Features > Iams Kills Dogs and Birds!
Iams Kills Dogs and Birds!
Who is veterinarian Martin Coffman, who lives in Saint Stephens, Alabama,
and keeps beagles in wire hutches that don't even allow them to stand
to their full height? Well, Dr. Coffman works for Iams! With vets like
this, the animals used by Iams need all of us to get very busy spreading
the word about what Iams does to the animals it uses to test itspet-food products. (Click here to see video footage of Coffman's beagles.) Coffman and his wife live in a lovely and extremely comfortable house while his dogs live on wire. In late March, Coffman told our investigator that she should get over to his kennel to look at the dogs because he was taking them to a university to put them into an experiment. He had one beagle to sell who could "run rabbits." Coffman's e-mail address is coffmanm@pg.com. As you can see from the article below, Iams is very supportive of the hunting industry. In fact, it is so committed to seeing that dogs kill large numbers of animals that it conducted a study to try to prove that the company's food gave hunters a greater advantage in the quest for the maximum bag (kill). Hunters make up less than 5 percent of the general public, and it's certain that most of Iams' customers are the nonhunting sort who would rather die than gun down an animal. So, if Iams officials try to tell you how much they "love" animals, tell them that you aren't buying, literally or figuratively, until the company stops funding blood-sport research and gets the animals out of its labs forever. The article below is from Outdoor Life magazine. Last year we looked at a season-long Iams study [Hunting Dogs, October 2002] in which pointers fed Eukanuba Premium Performance had 55 percent more bird finds than those on a maintenance diet. Greater stamina through controlling free radicals was one reason.  Testing
in the FieldMore recently, nutritionists at another company, Iams, devised a different and very practical scenting study that addressed the whole dog under natural conditions. The results were spectacular. Dogs fed a premium-performance food made 55 percent more finds (points on singles or coveys) than those on a maintenance food product. That's almost one more per hour. The study, designed by Iams nutritionist Gary Davenport, was conducted by fellow nutritionist Eric Altom on a southwestern Georgia quail-hunting plantation where a maintenance product had been used for two years with satisfaction. Performance foods are highly digestible, high-density nutrition with greater percentages of protein and fat than maintenance foods-in this case, 31.2 percent protein to 26.1 percent, and 21.4 fat to 17.2 percent. Twenty-three English pointers were arranged into two groups based on age and gender. The dogs' handlers, who would note the numbers of birds pointed and flushed throughout quail season, as well as attitudes such as fatigue or flagging interest, were not told which diet their dogs ate. The veterinarians who would examine blood and body condition were also blind to diet. To ensure that the dogs tested were well rested, pointer braces were hunted in rotation. More than just scenting Interestingly, many blood values, such as triglycerides, red and white blood cells and calcium, were slightly lower for the maintenance-diet group, but always within normal range. Spokesman and veterinarian Martin Coffman says this variation wasn't considered significant, but body condition was. By the end of the season, dogs on maintenance had lost coat condition and weighed about 7 percent less than those on performance. This suggests that something more than scenting ability was involved. The dogs on higher fat and protein felt better, hunted more enthusiastically and demonstrated greater stamina. "Dogs burn up carbohydrates four or five minutes into a hunt," says Coffman. "After that, they're burning fat for energy. More dietary fat fuels dogs longer. A lot of people think that feeding a high-fat diet makes a dog run hot. Not true. Fat takes fewer calories to burn, so it actually burns cooler." The study bore this out. During 13 of 14 heat-stress days (based on a temperature-humidity index), dogs on high-fat diets outperformed those on the lower-fat diets. It also proves that hunting success depends upon how we fuel the whole dog-nose, brain and body. Contact: For a copy of the study, call 1-800-675-3849. |
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Iams Continues Cruel Experiments on Animals
Update: Iams Stops Using Chicks in Tests!
We Want Empty Cages, Not Slightly Nicer Cages
