Is this a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

Well need to approach carefully with both eyes open !
Knowing the quality of pet food processed by Purina
is a big conecern with a red flag. Hopefully pets will get into homes where pet parents are caref ul about their pets’ diet.

It is the advertising opportunity, I’m certain of it. I hate that a great pet website will be bastardized by ads for their garbage food.

They can’t be trusted…Mercenary (MONEY) with a capital “M” is what they’re all about, and they couldn’t care less about the animals. Just my opinion.

Color me skeptical. Why would Nestle do this if not solely for financial gain. And…could Petfinder now become a conduit for sale of puppy-mill dogs? One thing is for sure, if their motivations are indeed dubious, they can expect a mass exodus of those of us who use Petfinder, not to mention a whole lot of negative PR.

This is a comment I posted when I “shared” this story on my facebook page….

I don’t like the idea of Purina purchasing petfinder.com at all. Expect to see a bunch of advertising for their products and….this gives them easy access to animals to add to their pet food ingredients. Don’t think it’s true??? Do some research. Testing of pet foods has found evidence of euthanizing drugs. Where do you think these drugs came from!!!! Yes, hard to believe I know, but they are from animals put to sleep at vet hospitals, college research facilities, etc. and think of all the diseases and other stuff from research these poor furbabies died of, also in pet food!!!! So…..What do you feed your pets???? Check the ingredients and do some investigating.

Awful news. Purina Dog Chow is garbage. Many people do not realize that the lousy diet they are feeding their pets is causing various chronic health problems that are expensive to treat. Pet guardians could spare themselves and their pets a lot of grief if they fed them a biologically and species appropriate diet; this would NOT include Purina products.

When we adopted one of our cats from a shelter, I got the lecture from the shelter about how important it is not to give my cat ANY human food or table scraps and that even canned food would “rot” my cat’s teeth. I was sent home with a bag of the krapple (my word for crap and kibble) that no doubt was given to the shelter by the pet food company. As soon as I got home, I gave my cat a bowl of raw chicken livers with a raw chicken wing as his bedtime snack. There is no doubt in my mind that the number one priority of Purina is to make money and lots of it and there are some very higly compensated executives sitting around a conference table congratulating themselves on what a fine strategy they’ve devised. Most likely, Purina will be getting a huge tax break especially if they turn Petfinder into a non-profit affiliate.

I’m very sorry to hear this news. I would never feed Purina to my dogs. My guess is that Purina sees this as an opportunity to pimp their products to new pet owners who are not informed about what ingredients should and should not be found in pet foods. I’ve used Pet Finder in the past. I will not use them again.

I have always loved PetFinder and know many of the wonderful, caring people who have been involved with it. I am extremely sad for those people now, as they must deal with the fallout from being assimilated by Purina and the changes that will require. They may be subtle or they may be overt, but the purchase will mean changes. As someone who worked for a really wonderful pet product company which was purchased by a mercenary shock collar company, I have a visceral reaction to this transaction – a sinking feeling.

Conflict of interest! Conflict of interest! Conflict of interest! My gosh, where will it end.

A new distribution tool for their products with which they can wrap themselves in plenty of goodwill by pointing to their “good work” to save dogs. It is possible, but unlikely, that Nestle will divert more money to increase the rate of adoption, lower the adoption fee, provide free neutering and spaying (which goes against their best financial interest – the more dogs there are, the more food they could potentially sell), etc. I say unlikely because that would take away from the company’s financial bottom line. Let’s not excoriate the executives however. They are doing what they have been told to do. Their mission is to maximize profits for the shareholders (and thereby enrich themselves). We, as consumers, have accepted this whether from Nestle’s executives or most other corporations, and certainly all major corporations.

Remember, your power is not at the voting booth. Your power is at the check out counter!

Disastrous! Biggest fear is that Purina will insist that all rescue groups use their food (or, lucky them, they get their food donated by Purina themselves). Sounds like a huge advertising monopoly! Very sad.

Another evil corporate acquisition and a middle finger from a trusted animal rescue website to their users. PetFinder is as greedy, it turns out, as anyone. Their idealism turned in to fast bucks of a huge amount you can bet. Now, Purina has a once trusted stage from which they can pontificate to the masses on the benefits (?) of feeding their food to our pets. Greed pops up like grass between the sidewalk cement cracks once again. My stomach is churning.

I don’t believe that this bodes well for Petfinder. Nestles are only in it for a self serving purpose; their food quality has already shown how much they really care about the animals. Apparently Discovery Communications don’t care about the animals either.

Pet food manufacturers are linking with shelter organizations as a means to grab customers when they first get a pet. In exchange for free or discounted food (and you can’t really blame many cash-strapped shelters for falling victim), vendors get exclusive use of their foods at the shelter (not even donated foods are allowed to be used), and often are privileged to insert displays throughout the shelter. The new pet parents are given a bag of the food with the admonishment that “Fido (or Fluffy) is used to this food,” (and often, has become addicted to the junk ingredients in a short period of time), and presto… a customer for life. Liking Petfinder and Purina is a logical business move, as Nestle doubtless has plans to exploit any possible connection to the shelter system to their truly awful products.

As waith many controversies some have a silver lining BECAUSE they open up discussion that would otherwise not take place. Nestle Purina has advertising/publicity bucks to spend. If not through PetFinder, they will (unfortunately) “find” another way to do so. Unless they won’t let Rescues list on the site if they aren’t willing to promote Purina, then don’t with hold the opportunity for more adoptions. At the point of adoption explain the truth about pet food. Infact, hand out a TAPF flyer or bumper sticker and encourage the new owner to learn about good nutrition for their pet which can reduce veterinaian expenses in the long run. That should be endcouraging good news for them. If you have to, specify any better quality food that they can start out with. Keep it affordable and accessible until they gain more experience. Just keep them away from chain store house brands and the worst of the worst ingredients. Outline some easy bullet points for what they should avoid or look for. Perhaps this approach will reach more owners in the long run than if Purina hadn’t become involved at all. I do know that even when other big name brands (like Pedigree and Eukanuba) support large dog events it doesn’t mean that participants don’t make their own choices anyway. In fact these people know what works for their own program no matter what is being pushed. It’s all about education and experience.