Today, I’d like to talk to you about pet food fraud and retired veterinary surgeon Dr. Tom Lonsdale, aka the “whistleblower vet”!
Specifically, how you can support Dr. Lonsdale’s efforts to expose the “junk pet food industry and its vet accomplices”.
Dr. Tom Lonsdale’s Pet Food Fraud Petition
Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links. I may earn compensation when you click on the links at no additional cost to you.
But First, Who’s Dr. Tom Lonsdale?
Dr. Lonsdale graduated from the Royal Veterinary College in London, UK, in 1972, and later opened his vet practice in Australia.
He worked as a traditional vet for 18 years, and then discovered that a raw dog food diet including raw meaty bones does wonders for dogs, cats, and ferrets!
Turns out that the act of tearing and ripping at RMB offers a plethora of medicinal benefits to our pets, including:
- Dental Health
- Mental health
- Digestive Health
- A strong immune system
When Dr. Tom realized this, it dawned on him that the kibble and canned pet food industry contributes to our pets’ poor general health.
As a consequence, he blew the whistle via a newsletter article on “Oral disease in cats and dogs” in 1991.
[…] And by 1990, I had finally worked out that pets suffered from periodontal disease as a result of the junk pet food diet.
Dr. Tom Lonsdale, Multi-Billion Dollar Pet Food Fraud, page 89.
Dr. Tom specifically criticizes commercial pet food makers for:
- Manufacturing subpar pet nutrition
- Promoting it with misleading labels, and
- Financially backing the veterinary profession
So for the last 32 years, he’s made it his mission to prioritize our animals’ health by calling out conventional approaches to pet nutrition.
Vet regulators don’t like vets to stray too far from conventionally approved thinking that dogs and cats are supposed to be fed cooked concoctions in the can and packet.
Dr. Tom Lonsdale, Multi-Billion Dollar Pet Food Fraud, page 20/21.
He wrote the following 3 books in an attempt to share his findings with pet parents such as you and me:
Those findings are also the basis of his most recent campaign.
Dr. Tom Lonsdale’s Petition
In November 2023, he started a petition in the UK:
Inquiry Into The Pet Food Industry And Its Relationship With The Vet Profession
Its goal is to expose and possibly prosecute members of the commercial pet food industry, or “junk pet food industry”, as Dr. Tom calls it.
Key Facts About Dr. Lonsdale’s Petition:
- Ends on May 30, 2024
- Needs a minimum of 10,000 signatures for the British government to respond to it
- At 100,000 signatures, the petition will be considered for debate in the UK parliament
How You Can Support Dr. Lonsdale’s Pet Food Fraud Petition
There are a few different ways you & I can support this petition:
(1) Sign it if you’re a UK citizen or resident
(2) Share it with your UK friends and family
(3) Talk and/or write about it
And that’s exactly what I’m doing here on the blog, as well as on my YouTube channel:
Raw Meaty Bones with Dr. Lonsdale & Dr. Clarke-Williams
Why Do I Support Dr. Lonsdale’s Cause?
I love that Dr. Lonsdale is giving a voice to our voiceless pets and that he’s so dedicated to social justice overall.
And while I’ve been feeding raw dog food since 2015, there was a time when I was feeding crappy kibble myself because my then-vet recommended it.
This was back when my ex-husband and I were first-time dog owners to Missy & Buzz, two Boxer mixes from the same litter.
Since I didn’t know any better, I fed the Science Diet kibble the vet recommended, along with similar types of kibble and wet food brands for a little over 3 years.
Here’s how the kibble affected the pups:
- Both had stinky breath
- Buzz got dirty teeth that required a professional, expensive tooth cleaning
- Buzz had recurring ear infections that required constant treatments
And Missy, well…She ended up being diagnosed with cancer for the first time at just 3 years and 3 months of youth.
While I switched her over to a raw diet including whole, raw meaty bones after her tumor removal, the cancer came back after 3 years.
And this time around, I lost my beautiful pup to it.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the kibble and the canned dog food diet contributed to Missy’s cancer diagnosis.
After all, Buzz didn’t get it and he’s still alive at 12 years old (he now lives with my ex-husband), while Missy passed at just shy of 7.
So genes must play a role in this awful disease as well.
But the processed pet food Missy ate certainly didn’t strengthen her immune system.
I often wonder if she would have had a few more years if she ate a species-appropriate, raw dog food diet from puppyhood on.
Now, as it turns out, I’m still not done learning about the topic of raw dog food!
And specifically, raw meaty bones.
For example, did you know that dogs with just a handful of teeth left in their mouths can still eat whole, raw meaty bones?
I didn’t until I took the time to sit down on a Zoom call with Dr. Lonsdale and Dr. Clarke-Williams.
All that said, I so appreciate the 3 decades of first-hand raw dog food experience Dr. Lonsdale has.
Just FYI, he provides a lot of free resources on his two websites for anyone who cares to learn from him:
Also, please just take this as a remark from my raw dog food nerd brain, how cool is it that Dr. Tom started having big freezers at his clinic filled with raw meaty bones?!
While Dr. Tom is retired now and sold his clinic to Dr. Mei Yam, she continues his legacy, which includes the freezer chests with RMBs!
You can take a peek at a picture of the freezer chests on the clinic’s website at Bligh Park Pet Health Centre here.
Supporting Dr. Lonsdale’s Pet Food Fraud Petition: Bottom Line
Dr. Lonsdale has witnessed the healing power of raw meaty bones in thousands of his pet patients.
That’s why he’s made it his mission to educate pet owners and his veterinary colleagues about their medicinal benefits.
At the same time, he wants society as a whole to look into the interconnection of the junk pet food industry and the veterinary profession.
Remember, as a UK citizen or resident, you can sign his petition to do that here.
If you’re not, you can share it with your UK friends and/or strike up a conversation about it!
I love what he’s doing because I don’t support the traditional beliefs about optimal pet nutrition in a bag or a can.
As always, I’d love to hear from you! Let me know what made you look into a species-appropriate, raw dog food diet in the comment section below.
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