David Dzanis, DVM, PhD, DACVN

Pet owners often use their veterinarians as a resource on pet foods.

The petfood contamination and recall incident in 2007 was a learning experience, for the government, the petfood industry, pet owners and veterinarians.

The massive amount of information and misinformation about petfoods on the World Wide Web, in books and publications, and elsewhere has led to considerable concern and confusion by the pet owning public.

The history of commercial petfoods is relatively short.

Petfood labels are regulated at both the federal and state levels.

The trend in the media, on web sites, and other sources of information on the topic of human nutrition to identify particular foods as "good" or "bad" is confusing at best.

The United States petfood market has been estimated to be over 18 billion dollars annually.

Passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) dramatically changed the market for both human and pet supplement products.