First, let me start off by saying that what I am writing is personal opinion and there is no "certified" evidence that this is true.
When Ben and I first were married we had two dogs (who were 6 weeks old) that we adopted from the pound named Daisey and Bo. They were both very healthy until Bo (who was almost 2 at the time) developed a limp. We took him into the vet and less than two weeks later he was diagnosed with bone cancer and was put to sleep. Really we thought nothing of it until Daisey develop epilepsy about a year later. We thought maybe it could be a genetic issue and left it at that. Fast forward a few years Ben's brother, mom, step-brother, and step-dad's dog's died of cancer. We then started talking about what could have caused this many dogs in such a short amount of time to all get cancer. The only common link was the dog food that all of us had been feeding them, so my father-in-law started asking around. After he talked to the vet a few times he started to discover that it may not be the brand of the dog food, but the ingredients (MEAT MEAL) in the food.
The problem with this ingredient is that MEAT MEAL is any kind of meat that is ground down into meal, this includes: dog, horses, cow, etc. and is not regulated by the FDA. Which may not seem so bad, but most of the time these animals are "put to sleep" or killed by way of an injection. The major concern with this is that the injection contains phenobarbital, which does not break down during the "mealing" process. Which also means that the drug phenobarbital is what is staying the the food and is being ingested by the dogs.
Our solution was to switch our dogs' food to something that did not contain any meat meal. I really can't say if this is the main cause of our dogs getting cancer or other health diseases, but Daisey has not had any seizures since we switched their dog food.
