Ann Baker Interview
Transcript – Part 6: Pet Health Care
Ann Baker Pet Health Care – Interview Transcript: Part 6. She discusses the pet food industry, veterinarians, and treating parvo, mange and ringworm.
Pet Food Industry
Now you people got to learn something. Everything in this whole world is money, money, money. Now you take, a man sells, I’m gonna use a round table he sells a big stack of cat food to the supermarket for 5 dollars. Supermarket’s gonna charge you 10, okay? But over here here’s a guy who can do his own advertising and stuff but anyway, he goes around to these pet stores. Now look, here’s my special breed, here’s my special food and if you’ll sell this, you can have 10 dollars for every bag you sell. You were paying 20 dollars he gets 10, the manufacturer gets 10 dollars for his sack of cat food where if he sold it to the supermarket, he couldn’t get but 5. So he’s not makin any money on his food.
Alright, now, Cathy will recognize this story. Uh, somebody was from some other foreign country and they said that they was goin back east and they wanted to sell a ragdoll to um they wanted to get a ragdoll for these people where they had stayed. And uh so that they would call me up and they make arrangements for shipping to em. So she talked on the phone and I was gonna sell her a ragdoll and uh I’m trying to tell her how to take care of em and the food. And she said, “Oh, I’ll just feed em Science Diet”, and I said, “I’m sorry, Lady, I won’t sell you a cat.” “Well, why?! We manufacture Science Diet!” And I says, “I’m sorry, Lady, but I been through 30 years of this stuff and I have seen too many of em that’s had liver damage. Even that one that I’ve got from Mr. Fight which is my fly boy had liver damage on side back with me n havin havin aids why I guess that would be easiest way for him to go. And not only that but he had when he sold out his kittens he had gave everybody a 5 pound sack of Science Diet and within a year everybody called me their cat’s got liver damage cuz they raised the little kittens on that. So I told her. Well anyway, she didn’t buy a cat from me but she bought the cat from Cathy Wall over here. Now, what she told me was is this: She said you’re supposed to feed Science Diet dry for a year. Then you gotta go to the vet and get some SD and keep it on SD canned food for a month. That’s a cleanout thing. Then you can go back on the dry food for the year. Then you gotta go do the cleanout thing. And I says, I never heard of this in all the time I been doin it. Everybody gets on the Science Diet. Whoever heard of that cleanout stuff?
The pet food industry has gone through substantial changes, including regulatory oversight in recent decades. We have no knowledge of any reason to distrust the current Science Diet products. In fact, we use Science Diet wet cat food products in our cattery.
Veterinary Industry
Well the vets know that over there at my vet’s they always tell people when they have to take em in with this with this thing you know what I mean kind of liver trouble or whatever they’ve got why you have to put em on SD for the rest of your life. People come in there n buy those boxes or cases of SD n they want 2 dollars or 2 dollars n a half for the can this high and they buy em by the case for their cats. Now they said you only have to leave it on it for a month n then they can go back on the dry food. But the vet makes a heck of a lot of money sellin their cans of cat food for 2 dollars or 2 dollars n a half a can. Ya see what I’m sayin? Now, I used to give cat fever shots when the cats left here at four months. Well, I get her a FeLV virus cat fever shot. But just all at once, it came out all over the United States that all the breeders wanted to give cat fever shots, leukemia shot, and the rabies shot all at one time. Then fill out a card and they’ll send ya a card every year to come n get your booster. Well, ya see if vets only took care of cats that got run over or chewed up by a dog they couldn’t make a living. And so they got all this shot stuff going. So if your cat or dog is bad they just tell ya to put it to sleep. They can make more money on their shots. Okay, now your cat only needs a cat FeLV virus cat fever shot and he only needs one in his lifetime. Because we got a lot of cats, we give em every 5 years. Okay cuz you don’t remember who had it and who didn’t or whatever.
She apparently harbored a distrust of veterinarians. Perhaps she had good reason, but there is no way to really know now.
The medical industry and veterinary industry has changed dramatically in the last 40 years. We encourage everyone to find a good veterinarian and to trust their advice, even when their advice differs from the suggestions on our website.
Now uh the uh so they make all that money there on their shots to keep their customers comin back in and so they can keep all their clients n all this kind of stuff to keep to keep it goin and make a living for themselves. My animal control man was here n he says, “I’m goin tell ya somethin, he says, If I ever lose my job, I’m gonna hang out a shingle and be a vet.” Because they really know, the animal control really meant knows what all this stuff is. Now another thing, this is funny. Uh, I had some puppies and they had parvo and I took em to the vet and they ended up all dyin on me except for the one I had sold first before they got parvo. But the animal control man at that time came through and went out there and played with all my dogs n so he carried it in from someplace else. Since I’d already sold one and it was alright. I took em to the vet and they died. Not this vet, but a neighborhood vet. Okay. Then, I found out from my vet what you had to do to pill pain came from well from parvo.
Treating Parvo in Dogs
So my neighbors got parvo. I said, “Let me have em. I’ll cure em for ya. I wanna see something.” I’ll, so I took em to take care of em. What do ya think I your supposed to do? Gatorade. Well I got a great big horse syringe like this here and I got that little puppy layin on the ground and I took this thing and I was gonna feed him through the mouth n try to get him to eat this Gatorade. Well I had the big pan sittin over here full of Gatorade. The other little puppy went in and started drinkin all the Gatorade. I said, “Heck, what am I doin with this great big old syringe tryin to feed it with it that way.” I just picked up that pan n put it under that put it under the dog’s head stuck the dog’s mouth in like that let his head hang over the thing n he drank all the Gatorade n the next morning he’s up playing. Ya see how these home remedies do?
Ann treated dogs with parvo using Gatorade.
Treating Mange in Dogs
Now uh I told my girlfriend I said um about her cat having the mange her dog having the mange and uh she said she had cost her 65 dollars the year before and she’d had to go 3 times to the vet. I said you won’t have to go this time only cost you 29 cents. You buy a pound of lard. So I went out a couple weeks later and and uh she called me and “Hey, you gotta look”, she said. She hadn’t even used a nickel’s worth off of that pound of lard. She said, “I only put it on once and when I went out two or three days later to put on some more the(40:15) first growth patch in. She never had to take it to the vet.
Ann treated dogs with mange using lard.
Treating Ringworm in Cats
I have to tell ya a funny story like this too. I went to another vet here before he moved down to Sunnymead. And uh so lard is good for ringworm you take uh you put a spot on the at the ringworm you go around like this and pretty soon you feel something grainy underneath n you can clean your cat up for ringworm. And uh every time I’d go well I’d expect to see all these cats covered with lard when they come in. How come these cats aren’t all covered with lard? And so for Christmas I wrapped up a pound of lard and I gave it to him for Christmas. Well it this went on for years. He’d tease me every time I went in. So when he got ready to move down to Sunnymead, why he says um, “You know I owe you an apology.” I said, “Oh, you do? For what?” He said, “Well”, he said, “I had a dog that we tried everything on but we just couldn’t cure that dog.” So he said, “One day I set down with my school books and I started reading up on what I was gonna do with that dog.” And he said, “I was reading all this,” and he said, “When he just got about back to the last paragraph it said, when all else fails, use lard.” So you see sometimes it’s even their little secret remedies but they don’t tell the public. Ya see?
Ann treated ringworm with lard.
