I routinely ask dog owners what kind of food they feed their pets. Mostly I ask for medical and health reasons, but part of me just wants to hear for the pure entertainment value.
I think I’ve heard about every possible “diet” out there. Cooked chicken, pasta with tomato sauce, vegetarian, bacon and eggs, hamburger meat, top sirloin, and cooked salmon with rice are just a few of the innovative canine nutritional approaches I’ve come across. Sometimes I wonder if some dog owners are providing for the nutritional needs of their pets or running a Bed and Breakfast. And these are just the home-cooked foods; the menu of fast-food options is even more astonishing to me.
There’s no question animal nutrition can be a difficult issue for pet owners. It’s hard enough for people to follow good human dietary advice, let alone address those same thorny issues with their dogs. The pet food industry is a multinational, big-dollar business with a very large marketing budget. Consequently, we hear a lot of claims from these pet food makers about what’s right for our pets. I feel that some of this information is accurate, some is not, but one thing for sure: all of it is aimed at getting you to buy their product. So how do you know what to believe? Actually, appropriate nutrition for your pet is simpler than you might think.
With the exception of pets with true food allergies – a relatively uncommon problem in dogs – most healthy dogs and cats will thrive on most major brands of commercial diets. In recent years a lot has been made of “life stage” diets. These are special diets designed specifically for the adolescent, adult, or older pet. There is some merit in this approach, as the growing puppy has clearly different nutritional needs than the 10-year-old dog. As to breed-specific diets, I’m not aware of any evidence that this approach is valid.
How then do you choose a food for your dog? It’s not like you don’t have enough choices. The label on the can or bag will offer some valuable information, but not as much as you might think. Most pet owners focus on the two most visible sections of the pet food label – the ingredients list and the guaranteed analysis. Interestingly, these two features of a pet food label tell a pet owner relatively little about the nutritional adequacy of the diet.
Unless your pet has a true sensitivity to a specific dietary ingredient (remember, this is fairly uncommon) the ingredient list is not that helpful. We are conditioned (or told outright) by friends, family, and, of course, the pet food industry that certain ingredients are “good” and others are “bad” for our pets, but these statements rarely, if ever, come with any scientific justification.
For example, meat or poultry “by-products” are ingredients we’re often told to avoid. I’ve never understood why there is such a concern about by-products. By-products are various animal tissues not usually considered for human consumption – such as organ meats, udder, intestinal tissue, and connective tissue. These ingredients may not sound so appetizing to us, but in fact can be appropriate and quite nutritious ingredients in pet foods. I know of no objective evidence that “by-products” in pet foods are a concern, or diminish the quality of the food.
The “guaranteed analysis” is virtually worthless to the consumer because it lists protein, fat, moisture (water), and other ingredients-not in actual percentages-but in maximum or minimum percentages. For example, if a label says in the guaranteed analysis that the diet contains a minimum of 10% fat, we can’t tell if the diet contains 10%, 15%, or even 35% fat. This is very important if we’re looking to keep our pet at an ideal body weight. For this reason I discourage dog owners from trying to make any sense out of the guaranteed analysis. Ironically, the guaranteed analysis doesn’t “guarantee” anything about the food.
The pet food label often does, however, include information that can help you select an appropriate diet for your pet: a statement of intended purpose of the diet (i.e., growth, maintenance, lactation, senior health, etc.) and how the diet’s adequacy for that purpose was determined. So the easy part is matching the diet’s purpose to your dog’s life stage (i.e., “growth” for a puppy). Watch out for the diet that says it is adequate for “All Life Stages” which means it supposedly is appropriate for adolescent as well as older animals. This, on its face, is counterintuitive. For example, we wouldn’t want to feed a diet that is good for a puppy to an older dog because it likely contains a lot of protein, minerals, and fat as appropriate for a growing animal.
Additionally, look on the label to see if the diet has undergone AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) feeding trials to determine its nutritional adequacy. It’s important that feeding trials were used to test the diet, not just that the diet “meets AAFCO standards.” AAFCO feeding trials are the gold standard for determining nutritional adequacy of pet foods.
While no one brand of food is best for all dogs, I tend to recommend the larger, well-recognized brands. If you can find a major brand diet that your pet will eat, is matched to his or her life stage, doesn’t caused gastrointestinal issues, and is substantiated by AAFCO feeding trials, it’s unlikely your pet will have nutritional problems.
Consider the above suggestions general guidelines to good canine nutirion. If you still have questions or concerns about choosing a food for your dog, call your veterinarian. He or she knows your pet’s particular nutritional needs best and is your most valuable resource.
Dr. John Huebner is a 1985 graduate of the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis. Dr. He is a long-time Benicia resident and practices companion animal medicine at Redwood Veterinary Hospital in Vallejo. Feel free to send comments or pet health questions to Dr. Huebner at info@redwoodvet.com.
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