[NAGDU] Nutritional needs of dogs very long and complex, read at your own risk.

Heather Bird heather.l.bird at gmail.com
Mon Jul 12 15:31:32 UTC 2021


A discussion began briefly the other evening at a NAGDU  event. The discussion was cut short, in order to avoid controversy, and to help keep the mood light, as this event was intended to be a party, a social event. However, I think that respectful discourse and debate, respectful being the keyword here, can be very productive. While it might not be appropriate at a party, more generally speaking, it certainly should not be shied  away from in other contexts, as long as participants can be kind and respectful. To that end, I want to share a few thoughts that occurred to me as a result of this brief discussion. 

A recommendation was made regarding a particular percentage of a dogs diet that should consist of protein. The first thing I want to note is that the percentage of a particular ingredient or a specific nutrient in a food, can be calculated, expressed, or labeled in a variety of ways depending on the type of food. For instance, the percentage by weight can be affected by whether you are talking about a wet food such as a canned food, or a dry food or a whole food in a raw or cooked diet. Moisture content affects The weight, and therefore, The same food item, in various different forms, might appear to have a drastically different protein content by percentage of weight. for instance, the protein content of milk, is going to be much lower than the protein content of aDried powdered milk, which will intern have a much dried powdered milk, which will intern have a much lower protein content than a whey isolate, since the milk also contains large amounts of water, fat, and carbohydrate. and the powdered milk, devoid of the water, still contains carbohydrates and fats, that the way protein isolate, largely, does not. Obviously, this  applies if  one is considering the weight, although, once you isolate for something, in and of it’s self, the percentage of protein in the overall product, is going to go up exponentially once the water weight is removed. if one is looking at pro Tien as a percentage of calories, this is a different matter, and this matter is further complicated by the fact that a gram of fat contains 9 cal, where as  a gram of carbohydrate or protein only contains 4 cal. So for instance, if a serving of food has 100 calories in it, and there are 3 g of fat, for a total of 27 cal, and the remainder of the food is made up of protein, with a calorie count of 73 for the protein, the protein content by caloric content would be about 3/4, of the entire food. 73% roughly, but in terms of grams or weight, it would be 18 g of protein compared to 3 g of fat, which would be about 86%. And if you play around with numbers for fat, carbohydrates, and protein, using different amounts in grams, compared to calories, you can get drastically different percentages depending on whether You are looking at percentage by weight, volume, or caloric content. So, for instance, having only 30% of the food consist of protein, and the rest made up of fat and carbohydrates, does not seem appropriate, however, if this is by volume or weight, and a large portion of the food is water, and 30% of the weight is protein, then, perhaps, the fat and carbohydrate content does not in fact equal the remaining 70% when we look at it in terms of percentage of calorie content  and, then, the food that is only 30% protein by weight, might actually wind up being more like 50% protein by calorie content. Let’s not even get into the fact that carbohydrate grams also include grams of fiber, which must be subtracted if you want to find out the net carbs, that is the carbohydrates that your body can actually digest, which is similar but slightly different for dogs. Or the fact that when we say a calorie, in everyday speech, what we really mean is a kilocalorie, and other such facts that will likely make your brain want to close up shop, pack its bags, and run away from home. If you are reading this and feel like giving up, you’re not alone. It’s extremely confusing, and complicated, but that is also why it’s important, when you see a statement in a magazine article, or a simplified set of guidelines handed to you by your veterinarian, or overhear a comment with a generalized piece of advice, to try and find out more information about what exactly the recommendation is saying.

Another factor is the age and life stage of the dog. A dog that is still growing, especially a younger puppy, is going to need a higher protein content as they are still building muscle and bone daily. An elderly dog may need less protein, especially if they are having kidney problems. A working dog is likely to need more and higher quality fat and protein than a pet dog, but all the factors, age, breed, activity level, body condition, the sex of the dog, whether the dog is ill, injured, pregnant or nursing, etc., will all affect how much fat, protein, fiber, and carbohydrate they should receive.  Whether you choose to feed a commercial dry food diet, or a home prepared cooked diet, or a raw diet, understanding canine nutrition is important. The difference is that if you are using a commercially produced dry or canned food, or even a commercially produced raw diet, your primary task is to become a food label detective. Whereas, if you are preparing a home cooked, or self assembled raw diet, your job is to combine  chef and scientist roles to strike the correct balance for your dog. 

The first rule of thumb, is to, do no harm, get a baseline, see where you are. That is to say, whatever your school was feeding your dog in training, stick with that, at least in the beginning. When you first come home, keep feeding the same food, in the same amounts, in the way your school has prescribed. Then you can observe your dog in detail, note how your dog looks, smells, feels, their  coat quality, how often they urinate and defecate, and what their output is like in terms of frequency, consistency, etc., what is their behavior like, their body condition, their work, their energy level, The status of their teeth, how their breath smells, what allergies, if any are present, and how bad are their symptoms. Then, if you choose to switch to a different dry dog  food, canned food, introduce a nutritional supplement, or switch to a cooked or raw diet, you will quickly observe if your dog experiences any changes for the better, or for the worse. It is also good, as part of the baseline, to get to know your food, what you do, and do not like about it, what it’s made out of, what are the ingredients, who is the manufacturer, who is the parent company for that manufacturer, do you agree with the ethics and policies of the company, what is the quality and the source of the ingredients, where can you purchase the food, that is how available is it, what is the cost, and the cost per pound or per month or a year in order to feed that food, do you need to add a supplement to make the food complete, according to your school, your vet, or your own research, are there other dogs in the house that eat this same type of food already, or a different type of food, how much Does your dog like it or not, where you can get the food shipped from, are there any special programs or discounts for the food, what additives and nutritional supplements are in the food, what is the calorie count, the feeding recommendations based on the weight of your dog, and how does that compare to what the school had them eating, and the exact breakdown of percentages as listed on the label of various macro and micro nutrients. This will help you to make an informed decision if you choose to switch to another brand, or switch to a totally different type of diet., For instants, if the food contains four different protein sources, and you decide to switch to a raw diet, or a commercial food that only has one protein source, you might want to select a ProTein not contained in that food if your dog wasn’t doing well on it, or if they were doing fairly well on the original food, selecting a protein source already contained in that food might be a smart plan. If your dog tended to be underweight, and or, had very high volume stool output, then perhaps selecting a commercial food, or constructing a diet that is more bioavailable, with less fillers, carbohydrates, and fiber, might be helpful. Switching your dogs food can often be an appropriate choice, but knowing where you’re starting from helps you to evaluate whether the switch was beneficial or not.

One thing I cannot overstate enough, is that research is important, taking the word of one book, or one article, is folly. Taking the word of one veterinarian is a little better, but is still not terribly helpful. Veterinarians are trained in canine nutrition, this is true, but many of the textbooks on veterinary care, especially nutrition, are  infact, produced by the large manufacturers of dog food. This is Relatively easy to verify, with only moderate research required. you are welcome to look it up. Certainly not all textbooks, are produced by or sponsored by dog food manufacturers or their parent companies, and, of those textbooks produced by the food companies they certainly do have some useful and accurate information. However, any discerning consumer, is going to take into consideration the fact that large companies who have a stake in the sale of their products are producing materials to educate future veterinarians which would be almost certain to contain some degree of bias towards their product, or products similar to the ones their company produces. On the other hand, changing up your dogs food on a whim, or because you watched one YouTube video,  read one email thread, or had a discussion with one person at your guide dog school, or at a convention, would not be a good basis from which to embark on a dietary change for your guide dog. If you are someone who really enjoys research, a sort of a Hermione Granger type, who loves reading about things, exploring all the different sides of an issue, making charts and lists, and understanding every single aspect of a process in order to make your own customized plan, then you are likely to find an amazing commercially produced wet or dry food, create a safe and healthy raw or home-cooked diet that will work well for your dog. Or, if you have a close and trusted friend or acquaintance who is that sort of person who can mentor you or share the distilled and streamlined version of their research, you are also in pretty good shape to make a diet change for your dog. However, if that just is not your thing, or you’d like it to be your thing, but you just don’t have the band with right now, then leaving things the way they are is not a bad choice. It is not a reflection of one’s intelligence or how much one cares for their dog, but simply the fact that we all have complicated lives, spouses, children, friends, volunteer opportunities, political interests, careers, and a whole host of other things that take up our time, energy, and brain space. If the research needed to make a change in your dogs diet isn’t in the cards at this moment, it might be in future, and until then, you can rest assured that even if your dogs current food isn’t perfect for them, it’s not killing them, and it’s probably neutral if not amazing, and your dog certainly was surviving on it at your school and will continue to do so until you have the time and resources to try for an upgrade. If your dog is currently experiencing severe allergies, stomach upset, or some other issue, making the space and time in your schedule and resources to do more in-depth research, or reaching out to your school, your schools veterinarian, and or your own veterinarian to explore options might be a more timely need.

Unfortunately, it is not as simple as looking up a Google search of “how much protein should a dog eat “or “which is better raw diet or kibble ? or“Which protein is best for dogs ?“ there are several, often conflicting, or confusing, theories, and schools of thought that will go into the answers you are likely to find on websites ranging from reputable to completely off-the-wall. Also, these issues can stir some pretty strong passions, just think about how heated debates are among human beings about whether a vegan diet, a vegetarian diet, a ketogenic diet, or a Palio diet, is best. Often these discussions don’t just center  around issues of health, but run into politics, morals, ethics, values, and cultural beliefs and norms, which complicates things considerably. You  will also run into some pretty strong extremes. For instance, people who insist that all raw feeding is unsafe, and only a diet developed by a company and filled with specific amounts of vitamins can possibly be healthy for your dog and that you are  irresponsible, and even abusive, or neglectful if you feed your dog a raw diet. Others will  assert, that feeding your dog any sort of processed and commercially produced food is giving into big business, big Agra, big pharma, the man, the establishment, and that you are letting down mother earth, your dog, yourself, and probably the universe, if you don’t feed something that you have grown yourself, or raised and slaughtered yourself. Extreme views on either end of the spectrum are not likely to be either correct, or helpful. However, understanding the most extreme sides of an issue, can help you To  figure out where along that continuem  you would like to dwell. If you find a claim behind a line of reasoning, then you can determine if that claim makes sense, or is suspicious or incomplete, which  will help you assess information that’s springs  from it. For instance, many people assert that are dogs do not need to eat what wolves eat because dogs are a different species, and have evolved to have a different digestive system. If you talk to veterinarians and scientists, and have the time to have a fairly detailed discussion, you will find that this is really not true. If you speak at length with a scientist or a veterinarian on the matter, you will discover that while the personality of dogs and wolves is quite different, their genetics, and their health and nutrition needs, are very similar, not identical, but quite similar. Dogs have a much shorter digestive track than people, who intern, have a very different digestive track from herbivorous animals such as cows or deer. The way that dogs extract nutrition from what they eat, whether it’s a raw diet, or a commercially produced diet, is very different from how human beings extract nutrients from their food. Animals and people, we are animals after all, simply cannot evolve that quickly. For instance, human beings who drink milk, and who can do so without discomfort, have what is called lactase persistence. Lactose is a sugar in milk, and lactase, is the specific enzyme needed to break down lactose for digestion. If you don’t have lactase, then lactose will give you trouble.individuals of Northern European dissent, rarely have difficulty with milk products, and those from Far distant areas, for instance, most parts of Africa, have in general, a very hard time digesting lactose. This is because, Northern European peoples, began to cultivate livestock and drink their milk, that from cows, goats, sheep, etc., far, far earlier than did other peoples in the history of human civilization.All, or virtually all human beings are born with the ability to produce lactase, as infants, this is how we digest breastmilk, however, this ability, essentially turns off, somewhere between about two and seven years of age, but in those with lactase persistence, the gene does not turn off, that is, it persists, and you are able to continue to produce this particular enzyme.Now, we are talking about thousands and thousands of years ago, and, as evidenced by the fact, that peoples from other areas, have not, and thousands of years, evolved to tolerate milk products, despite the fact that milk products have been much more widely used, across cultures, across the world, is a great example, of how evolution is an extremely slow process.Ppart of the equation Hass to do with the length of a lifecycle, a reproductive cycle, a generation. For instance, the generational length for something like a bacteria or a virus might be a matter of days, or hours, or even minutes, for human beings by comparison, it would be around 15 to 25 years. This is, relatively speaking, an astronomically longer generation.A dog’s generation, depending A dogs generation, depending on how we breed them, or how they are coping out in the wild, might be something more along the lines of 1 to 3 years, which is much less than humans, but it’s still, unbelievably huge compared to that of a single celled organism.Natural selection does work,and evolution is a thing, but it just does not happen that quickly. If it did happen that quickly, human beings wouldn’t be in such big trouble, trying to cope with a food supply, that is changed drastically in the last hundred years, and even more drastically in the last 40 years. Which brings up another point, that of natural selection. 

Natural selection, which is necessary for evolution, is predicated upon animals dying off, young, too early to reproduce and pass on their genes that are less advantageous, or having offspring that die off young, or only being able to produce a small amount of offspring, compared to healthier individuals. With the advancements that we have made in technology, medicine, and science, we intervene when we, or our dogs become ill. If our food supply isn’t terribly healthy for us, or our dogs, we have vaccinations, interventions, medicines, scans, protocols, supplements, and all sorts of other means we employ, since we care about ourselves, our fellow human beings, and our cats and dogs, so if a food doesn’t exactly make them the healthiest, we intervene to help them out, because we love them and we don’t want them to die. Also, backyard breeders, or simply ignorant individuals, often allow, or even encourage, dogs to reproduce who are not great specimens, not very sound and temperament, not very genetically healthy, which also on does natural selection. perhaps, we could force some selection and help dogs to evolve, to require a diet or at least tolerate a diet very different from a wolf. Let’s create a fictitious scientist, will call him Dr. von science pants. And Dr. Van science pants is a jerk, he does not care about animal rights, or ethics, also, he has a special device to speed up time for his subjects. So he acquires, let’s say 10,000 dogs, of various breeds. And he feeds all of these dogs Exact same food and nothingexact same food and nothing else, that is like a lower grade commercial dog food. that is to say, one that has lots of fillers, lots of grains Like  wheat, corn, perhaps a very low quality protein source, and a low concentration and percentage of protein, perhaps the protein is even from dangerous or undesirable parts of an animal, or is derived from soy beans, which dogs are definitely not designed to eat. Now Dr. von science pants feeds these dogs only this food, many of them become ill, even very young, the nutritional deficiencies cause the dogs to be much more susceptible to diseases. He doesn’t harm them other than feeding this terrible food Exclusively, but he doesn’t help them either. When they get sick, he lets them die. if they become diabetic, obese, or underweight, have low muscle tone, or poor immune system‘s, chronic diarrhea, or other issues, he lets them run their course. He also lets these dogs breed as they so choose, unhealthy puppies are allowed to die, less healthy individuals don’t grow old enough to reproduce, or bitches lose litters because they’re too unhealthy to carry them to term, males don’t succeed in competing for mates if they are not that healthy, and so, the very few individuals who can tolerate this diet well, eventually, produce a line of dogs which truly can eat this diet and be healthy, or relatively so.  Let’s ignore the fact that this is extremely unethical, and also, is not possible. Because the scientist can speed up time as we mentioned, so instead of taking 9 to 12 months for a dog to mature enough to reproduce, plus the gestation period, it could take a matter of minutes, perhaps he can reduce each day of a dogs life to the relative length of a minute, so every 365 minutes or so, a dog ages one year, and every say 10 of these years, which would be about 3650 minutes, is about 60.8 hours, so 60 hours, which is, roughly 2 1/2 days. So every 2 1/2 days, a dog is born, grows up, if it is one of the healthy ones, reproduces several times, and dies, those are the very healthy ones, since were talking about 10 years of age. Over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of generations, which would still take hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of minutes hundreds of hours, hundreds of days, let me actually do the math. 365 minutes for a year, let’s use a round number like 10, and say that the very healthy dogs live 10 years, well, we actually need the generational length, so that would be, let’s say two years, so that is 365×2 which equals 730 minutes. this equals a little over 12 hours per generation. So in a day you could get two generations. It would take hundreds and hundreds, let’s say 1000 generations, to accomplish this, if we can manage two generations a day and we need 1000 generations, we’re looking at 500 days, which is over a year and a half, and realistically, it would take probably thousands of generations not hundreds. also this would be a rigorously scientifically controlled experiment with only one food option available, and no medical interventions. Over time, dogs have not historically eaten a commercially produced diet, of a poor, or high-quality, they have mostly eaten prey they’ve caught themselves, and human food scraps. But, for the purposes of this experiment we are controlling the dogs, taking out any medical care, true natural selection, and limiting their food choice to only one, to produce a lot of dogs that can tolerate this food source well. The dogs who do survive and reproduce, will truly evolve a different digestive system, one that no veterinarian today would recognize as a dog, it would not resemble either a dog or a wolf.  There would need to be a lot longer digestive tract with more intestines with a different micro biome to cope with the carbohydrates and fiber, the enzymes produced in the stomach would have to be different in order to break down different types of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates, the cells of the stomach and intestinal lining would have to be of a different sort to not be bothered by gluten, saponins and other substances in the grains and beans within the food, The bones of the mouth and jaw, the teeth, the tongue, might also be affected, which might affect the size and shape of the skull. The coat quality might be quite different, and if this truly terrible horrible no good very bad scientist who is, as we can probably all agree, a jerk, for killing millions of dogs in his experiment, would likely cut these dogs open, and discover that the fat, muscle, and organ tissue, are noticeably different from the dogs and wolves we have today. so, let said this grizzly experiment aside, because it’s truly horrifying to think about, although it is academically helpful to understand why the argument that our dogs have evolved not to need to eat foods similar to what wolves eat is simply not a sound one. 

Let’s do the more accurate math quickly, for a little added perspective. Now that we can agree that human beings have evolved very little compared to our ancestors from thousands, and thousands of years ago and the changes in what human beings eat has been, in the broad scheme of things, very recent, and the changes in what dogs eat is also very recent. When dogs were first domesticated, they eat raw food and sometimes cook human scraps once human beings learn to cook food. Specially produced food items, designed specifically for dogs, that were not either pray the dogs caught them selves, or scraps of food intended for humans but humans decided to give to their dogs, is, again relatively speaking, a very new phenomenon in the grand scheme of things. For Instance, there are many books on the history of dogs and dog care, and dog feeding, and when commercial dog foods were first produced, they were a hard sell, most families fed their dogs the same things they fed  to their pigs, or the scraps from their table that they had to spare and that their  dogs preferred and would eat, and many dogs were allowed to run loose and, certainly hunted some small game such as mice, rabbits, and unfortunately, perhaps cats or birds. And The Seeing Eye, the oldest guide dog school in the United States, began in 1929, and, the food they fed for many years, was a horse meat with a few other things mixed in, this is history, this is fact, you are welcome to look this up. I love horses, and this is a bit sickening, not because it’s raw meat, but because, so sad, horses. And this wasn’t an anomaly either. Many families fed horse meat or similar to their dogs, and the earliest commercially sold dog foods were packages of raw meat, considered not to be fit for human consumption, and it wasn’t a far step from that to start cooking the meat, and fixing it with fillers for the benefit of the commercial producer, or with vitamins, for the benefit of the dogs.  I don’t have the exact timeframe, but I would say that commercial dog foods began in the 1920s, but were not being widely used until around the 1940s. So that is 80 years ago. So how many generations of dog would have been available to start evolving to accommodate this diet? Well let’s be very generous, and say that every dog became sexually mature around nine months, which is a little early, and had a litter by a year old, and those puppies went on to have a litter at around a year old, so, in theory we could get 80 generations to work with,And let’s ignore the fact that we did intervene to provide medical care in a lot of cases, even if I die it d and let’s ignore the fact that we did intervene to provide medical care in a lot of cases, even if a diet didn’t agree with the dog or produced medical conditions, we did our very best to treat those in a lot of cases. So 80 generations to change a system used to a combination of prey, raw meat, and some cooked scraps mostly from meat, fruit, vegetables and dairy, not from grains    80 generations is a drop in the bucket, in terms of the number of generations needed to produce true natural selection to the extent to allow a species to make a drastic changeI in the diet needed to keep them not only alive, but thriving. That is simply not scientifically sound.

 If  human beings Could  evolve quickly enough to deal with a change in food supply, we would not have nearly the rates of obesity, diabetes, and other health conditions that we do. If dogs could evolve quickly enough to cope with the change in food supply, arguably their food supply has changed, relatively speaking, more recently more rapidly and more drastically  than the human food supply, we would likely not see many of the medical conditions that we do see in dogs today., This is not to say that we must do everything exactly as our ancestors did. That’s one of the extremes mentioned above, For instance a wolf in the wild can often eat a kill that is a week or more old, that has maggots, rot, and other extremely nasty degradation occurring in the meat. And most of them survive, and even thrive, because their stomach acid is stronger, then that of a human, and their digestive track far shorter. however, that does not mean that anyone should consider feeding a raw  diet to their dog that contains meat that is rotting, and in poor condition. There are parameters to our bodies, and for dogs bodies as well, limitations to What things that they can put up with, human beings and dogs are miraculous, our bodies can take quite a bit of abuse, that doesn’t mean we should subject them to that abuse. A human being would survive on a diet of Twinkies alone for quite a long time, but they would certainly not be thriving, they could also go back to eating like the earliest humans eating only raw meat, raw fruit, raw  vegetables, with no grains, and no dairy, and days on end with no food, simulated what it was like when hunting and gathering didn’t produce food for several   days. Water that was often contaminated with some pretty nasty bacteria and viruses, and keeping in mind that the Paleo diet we often espouse today, is what the people in charge, the healthiest, strongest people would’ve eaten, those who were out of favor, would likely eat less, and lower quality food, or even be allowed to starve to death. So the majority of Paleolithic humans, did not eat the idealized version of a Paleo diet, that can be a very healthy option today. Those human beings would survive, for quite a while, but they again, would not be thriving. Our  dogs could certainly survive, for quite a while, on scavenged meat, in very poor condition and quite disgusting, but that doesn’t mean they would be thriving, likewise, they could be fed and extremely low quality commercial food, with very few bioavailable nutrients, a lot of fillers, a problematic protein source, and be fed far too much or far too little of that food. Of course, they would not be thriving at all. In short, the assertion that our dogs have evolved not to Need  the sort of things that a wolf needs is simply not true, however this does not mean that are dogs must eat exactly like wolves in order to be healthy. In fact, they should not eat exactly like wolves as this  is also not a perfect diet.

So, what is the answer? there is no one answer, there are a lot of good answers, but there are also a lot of bad answers out there. For instance, you can find a healthy diet that will work well for your dog, in a bag, in a can, sometimes even in a roll, in the raw section of your supermarket, or in a collection of ingredients you assemble yourself. However, you’re not going to find this in a poorly researched collection of raw meat you simply throw at your dog, or in a substandard, bargain brand of dry dog food which is essentially dog cereal. Feeding your dog cooked human processed food for instance an order of food from McDonald’s, it’s not a good choice, feeding your dog a commercially produced food that was developed to be vegan, where the protein source is made of soy beans, is not going to be a healthy choice for your dog. So there are a lot of options out there to choose from, of which many are great, and most are adequate, but there are a few that are just not going to be acceptable. General guidelines can be helpful, however, as someone who is a questioner  by nature, see Gretchen Rubens book on questionners, rebels, obliger‘s, and upholders, I can’t hear a general guideline and not want to expound upon the variations. That is, going out and looking for a food that is 30% protien, in and of it’s self, is not necessarily going to be healthy at all, based on that fact alone, and depending on how the percentage is calculated, and the needs of your dog. this isn’t going to be a  healthy choice for your dog, or at least not an inherently healthy choice, because the guideline is simply, well too simple   

When  starting a discussion on what is best to feed your dog, a good place to start is with which things are generally agreed-upon by most vets and most  guide dog schools, for instance, all dogs need some fat, some protein, and some fiber. There is some debate about whether they really and truly need carbohydrates, or significant amounts of carbohydrates. Another fact that pretty much everyone can agree upon is the dogs need meat, they are not vegetarian and certainly not vegans. Whether the meat should be raw or cooked is up for debate. Further, whether dogs are obligate carnivores or just primarily carnivores is up for debate. It’s becoming more and more excepted that grains are not necessary for dogs and are generally not very good for them. Especially grains like corn and wheat. If grains are going to be fed, or used as fillers, rice, barley, and oatmeal are considered to be either beneficial or at least less harmful. I guess the Takeaway that I am aiming for here is that if you’re genuinely thinking about making a major change for your dog, such as changing their diet, please don’t base it on one comment made on a zoom session, or for that matter, one random post by someone like me. If you see a particular piece of advice in your Twitter feed, in a Facebook group, on an email list, or overhear one chatting in a chapter meeting or after a lecture at your Guide Dogs school, don’t use it as anything more than food for thought until you have the brain space to engage in the research General recommendations for small things, like, “I love mushers secret to protect my dogs feet from salt, maybe you should try it “or “lupine has some really pretty collars  that come in a lot of cool patterns and colors, you might want to check those out “can be very helpful, and usually aren’t going to be harmful. But when it comes to something more serious like changing up some of your Guide Dogs equipment,  heir diet, trying a new training technique, or something that is moderately or majorly impactful, it is important to take everything with a grain of salt, including everything I write, everything that anyone writes for that matter. 

I hope that at least some of this information was helpful to some of the list members. I just didn’t want to leave something dangling out there, barely expressed, and not even have finished. A raging, unruly, and disrespectful debate is not desirable, but leaving a few random pieces of advice dangling out there is also not desirable. I can speak from my own personal experience, and sometimes, not always, and this can be a dangerous path to go down, but sometimes, the most important data point, is the data point of one, when you, are  that one. That is to say, my dog eats a raw diet, that is definitely way more than 30% protein, and she is thriving. Although, if I counted all the weight in her raw eggs, chicken quarters, chicken livers, and turkey necks, perhaps the protein would be much lower than I am thinking, but typically, if thinking of percentage in terms of how the protein compares to fat, carbohydrates and fiber, her diet is most definitely well over 30% protein, it is almost exclusively protein and fat, with some fiber and limited carbohydrates coming from the addition on occasion of root vegetables, unflavored, unsweetened organic Greek yogurt, and occasionally a small piece of fruit. Is it possible to feed your dog too much protein, yes, certainly it is, the most important thing is to feed your dog the correct amount of protein in order for them to constantly repair and rebuild muscle and bones as the cellular turnover in those structures breaks them down and new cells are needed to divide and replace the older cells that make up that tissue. When someone, a human being, starts to calculate a ketogenic diet for instance, they  calculate the minimum amount of protein necessary in order to keep maintaining and replacing your lean body mass, that is, your body mass minus your fat mass, so that includes your bones, muscles, skin, and organs. for instance, if you weigh 200 pounds, and your body fat percentage is 25%, that means for every hundred pounds of weight you have, 25 pounds of that is made up of fat. So 50 pounds of your 200 pound body is fat mass.  Therefore, 150 pounds of your body is lean body mass. The calculation, specifies that you  should eat 1 g of protein for every pound of body weight that is lean body mass, if you are an athlete, or pregnant, if you are moderately active then only 0.7 g per pound of body weight and 0.5 g if you are inactive or only minimally active. Again this is for total lean mass not total body mass  let’s say that you are very inactive, and we have already determined that you have 150 pounds of lean body mass, if you’re eating half a gram of protein for every pound of weight, then you will want to eat 75 g of protein per day. If your energy level increases, your activity, you become an athlete, or start exercising more, then your protein requirements would go up. On a ketogenic diet, any extra protein is avoided, because protein can be converted into carbohydrate, through a strange and convoluted process called gluconeogenesis. then, continuing on a ketogenic diet, you would figure out how much fat do you want to be eating, and how much carbohydrates, in comparison to the protein. So, for instants, one template for a ketogenic diet says that only 10% of your calories should come from carbohydrates, and 40% from protein, and since proteins and carbohydrates have the same number of calories per gram, that would mean that you want to have four times as much protein as carbohydrates. So in this case, that would mean, 75 g of protein, and around 20 g of carbohydrates, for a total of about 95 g of combine protein and carbohydrates. Which would mean roughly 400 cal worth of combined carbohydrates and protein. you would then need to work backwards and figure out how many grams, and how many calories of fat you would want to eat. And you would have to bear in mind that fat has 9 cal per gram whereas carbohydrate and protein have 4 cal per gram, and work with percentages, and I will stop the calculations here, since this is only meant to be an example. Essentially, you figure out how much protein is required, which is a very well understood process in humans and fairly well understood in dogs, then you work backwards and add in the other macro nutrients. There are minimum amounts required for the other macro nutrients, certainly, but these are more debated and less well understood. There certainly is a requirement for fiber, at least sometimes, and in some amounts, but there is a lot of debate as to how much fiber is needed for healthy function of intestines, and maintaining a healthy micro biome. Is there really a requirement for fat? Absolutely, the myelin sheath around the cells in our brains is made of fat, and the lipid membrane of every single cell in your body, is made out of fat. So, carbohydrates, we need those, right? Well, yes, and no. When you’re actively in nutritional ketosis, which is not the same thing as keto acidosis, which is dangerous, your requirement for carbohydrates is either nonexistent or very low. However, I still cannot find a clear answer on whether dogs are meant to be in a state of nutritional ketosis all of the time, some of the time, certainly they must enter into it in the wild when food is scarce. if this is making your head hurt, you’re not alone. It makes my head hurt, and I’m sure, that it made the heads of your doctor, your nurse, your dogs veterinarian, hurt while they were studying nutrition and trying to sort out all of the conflicting opinions and inconclusive research. so their are similar equations for dogs, they are not identical to those for people. this has nothing to do with percentage, and it’s really not up for debate, protein is not about percentage it’s about how many grams, how much total, you need, the same goes for your dog. No, what else to eat, how much fat, carbohydrates, and fiber, will depend on whether or not you feed a food with fillers, a grain free food, or a diet, low-fat diet, etc. When a human being calculates how much carbohydrates, fiber, and fat they should eat, they start with how much protein is absolutely required, then they fill in based on whether they are following for instants a low fat diet, or a ketogenic diet which is actually high fat. once you plug in the grams of fat, and carbohydrates you are aiming for, that will determine what percentage of that non-negotiable protein number, will comprise. I would suggest looking up the number of grams of protein your dog currently eats, and if they’re doing well, stick with that. If they’re not doing that well, you can look up the equations to figure out how much protein your dog needs, including estimating their body fat percentage, based on their body condition scale score. How much protein in grams, not a percentage, but the total amount of protein in a day that your dog needs, will depend on how much muscle and bone their body contains. How much fat and carbohydrate and fiber comes along with that protein will depend on what type of food you’re feeding, your food philosophy, and whether your dog is currently at a healthy weight, underweight, or overweight, that is, is weight loss or weight gain desired at this time. In theory, extra protein can simply be flushed from the body if not needed, however, a truly excessive amount could stress the kidneys. Protein can also, eventually be stored as fat, but that would first have to involve gluconeogenesis, where proteins broken down into amino acids, and then those amino acids are broken down, and the body manages to convert them into carbohydrates, after a Fashion, which can then be stored as fat, and the energy needed to carry out this process means that eating too much protein is a far harder way to pack on too much fat then eating too many carbohydrates which can be converted extremely quickly to fat. Ironically, as an added fun fact, storing fat as fat is actually not that easy, storing carbohydrates as fat is much easier than storing either protein or fat consumed in the diet as fat in the cells of the body. The process is similar in dogs, but , Sounds dogs and humans are not identical.   I hope some of this is helpful, I understand that this is very long, but in the interest of explaining things as fully as I am able, requires quite a lot of words, and quite a lot of Length. 

Sent from my iPhone


More information about the NAGDU mailing list