Dog Food Nutrients

The dog food industry defines a nutritionally complete product as one that can be fed to a dog as its sole ration. In other words, it is capable of maintaining life without adding any other substance… except water. Guidelines go on by defining a balanced dog food as one that has “all known required nutrients in proper amount and proportion”. Now, think about how unsafe it would be for any dog food to be sold as complete and balanced… when, in fact, that product was deficient in one or more essential nutrients. That’s what makes a Nutritional Adequacy Statement so valuable. No, it’s not perfect. But it’s the industry’s most important means for ensuring your dog food meets certain minimum standards.

According to the Association of American Fed Control Officials, in order for any dog food company to print the words “complete and balanced” on a package… that claim must first have been validated in one of two ways. The first uses a product’s recipe (or the laboratory analysis of a sample) to assume it meets AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profile. Dog food’s meeting this standard usually include words like…

The second method not only meets the AAFCO profile… but also verifies nutritional adequacy by conducting actual feeding trials with real dogs. This type of adequacy statement will probably look something like this…

Now, obviously, products tested using this more rigorous method should be given extra consideration.

Is your dog a growing puppy? An adult? A senior? AAFCO also requires all Nutritional Adequacy Statements to clearly identify for which life stage a product is most suitable. Current standards4 include two specific dog food nutrient profiles…

An adult maintenance food is only suitable for non-reproducing adult dogs with normal activity levels. This same dog food may not be appropriate for growing, reproducing or working animals. On the other hand, any product described as acceptable for “all life stages” must meet the more stringent growth and reproduction profile. Sometimes, a product may be labeled for a particular use… or life stage… such as “for senior dogs”. Even though there are no clear-cut rules governing these various statements, one thing is certain… these special purpose dog foods can have important limitations. Any product that cannot meet either the adult maintenance or growth and reproduction standards must state…

In other words… it’s a product not intended for long-term use.

Nutritional Adequacy Statements can save you lots of time. And they can go a long way toward providing you some level of assurance your dog’s food might actually come close to meeting important dietary standards. Unfortunately, though, the statements themselves are not always easy to find. They can be located virtually anywhere on the package. Yet rest assured… they’re supposed to be there… somewhere. If you can’t find the statement… or if the statement itself does not declare the product complete, balanced and appropriate for your dog’s life stage… take a pass.

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