I don’t like posting dog food controversies on this blog, simply because dog food leads to lots of fights.
A few years ago, it was revealed that dogs had more copies of gene that leads to the production of amylase than wolves do. Amylase is used to convert starches into simple sugars, and dogs with these extra copies would be better able to get nutrition from grains. These extra copies made it easier for dogs to live in human societies that were shifting from hunter-gatherer to the modern agrarian exist.
That study means that dogs can do well on a diet that is rich in grains. Many members the raw feeding movement, swear that dogs must be fed only meat and organs. Some dogs do have a real difficulty digesting grain-based dog food, and they certainly would do better on this diet. However, in the raw feeding community, there is a generally held belief that virtually all degenerative disease in dogs can be traced to having corn or some other grain in the diet.
That controversy is still raging, though not in scientific circles. The real controversy with grains and dog food right now comes from the discovery of a linkage between feeding grain free dog food and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Grain free dog foods have been all the rage in recent years. They provide the convenient kibbles, but unlike grain-based kibble, some sort of legume is used to create the mixture.
Last year, there was deep suspicion that dogs fed a grain free diet were having issues with DCM, and a few days ago, the FDA released a study that shows a very strong linkage between these diets and contracting DCM.
The current hypothesis is that the legumes interfere in some way with he excretion and production of taurine, which creates a taurine deficiency that leads to the DCM.
More research needs to be done, of course. Taurine is not considered an essential amino acid for dogs, but it very well might be.
Maybe, though, the best thing to feed a dog is a scientifically formulated dog food from a long-established company, one that has performed decades worth of research on its products.
Until we know for sure, maybe it’s safer to feed dogs one of those brands.
I certainly think so.
There is more info that says 90% of dogs who contracted DCM were not Taurine deficient. Strangely, my Shiba had high levels for acute subclinical pancreatitis.
I went to a board certified vet/ nutritionist who gave me an incredibly specific homemade and commercial diets that she (and I) knew the feeding trials of companies who were becoming well known for their staff board certifies vet / Nutritionists. Far stricter than AAFCO trials. They are Annamaet and Honest Kitchen. I trust them implicitly and I have spoken to the founders of each. Still, the theories put forth by the FDA and other studies cannot conclude anything concrete. I thought that the following articles were interesting: https://www.smartbrief.com/s/2019/06/fda-studies-dilated-cardiomyopathy-dogs-hypotheses-evolve-0
Pretty much I trust only Purina. I feed only Purina products, and I don’t have any fat dogs. They have good muscling and coats. I don’t know why everyone thinks that we need something else, when those products have been in use for decades and no one has found any link between those products and health issues in typically healthy dogs. I know there are people who make claims about all sorts of degenerative diseases coming from traditional dog foods, but no one has a single study to show that these diets are bad for most dogs.
The random element of DCM can strike anywhere regardless of diet. The main thing is that you’re happy with what you feed, and that’s good to hear.
I read a lot and nothing is conclusive. I am hardly an authority but I think that it’s a good wake up call for the canine community. I have friends who have fed raw, grain free, potatoes lesgumes for many years, decades in some cases, and suddenly, they are also worried and have switched to Purina brands, the ones not made of synthetics. Science Diet is my personal horror. Tachi left the exact pieces I had cut, outside his dish. :-)
My Mother always said fat dogs are a crime. Never had fat dogs here.
So my present dog is a Shepherd cross and my previous dog was a Doberman Pinscher which happens to be the prototype DCM dog. From what I’ve read, at least in Doberman’s, DCM is associated with a genetic defect in PDK4 (pyruvate kinase dehydrogenase) which results in cells being unable to switch from glycolysis to oxidative phosphorylation. In plain English, that means if there is no glucose around these cells start to die. If those cells are heart muscle cells very bad things happen. So, it would make sense that these dogs would need a dietary source of carbohydrates, or suffer bad consequences.
Where things get interesting is with all the new dog food formulations that have new sources of carbohydrate, at least to dogs, instead of grains. We know that many plants produce antinutrients, so I wonder if some of the new dog food formulations have phytotoxins that are harmless to humans but wreak havoc with dogs. We know of many things humans can eat such as chocolate, macadamia nuts, and xylitol can be dangerous or fatal to dogs.
As for raw food diets, I have seen lots of dogs do great on these diets. Mind you, many of them are sled dogs and so may represent a more primitive wolf-like dog which thrives on such food. One reason people are using these diets is that diabetes has become somewhat of an epidemic in dogs and cats, so a lower carb diet is not an irrational choice.
In the meantime, I have seen DCM showing up in dogs other than Doberman’s and Boxers, so this appears to be a definite problem that bears watching. The fact that the first sign of DCM can be sudden death is a horrible thing.
The study that found the extra copies of the amylase gene found the fewest in Siberian huskies, so these dogs would do the best on a raw diet. Really, there is nothing wrong with a balanced raw diet that includes organ meat. The main issue I have with raw diets is some of the woo claims about how they cure all these degenerative diseases and prevent cancer.
DCM is a scary disease. Borzoi have a very similar issue with dobermans, and I’ve heard stories of them just dropping dead at age 2. I am really glad the doberman community is working hard to fix the disease in that breed. It’s really sad that one of the great working breeds is so afflicted by the disorder.
Raw diets produced at home are largely incomplete and unbalanced (regardless of what the recipe book says) and both homemade and commercial raw diets hold a very serious risk of pathogenic infection to the dog, and more importantly, to all the humans in contact with the dog: https://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/pdf/10.2460/javma.243.11.1549
Distressingly high % of supermarket raw meat intended for human consumption carries salmonella, e. coli, listeria, etc. etc. as that report delves into.
Commercial raw – https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/recalls-withdrawals 15 recalls on raw diets in 2018 for contamination; of course there are cooked products recalled too (though not as often for contamination), but the raw is seriously disproportionate to its market share. Just cook the meat unless your toddler and your immunocompromised neighbors want e. coli sniffs and campylobacter tennis balls. The only significant difference between cooked and uncooked meat is bacterial load. This is, unfortunately, becoming a public health issue, not a simple “what happens in my kennel stays in my kennel” husbandry decision.