Questions for Dr. S, The Toast’s valiant veterinary correspondent, can be left in the comments. She’ll be back next Tuesday to talk about luxating patellas in dogs, and whether or not you have to brush your damn cat’s teeth.

I think that what we feed our animals can make a tremendous difference in their health and longevity. Most clients I talk to are very concerned about proper nutrition for their pets. Unfortunately, the pet food companies know this too, and spend a lot of money marketing foods to consumers. While reading the labels is important, not everything means what you think it does.

Organic Pet Food

There are currently no legal requirements for the term “Organic” on a bag of pet food. So while organic for people food means very particular things, there’s not a set list of what it means for our pets’ food. And yet, you’re likely paying gobs of money for the impression of quality.

Quantity and Quality

I honestly never read the ingredients list on a bag of food. I don’t feel this part of the label gives me much useable information about the quality of the overall diet. Ingredients for pet food are always listed in order of weight, heaviest ingredients first, lightest ingredients toward the bottom. This means that even if the first ingredient is chicken, chicken may not be the main source of protein and nutrients. Chicken is heavy because it contains a lot of water. It’s possible that the bulk of the nutrients may be coming from another ingredient that is further down the list simply by virtue of the fact that that ingredient has less water content.

AAFCO

I think the most important part of the pet food label is the AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) nutritional adequacy statement. AAFCO establishes the nutritional adequacy standards for each species and stage of growth. The nutritional adequacy statement is a claim that the manufacturer has produced a food that meets these standards for nutritional adequacy.

Also, the life stage the diet is intended for must be specified in this statement as well. We’ll get to that in a second.

Feeding Trials

Look for a statement (pictured above) affirming that the diet in question was determined to be complete and balanced using feeding trials. Feeding trials mean that for a minimum of 6 months, animals were fed nothing but this diet and it was found to provide adequate nutrition. Feeding trials are not a guarantee of optimal nutrition, but they are a step in the right direction. I would regard a statement that the diet is “comparable in nutritional adequacy” to a feeding trial tested product as significantly inferior to a statement that the product itself actually underwent feeding trials.

The manufacturers’ alternative to feeding trials is simply formulating the diet to meet the AAFCO standards. This statement simply means a laboratory has analyzed the diet and found appropriate levels of all essential nutrients. This is not as complete a picture because it does not have to take into account bioavailability of the nutrients. It means the nutrients are physically present, but doesn’t guarantee that your pet can absorb them.

Life Stages

There are only two recognized life stages according to AAFCO. They are growth/reproduction or maintenance. Labels you might recognize from your dog or cat food might be “Large Breed,” “Senior,” “Indoor,” and “Small Breed” but they are not official life stages with particularly different requirements. Really, these so-called distinctions would all fall under the category of maintenance.

A diet can also be said to meet the requirements for all life stages. This basically means it meets the standards for growth (in other words you could very well be feeding your chunky adult pet some puppy or kitten food.)

The Eternal Wet v. Dry Food Debate for Cats

…will not be decided by me today, because, honestly, there is no clear answer based on peer-reviewed research. Because cats are such little monsters about having their teeth brushed (more on that next week), I tend to lean towards a high-quality dry food for the dental benefits. Cats who eat exclusively wet food are likely to need more dental care (in the form of teeth brushing, special treats, and full veterinary dental cleanings.)

Brand and Flavor

I’m not going to tell you precisely what brand and flavor and type of food to feed your pets. For one thing I think knowing the pet and their health status is an important first step in recommending a food, for another it is just not possible for me to be familiar with all of the pet food brands out there. I have brands that I recommend to my clients after doing an exam on their pet but there are certainly other brands that make quality foods. The big thing for me is knowing that what you are putting in the bowl is likely to be well absorbed in your pet’s digestive tract, to meet all of their dietary requirements without providing too many excesses and not just turn into expensive fertilizer.

I recommend the brands I do (chiefly, Royal Canin, Science Diet, and Eukanuba) because I know how much research these companies are doing in the field of pet nutrition. I trust their quality control measures and the science used to formulate each of their diets. If you want specific brand recommendations ask your veterinarian. These recommendations are, of course, for healthy pets. Pets with certain health concerns may have more specific recommendations. The exception to the labeling I mentioned is veterinary prescription diets. Some of these will specifically say on the bag that they are for supplemental or intermittent feeding only. These foods are prescription for a reason and should only be fed on the recommendation of a veterinarian.