What are the nutritional standards for dogs?
Tracey Eichmann
2025-07-29 21:17:55
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Feeding your dog the optimal diet for their age and any medical conditions can make a huge difference to quality of life and even life expectancy. There are different nutritional guidelines for each of a dog’s individual life stages – from puppy right through to senior. Put simply, you shouldn’t be feeding the same food to both puppies and senior dogs. Just like with humans, different ages need different nutrients and food groups. Look out for dog food that has the word ‘Complete’ in the title – these recipes are specifically formulated to have all the nutrients your dog’s diet needs. Double-check packaging to make sure the dog food you’re buying is certified by the Pet Food Manufacturer’s Association (PFMA). For most breeds, puppies and younger dogs will need to be fed a specific diet to help them reach a healthy weight. Food for puppies is enriched with specific nutrients and often optimised for specific breeds. Adult dogs will often have a wider variety of foods available to them, once they’ve grown out of the need for puppy-specific food.
Violet Jaskolski
2025-07-29 20:34:46
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The WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee tool provides owners with recommendations on how to use more important information from the label to select a food for pets. Nutrition on the Internet: most pet owners consider the ingredient list to be the most important factor in choosing a pet food. However, the ingredient list gives no information on the quality of the ingredients and can be very misleading on the overall quality of the food. Are you confused by food labels? With so much information offered, it can be hard to find the data you need. These handy guides highlight the most important nutritional information to check to ensure that you feed your pet an appropriate and high quality diet. Check out our nutrition label guides for North America. Check out our nutrition label guides for Europe.
Amelie Fay
2025-07-29 19:56:06
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The objectives of FEDIAF’s Guidelines for Complete and Complementary Pet Foods for Cats and Dogs are: To confirm the basic nutrient levels required in cat and dog food and the industry adhere to these when manufacturing their wide range of products and recipes under biochemical, bacteriological and organoleptic control. To help pet food manufacturers assess the nutritional value of practical pet foods for healthy animals. The guidelines are peer-reviewed by independent veterinary nutritionists throughout Europe. FEDIAF also works closely with numerous other recognised authorities such as the American Association of Food Control Officers (AAFCO) plus internationally respected nutritionists, vets, biochemists and animal behaviourists, in order to keep up to date on the latest science and feeding requirements of pets. This is a comprehensive review of the NRC data and other existing science produced as a practical guide for manufacturers.
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