Dog Food Nutrition Facts

Ten amino acids. Twelve basic minerals. Eleven vitamins. And two kinds of fatty acids.

Whew! No question about it, there certainly are plenty of canine nutrients to think about.

What’s more, each and every one of them is considered absolutely essential and must be present in the correct amounts… and the right proportions… in every dog food… to help keep your pet free of disease.

So, how can you be sure a particular product meets some kind of minimum dog food nutrition standards?

An Insider’s Secret Revealed

Think about it. Are you really prepared to check every product label to confirm the presence and quantity of each one of these vital nutrients?

Even dog food “obsessives” like me lack the time (not to mention the patience) to perform that kind of detailed analysis.

But there’s an easier way. And dog food insiders know this label reading secret as the Nutritional Adequacy Statement.

Now, once you know what it is, and where to find it, you can use this simple shortcut to instantly screen any dog food for proper vitamin and mineral content.

How to Know Your Dog’s Food Meets Minimum Nutritional Standards

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’s capable of maintaining life without adding any other substance except water.1

Guidelines go on by defining a balanced dog food as one that has “all known required nutrients in proper amount and proportion”.2

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.

The All-Important Nutritional Adequacy Statement

According to the Association of American Feed 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 Profile3. Dog foods meeting this standard usually include words like…

“[Name of product] is formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles”

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:

“Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate that [name of product] provides complete and balanced nutrition”

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

How to Find the Right Product for Your Dog’s Stage of Life

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:

Adult maintenance

• Growth and reproduction

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:

“This product is intended for intermittent or supplemental feeding”

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

Nutritional Adequacy Statements

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.

Don’t buy it.

Because feeding your dog the same deficient product day after day, week after week, can multiply the error and possibly cost your dog their life.

Dog Food Nutrition Facts Per 100g

If you’re looking for information on how many nutrients your dog requires per 100g of food, we can help you, although bear in mind every dog, and every breed, has different requirements, so if you’re in any doubt about what to feed your dog, or how much, read more here and consult your veterinary surgeon before choosing a food.

Per 100g of food, here is what you should be looking to provide your adult dog as a guide (note that puppies, senior dogs and nursing mothers will require different amounts than this):

• Protein should be a minimum of 18% on a Dry Matter Basis (DBM), some foods deliver far more than this. For some dogs a protein level below 30% can better suit their digestion.

• Fats should be at least 5.5% on a DMB, and how much fat your dog needs will depend on their activity level and body condition.
   
• Carbohydrates aren’t an essential nutrient, but are an easily accessible form of energy in the diet and contribute valuable fiber too. Carbohydrates at around 30% to 50% can make a food more gentle on digestion

Also, read our guide to the 7 Most Important Nutrients for Dogs for more tips on what to look for in dog-food ingredients lists.

Knowing how many calories your dog requires per 100g is not easy to work out, and will depend on your dog’s breed, age, weight and how active they are, among other factors. The amount of calories a dog food provides per 100g can vary from around 80 calories to 350 calories, so ensuring you know how much you are feeding your dog is important in terms of under- or over-feeding them. 

You can use our Dog Food Calculator as a starting point to calculate how much you should be feeding your dog, and then tweak that amount depending on how your dog gets on.