Fellow dog owners - what food do you feed?

[satomi325]

Top 12 ingredients in ---

Science Diet Adult Light:
Ingredients: Ground whole grain corn, soybean mill run, chicken by-product meal, powdered cellulose, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, chicken liver flavor, soybean oil, latic acid, flaxseed, carmel color, iodized salt.

Wow..."meat" isn't even the first ingredient here. By-product is #3!! So according to the ingredients list, the bulk of this diet consists of corn.

Vegan Dog Food - Evolution Diet:
Ingredients: Whole Oats, Corn Gluten Meal, Soybean Meal, Soybean Oil, Carrots, Dried Tomato Pomace, Dried Potato Product, Dried Molasses, Deflourinated Phosphate, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate, Salt

Comparison to quality rodent diets??
Mazuri Rodent 6f:
Ingredients: Ground Corn, Soybean Meal, Animal Fat, Cane Molasses, Wheat Middlings, Calcium Carbonate, Ground Oats, Dehydrated Alfalfa Meal, Dicalcium Phosphate, Ground Wheat, Ground Soybean Hulls, Fish Meal, Salt, Brewers Dried Yeast, Dried Beet Pulp, Wheat Germ, Corn Gluten Meal,

Harlan 7012 Rodent Formulated Laboratory diet:
Ingredients: Ground corn, soybean meal, ground oats, wheat midds, alfalfa meal, corn gluten meal, brewers yeast


Maybe it's just me, but Science Diet and quality rodent food sure look similar....

Just for funsies:
3 formulas of Science Diet Cat(OBLIGATE CARNIVORE that CANNOT ABSORB, PROCESS, DIGEST many of these ingredients, which does lead to Feline Diabetes):
1) Chicken, Whole Grain Wheat, Corn Gluten Meal, Pork Fat, Brewers Rice , Wheat Gluten, Chicken Liver Flavor, Dried Beet Pulp, Dried Egg Product, Calcium Sulfate, Lactic Acid, Potassium Chloride
2) Chicken, Whole Grain Wheat, Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Powdered Cellulose, Wheat Gluten, Pork Fat, Dried Beet Pulp, Chicken Liver Flavor, Lactic Acid, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate
3) Chicken, Whole Grain Wheat, Corn Gluten Meal, Pork Fat, Powdered Cellulose, Pea Bran Meal, Dried Egg Product, Wheat Gluten, Dried Beet Pulp, Chicken Liver Flavor, Lactic Acid, Soybean Oil

So much for healthy!! SD killing cats, one case of diabetes and obesity at a time.

Recap on a quality biologically appropriate kibble:
Orijen adult kibble:
First 12 ingredients: Boneless chicken, chicken meal, chicken liver, whole herring, boneless turkey, turkey meal, turkey liver, whole eggs, boneless walleye, whole salmon, chicken heart, chicken cartilage

Orijen Freeze dry:
First 12 ingredients: Chicken (ground with bone), turkey (ground with bone), whole herring, chicken liver, chicken heart, whole eggs, spinach greens, pea fiber, turkey liver, turkey heart, whole flounder

Uhhh, looking at the dentition of my canine and mustelid, I can definitely say the Orijen looks the most promising. :X



Dog Dentition:


Obligate Carnivore Cat Dentition:


Obligate Carnivore Ferret Dentition (sure looks similar to that dog):


Omnivore Bear Dentition:


Omnivore Baboon Dentition:


Omnivore Olive Baboon Dentition:


As you can see, omnivores like bears and primates have molars that are built to crush and grind. The share a movement like herbivores that chew and grind side to side.
Carnivores have teeth that slice, chop, and shear. Not to mention, they aren't capable of grinding skull movements. Their mouths can only open up and down in a scissor like movement.

I.Jaw biomechanics – shearing vs grinding
a. Toothrows will shear if the perpendicular distance between toothrows and the jaw joint are not equal, or of one toothrow is above and the other below the joint.
b. Teeth will occlude simultaneously if the distance between toothrows and joint are equal and both toothrows are in line with, or equally distant from, the joint
c. Gape is maximized in carnivores by emphasizing the temporal muscle in jaw mechanics. This allows them to have a smaller masseter movement.
d. In contrast, herbivores use the masseter muscle which provides direct source (e.g., not via the articulation) but constraints gape


Mammals possess four types of teeth: incisors, canines, premolars, and molars. Incisors and canines are for piercing and tearing flesh. Broad flat molars aid in grinding.

Yes, dogs have an increased ability to digest carbs when compared to wolves. The hypothesis is that this ability is what helped along their domestication. That being said, the ability to digest something does not mean that it is a healthy diet. I could feed cattle cardboard, and they would digest it, but that doesn't mean that I should. Corn in particular is usually not a good choice for most simple- stomached animals because they lack the microflora and gut setup to properly break it down. If a cow needs four stomach chambers, a horse a cecum, and both an army of microorganisms, just to digest corn and other grains, a simple- stomached animal like a dog is not getting much use out of it as a food source. With that said, based on the behavior, digestive system, and dentition, it is clear that they are optimized to primarily eat meat. A little bit of carbohydrates are fine. The main issue is offering a diet that is 50-90% carbohydrates (whoa! That sounds like.... Science Diet! Who would have guess!! )

Domestic Cat(Obligate Carnivore):


Domestic Dog:


Black Bear (Omnivore):


Olive Baboon (Omnivore):


Rat (Grainivore to digest all of that grains, corn, and delicious Science Diet goodness):


European Rabbit (Herbivore):


Just basic text book images, where the dog's digestive tract sure looks identical to that carnivorous digestive tract...hmmm




Digestion involves a number of mechanical, chemical, and microbial actions to degrade food into simple molecular compounds that can be absorbed into the body. Digestion in the mouth is mechanical (breaking large pieces of food into smaller pieces). Dogs and cats do not contain the enzyme amylase in their saliva like omnivores and herbivores. This does not allow the animal to digest starches and carbohydrates in the mouth. Dentition reflects on the type of diet consumed by a species; cutting and tearing prey. The digestive tract is short in dogs and cats, compared to other omnivores. They have a short digestive tract and strong stomach acid that allows faster digestion and a higher metabolism to digest animal protein and kill harmful bacteria(in meat). Herbivores and some omnivores have evolved to have very long digestive tracts. Longer digestive tracts are needed to properly process plant based materials.

Dietary functional fibers are plant substances not digested by mammalian intestinal enzymes. These include certain carbohydrates as well as other types of plant based material. The only "benefits" to this is having an animal with consistent large bowel movements.

Some crappy random notes I have from my Evolution of Mammals university course a while back:
- Digestion in Mammals (some key adaptations)

The mammalian stomach
I. 3 main parts: cardiac, fundus and pyloris
-Cardiac region- mucus, but no digestion glands
-Fundus- greatest # of glands, include cells that secrete HCl, and glands that secrete pyloric mucus
-Pyloris- produces more mucus

II. Carnivores
-Large glandular fundus
-Simple digestive tract
-Meat is relatively easy to digest, just have to chop it up
-High protein diet = high nitrogenous waste products, so need a lot of water
-Insectivory is similar to carnivorous diet, shrews for example

Because meat is easily digested, the gastric system of carnivores is typically short and simple. They are monogastricmeaning they have only one stomach (unlike a ruminants’ stomach which has four chambers). Due to the ease at which components required for growth are obtained from food, some carnivores have lost the ability to synthesis them

The teeth of carnivores are sharp and strong, this makes it easy to rip and tear meat from bones of prey. When possible, the meat is broken down further by the teeth to ensure maximum surface area for digestion by enzymes in the stomach and small intestines. True carnivores do not have digestive enzymes in their saliva.

Due to the lack of salivary enzymes, food spends little time in the mouth of a carnivore, it is shortly swallowed

III. Herbivores
-Fewer glands
-Large, complex digestive tract
-Food is simple, typically low in nutritional value so it needs extra time and processes to break down.

Herbivores only consume plant material which is very difficult to digest. No vertebrates make an enzyme capable of breaking down cellulose. As the diet includes large amounts of fiber, the digestive tract of herbivores is comparatively much longer than carnivores, due to fiber being much more difficult to digest.

To overcome this, herbivores have developed a symbiotic relationship with a population of microflora that inhabit a specialized region of the gut for fermentation e.g. the caecum or rumen of ruminants. The microflora population of the gut is able to breakdown cellulose and use the glucose for its own metabolic needs. As a waste product of this process, the microflora population releases volatile fatty acids which the herbivore utilities for energy. The production of these fatty acids is known as fermentation (fermentation also produces heat which keeps the animal warm).

There are two types of fermenting herbivores, those which ferment in the foregut and those which ferment in thehindgut. The difference between them is the site of fermentation and the organ used for fermentation; the attributes of the fermentation chamber remain the same however – Anaerobic, plenty of fluid, regulated pH, steady nitrogen supply and the correct temperature.

2 approaches to herbivory:
1. Ruminant/foregut digestion
- Macropodid and potoroid marsupials have a “sacciform” foregut
- Forage and chew the food up (some breakdown through salivary glands)
- Food goes to rumen (not the stomach) and can occupy ½ the room in the abdomen
- Copious amounts of saliva produced (200L/day for cows), purpose is to have neutral pH in rumen using bicarbonate
- Saliva also contains urea which provides protein source for microbes in rumen
- High concentration of microorganisms to digest plant materials, which are difficult to digest.
- Fix nitrogen in urea
- Break down cellulose that cows are eating, turn into glucose which is used by microflora in rumen as their source of starches
- Byproduct of that is volatile fatty acids (VFA’s) which is the primary source of carbon for the ruminant
- Food sent to reticulum, brought back up esophagous and then to mouth to be rechewed (chewing cud)
- Reswallowed and goes back to rumen
- Food then goes to omasum
- Finally goes to abomasum (true stomach)- acidic pH, acids kill microflora and they are digested (get it’s protein), gets carbon from VFA’s released from rumen
- Benefit is that you get efficient digestion of plants before it even hits the stomach (carnivores lack all of this)

2. Cecant/hindgut digestion
- Small stomach, large intestine w/ a big cecum
- happens after acidic digestion so less efficient overall
- have to eat a lot more food as a result of eating low nutritional foods in order to compensate
- Frequently partake in coprophagy, where they re-consume their feces in order to get all the nutrients possible from a food item
- Rumen is big so it means ruminant has to be big
- need less water to get rid of nitrogenous waste products because it’s getting recycled (urea)
- Poor quality food hard for them to digest
- tannins and microresins can “gum up” the system or hurt the microflora
- Food passage in cow is 70-100 hours
- Cecant digesters fair well even if food quality is poor, they just churn it out, but they need to eat more of it
- Goal is to eat, eat, eat and then go home and chew cud

I'm not really going to take the time to explain everything. But animals that can digest plant based materials have complex digestive tracts for a reason. Plant based materials are difficult to digest and absorb, which is why their digestive tracts are so long. Their nutritional value is low compared to animal content, which is why these animals have to be constantly feeding and rechewing their food over and over again. In short, dogs and other carnivores lack this complex system.