Dog Food myths, The Australian standard & what affco/ WSAVA have to do with it.

If you have a dog in Australia, its worthwhile knowing why your kibble or any commercial food has to have the aafco seal of approval on it, and what that actually means.

Its also worthwhile knowing why people are now talking about the American WSAVA organization as the gold standard and what the Australian Standards for dog food mean.

Understanding the merits and limitations of the aafco nutrient profile tables can help you make informed choices about what you feed your dog, and what dog treats you might like to supplement these with.

Why kibble and not raw meat diets (RMD)

Have you ever wondered why there only ever seems to be advertisements and positive talk in the media about kibble and canned dog food?  Why meat is available at your supermarket, but dog owners are steered towards the ‘dog food’ aisle.

If you have a quick glance on Reddit dog food subcategory, you would swear that most of the threads and comments are written by the marketing team of the big dog food companies.

There are surprisingly a lot of haters out there towards anyone who feeds their dog actual meat. So, let’s look at where this all began, and why what you feed is actually an American creation.

Exploding the dog food myths.

I recently read (august 2024) a ‘statement of fact’, a manifesto if you will, about why all of the major dog food manufacturers should be applauded, and why they are perfect in their endeavors. And to never prepare dog food at home. This tweaked my interest.

So I thought it might be worthwhile analyzing these ‘facts’ and what might actually be true.

MYTH 1   “Vets don’t get paid to recommend any specific diet.”

This is of course a single persons very general statement. And in fact there are quite a few supporters of raw meat based diets (RMB) and BARF diets (but mostly hidden in facebook groups).

Natural food diets just don’t get the media attention, because there is no profit motive and so no advertising dollars behind their views.  But more than that, regardless of the protests, their always remains the possibility of collusion between a professional selling a product and recommending a product that exclusively comes from one side of an industry (commercial/ factory, based dog food diets).

This controversy remains around the independence of some dog vets.  And the small component in their studies that they do on dog nutrition, and the grants that dog food companies bestow on vet education facilities.

But knowing that the average vet in Australia doesn’t make a large income on services alone, it’s interesting to know how much an average vet practice makes from that dog food and cat food on their shelves.

Some Australian dog stats:

• dog owners in Australia in 2023 spent $3,218 per animal per year. (dogster 2023)
• The Australian pet food industry was estimated at $3 billion in 2022. (Statista)
• Australian pet owners spend about 30% of total dog ownership costs on pet food each year.
• Dog food accounts for 57% of all pet food spent in Australia. (dogster 2023)
• In the UK vets are believed to make at least 15% of their revenue from packaged dog food.

But most of the Australian dog industry trends come from America, because of its sheer size and money involved. The American Pet Products Association (APPA) estimate that the USA pet food total industry has sales of US$147 billion in 2023.  In America pet food and treat sector is also the major pet owner cost, with food sales, totaling $64.4 billion in 2023 and accounting for about 43% of total pet industry sales.

“But vets have notable advantages, which is the reason Hill’s, Royal Canin (Mars) and Purina Pro Plan compete aggressively in this closely guarded pet food segment. Packaged Facts survey data presented at Petfood Forum 2020 showed that vets are the most common impetus to pet food change, with 38% of dog owners and 31% of cat owners attributing veterinarian recommendation to a change in the pet foods they buy — well above any other influence, including word-of-mouth from family and friends, though word-of-mouth is generally considered the gold standard. “

Dog food manufacturer influences on Vets and dog owners in America and Australia

During the covid19 pandemic, “The decline of veterinary hospitals/clinics as pet food purveyors is especially paradoxical at a time when pet food marketers and retailers, taking up a strategy long executed through PetSmart’s alliance with Banfield, are weaving veterinary care into the core of their operations. Mars and Nestlé Purina are buying into veterinary services and investing in related technologies including pet health diagnostics.“

“Retailers and e-tailers including Petco, Pet Supplies Plus, Walmart, Tractor Supply and Chewy are joining with veterinary service providers to open in-store clinics, offer pop-up clinics, field online pet pharmacies and sell prescription pet food. Partnering with Vetsource, in which Mars has acquired a controlling stake, Banfield and VCA (both owned by Mars) now similarly offer online pharmacies where prescription pet food can be purchased.”  (www.petfoodindustry.com)

In Australia we have a smaller but just as significant corporate takeovers for monopoly position of dog food supplies into vet clinics.

Consider the Greencross vet chain current state (late 2023).

In April 2023, The Australian Financial Review (AFR) media reported “TPG (an American hedge-fund that owns Greencross vet chains in Australia)  .. is bulking up its pet retailing empire, acquiring a smaller, Melbourne-based rival Habitat Pet Supplies.”

“Subject to approval from the competition regulator, Greencross plans to merge the newly purchased business with its Petbarn division. Habitat Pet Supplies was established in 2012 by Dean and Rachelle Pantalleresco and has expanded to a five-store network across (MELBOURNE) city.“

In Decemember 2023,  healthcare products EBOS Group (NZ based) tried to take over the Greencross vet, petbarn and Habitat chain.  They failed in that bid, but clearly owning a major dog food retailer and a chain of vets suggests that dog owners will soon face more upselling of kibble premium brands at their local vet.

Meanwhile the lack of big business backing in Australia in 2023  means the ‘Premium raw and fresh pet food’ ONLY accounts for 1–3% of the Australian market , (Dogster 2023)

MYTH 2 : “The reason (DOG OWNERS) tend to gravitate towards brands like Purina and Hills is because those brands meet WSAVA guidelines”

HDT has EXTENSIVE articles on what makes a dog food LEGALY be allowed to be called ‘complete’ or “balanced”.  And it’s a very contentious point.

I will provide you with links to these full articles below, though a refresher course and what WSAVA means to America and the world, should also be very interesting to you, if you own a dog.

In particular we will look at the role of these three organizations in what is in your dog food.   1. AAFCO. 2.   WSAVA    3.  Australian Standards

1     AAFCO  IS the ONLY recognized global dog nutrient standard.      

AAFCO is the “ Association of American Feed Control Officials” .   This is a snapshot of what that meant in 2017 https://www.healthydogtreats.com.au/aafco-an-independent-govt/

On the aafco website, they say that they are an “independent organization that has been guiding state, federal and international feed regulators with ingredient definitions, label standards and laboratory standards.  “

Essentially, they are a voluntary standard, seeded by lobby groups, by commercial companies and dog food companies, and the occasional independent. Affco is credited with creating the nutrient tables that dog food companies around the world have chosen to adopt, for about 30 years. 

It would appear that creating such a committee is too onerous for any other country (including AUSTRALIA), and by being a volunteer organisation, Aafco don’t get any legal blowback for any potential collusion with the commercial interests.

If you dig a little deeper, you will find that before there was AAFCO, there was the NRC. (Nutrient Requirements of Dogs in 1985)

“The AAFCO … concentrations differ from minimum nutrient requirements traditionally developed by the NRC Committee on Animal Nutrition.  Many of the NRC minimum nutrient requirements are based on research with purified diets and/or highly bioavailable nutrient sources that are not practical to use in commercial dog and cat foods.” (aafco website)

Let this sink in.

The NRC minimums are often more rigorous than AAFCO,  and “highly bio-available nutrient sources”  is code for animal based sources  (ie meat and offal).   The food sources that provide the only species appropriate protein.

The only reason these ‘nutrients’ are called “NOT PRACTICAL” is that it would cost the dog food makers MORE and potentially reduce their margins.

THIS is the beginning of removing dogs from their species appropriate foods, and turning them vegan.  For capitalisms sake, NOT the health of dogs.

By allowing the crude protein minimum levels for the average dog to fall to 18% (in the aafco standard) it opened to door to dog food companies putting in a mass of grain and vegetable filler that was NOT bioavailable.

2.      WSAVA guidelines and dog food standards

A lot of commercial dog food supporters stand behind the ‘concept’ of the WASAVA guidelines.  Until I delved into this organisation, I didn’t even know that it existed.

It would seem that WSAVA connection to actual dog food nutrients, is mostly required to remove us one step away from the original NRC dog food guidelines.

You will notice on dog food packets in Australia that the highly processed ingredients stand behind the AAFCO shield to give them legitimacy, to give you confidence of buying an expensive bag of cheap grain is the right thing to do – there is little to no mention of WSAVA.

The WSAVA mission / Objectives

• Advocate for nutrition as a key component in all veterinary curricula.
• Promote the importance of performing a nutritional assessment on every animal at every visit to the vet clinic and of making specific nutritional recommendations for each patient as an integral component of patient care.
• Advance the central role of the veterinary team as the expert source of information on optimal pet nutrition.
• Advocate for nutrition as a key component in all veterinary curricula.
• Advance the central role of the veterinary team as the expert source of information on optimal pet nutrition.

What does WSAVA have to do with dog food?

A little closer inspection you will see that WSAVA doesn’t actually produce ANY DOG NUTRIENT tables.

They do not do food trials. They solely ‘trust’ aafco’s tables.

WSAVA are there basically to ‘guide vets” on what the best commercial dog food to sell off the shelves.  And how to sell the premium of the premium products that seemingly tackle different medical issues, or apparently are for specific breeds – even though most of the ingredients are pretty much the same!

They are there to legitimatise the AAFCO standard that they 100% full adopt.

3.   Australia standards for dog food

Firstly, you might want to know if the pet food industry is regulated in Australia

“The pet food industry in Australia is essentially self-regulated, meaning there is no official governing body that oversees pet food manufacturing. There are voluntary standards applied through the Pet Food Industry Association of Australia (PFIAA), although this largely leaves the health of your pets in the hands of businesses that are likely more interested in monetary gain than pet health. “ (frontierpets.com.au)

Although it’s in the best interests of large companies to follow PFIAA standards, companies that don’t voluntarily comply with these standards are still allowed to trade. “(frontierpets.com.au)

The PFIAA  website explains about ingredient selection:   “Ingredients in pet food may be selected to perform a function within the formulation as well as for nutrition. This may be to aid in digestion, contribute to the taste or provide texture and structure to the product. Ingredient selection is based on the type of food such as dry, canned, raw or treat.

Care is taken to ensure the ingredients are fit for purpose and safe to consume. Pet food ingredients may be sourced from

• animals and include beef, pork, lamb, chicken and fish
• plant products such as corn, wheat, soy, sorghum, peas, potatoes and barley.
• Vitamins, minerals and amino acids may also be added to ensure all the right nutrients are available specific to your pet’s needs.

“Meat for pet consumption is covered in the Australian Standard – AS5812 for retail sale and good manufacturing practice compliance. Additional criteria for hygienic production specific to meat is included in PISC 88 technical report,”  (PFIAA)

But just like WSAVA American vet organization, the Australian PFIAA group  NOR the AS5812  Australian standard has NOTHING TO DO WITH MINIUMUM NUTRITION REQUIREMENTS IN DOG FOOD for a healthy dog.

Australian dog food makers also fall back on the very low protein requirements of AAFCO.

MYTH 3–  “DOG FOOD is SAFE, because of dog food trials”

So we should trust the AAFCO standard 100% because they have a nutrition table and a voluntary feeding trial if a brand wants to impress consumers?

This information is from the highly regarded dogfoodadvisor site, May 17, 2024:

“One of the ways for a company to be able to claim that its food is ‘complete and balanced’, ‘scientifically proven’, ‘100% complete nutrition’, or similar, it must have completed an American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) approved feeding trial.“

So voluntarily, some dog food companies also decide to do a feeding trial.

Some say that this is done to ensure that their lab has gotten it right that enough additives have been added to ensure that a dog can’t stop eating the food, to ensure that sales are high, but let’s just see what’s involved.

The AAFCO guidelines are tested during a 26-week feeding trial, where a group of dogs are given the meal exclusively during that time to monitor various health parameters and how well they do on the study diet.  Once the food passes the feeding study, it can be labelled as ‘complete and balanced’

Here are three of the main things about the trial

• Trials must use at least eight healthy dogs from a ‘validated colony’.
• They must be fed and housed in a controlled environment alongside a control group of the same size and breed.
• Dogs should be weighed every week during the trial, and no dog may lose more than 15% of its body weight during the trial. The average weight loss of the entire group cannot be more than 10%.
• A maximum of two dogs can be removed during the trial for non-nutritional reasons.
• Blood tests that will be monitored measure hemoglobin, hematocrit, alkaline phosphate, and albumin, alongside assessing the dogs’ body weight, body condition score, blood scores, and daily intake compared to the control group.

Personally, I would have thought for a multi- billion-dollar company, selling dog food to literally millions of dogs each year, that these standards are at the least incredibly flimsy.

The standard tests do NOT INCLUDE

• In-depth body condition scoring
• Organ or bone scans
• stool quality scoring
• digestibility measurements (because their typically isn’t sufficient meat in the ingredients to be classed as bio available.

“Some critics of standard dog food feeding studies claim that not enough health parameter testing may be covered, and a number of important health measures can be missed. They argue that the standard AAFCO feeding study or is not robust enough to determine if the diet being fed is really ‘complete and balanced’.  “  (Dr. Bradley Quest, DVM, Principal of Veterinary Services at BSM Partners)

Also “  feeding studies is that they only last 26 weeks, meaning the true long-term effects of the food aren’t examined, and dietary deficiencies may be missed”

MYTH 4 – “the premium dog food brands (like our American commenter suggests) are of the highest standards “

And yes, you can buy them in Australia too.

Petfoodadvisor analyses at one of the premium brands sold in USA and Australia.

It was selected “ to represent the other products in the line for detailed recipe and nutrient analysis.”

NUTRIENT ANALYSIS

• 25% protein
• 3% fat
• 57 % carbs
• 12.3% Fiber (estimated dry matter content)

When meat jerky is dried (10% water) it still has between 50- 60% protein, which is highly bio-available.

That means it can easily be used by your dog’s body for growth and repair of their tissue, not just excreted, unused.

This PREMIUM dog kibble only has 25% protein (from all sources). Carbs come from plants, so to have nearly 60% carbs means that the kibble is mostly plant matter.

Did you know that while there are minimum or maximum levels of protein, fats, mineral and vitamins there are NO MINIMUM OR MAXIMUM levels of CARBS in the aafco NUTRIENT tables !

This means that NO CARBS are deemed essential, because dog food can be called balanced only with a fibre amount, NOT a CARB AMOUNT.  Plants supply the fibre, but they only need be present in very small amounts compared to what most people currently feed in plant matter to their dog.

Plant matter typically is low bio- availability so the useable crude protein would be MUCH LESS than the 25% on the label.

In fact most likely close to the minimum allowed by affco to be called dog food, ie 18%.

The fact that this premium product is AAFCO approved, means it must be at least 18% protein.  MUCH LESS than a species appropriate dog food (ie one based on a carnivore) should have to eat.

THE PREMIUM KIBBLE TOP INGREDIENTS

Dogfoodadvisor lists their chosen ingredient example (BELOW) directly from the kibble packet:

Chicken meal, cracked pearled barley, pea fiber, brown rice, whole grain corn, corn gluten meal, powdered cellulose, whole grain oats, soybean meal, whole grain sorghum, brewers rice, chicken liver flavor, soybean oil, pea protein, dried beet pulp, flaxseed, lactic acid, pork liver flavor, potassium chloride, calcium carbonate, iodized salt, vitamins (vitamin E supplement, l-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate (source of vitamin C), niacin supplement, thiamine mononitrate, vitamin A supplement, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement, biotin, vitamin B12 supplement,  etc etc

Before we look at what the advisor suggests are issue ingredients you should be aware that:

Red ingredient (ABOVE), denotes controversial items  (petfoodadvisor direct quotes (below) )

Ingredients Analysis

“The first ingredient in this dog food is chicken meal. Chicken meal is considered a meat concentrate and contains nearly 300% more protein than fresh chicken.

The second ingredient is cracked pearl barley, which is a starchy carbohydrate supplying fiber and other healthy nutrients. However, aside from its energy content, this cereal grain is of only modest nutritional value to a dog.

The third ingredient is pea fiber, a mixture of both soluble and insoluble dietary fiber derived from pea hulls. Aside from the usual benefits of fiber, this agricultural by-product provides no other nutritional value to a dog.

The fourth ingredient is brown rice, a complex carbohydrate that (once cooked) can be fairly easy to digest. However, aside from its natural energy content, rice is of only modest nutritional value to a dog.

The next item is corn, an inexpensive and controversial cereal grain. And aside from its energy content, this grain is of only modest nutritional value to a dog.” (dogfoodadvisor)

MY Brief ANALYSIS

Chicken meal is the first ingredient, but ingredient splitting, means that the next four or five ingredients could be almost the exact same percentage included.  Just because chicken is first doesn’t mean that its anywhere near the majority ingredient.

After the pork liver flavour (not actually pork liver),  you will see a mass of minerals, then vitamins.

This is because the AAFCO nutrient tables are created to have such high levels of vitamins and minerals that NO COMBINATION of natural foods (meats, offal or plants can achieve their minimum standards.

It ensures a strong barrier to entry for new competitors, ensures that NO NATURAL DOG FOOD can be called aafco approved or balanced, and ensures that pharmaceutical lobbyist who are members of affco committees can have somewhere to dump their minerals and vitamins.

CONCLUSIONS

Thank you for taking a glimpse behind the ‘trickle down economy’ of billion dollar commercial dog food industry.

And how NRC guidelines that could have enforced a little more natural meat being included in a dogs diet, morphed into AAFCO,  and are now legitimized by WSAVA.

And that the Australian standard, just like the WSAVA standard has nothing to do with nutrient guidelines or minimum levels to keep dogs healthy. It just helps provide advice to vets on what kibble or canned food to sell to dog owners.

That dog food trials are completely voluntary and often just used as a marketing tool.

That for the billions spent on research to get dogs to eat more grain, and billions spent on marketing, the trials are incredibly non-rigorous.  Shamefully so.

Would you trust feeding your dog the same kibble for ten years, that was trialed on eight dogs for 26 weeks, after two of the dogs were excluded, and they all lost 10% body weight?  Because that is a very possible scenario, within their OWN aafco GUIDELINES.

Looking at one example of a billion-dollar company premium kibble product, we see that it is incredibly low in protein, Has little natural animal protein, is full of unneeded carbs (carbs are NOT listed in the aafco nutrition tables) and includes a lot of LOW BIO-available filler grains.

That a mass of vitamins and minerals HAVE to be added to the pack, just to meet the aafco standards that ensure that any natural combination of meat and plant matter CAN NOT be called balanced.

OUR FUNCTIONAL DOG TREAT PITCH

What do the global dog food nutrition tables have to do with single ingredient dog treats you might wonder?

With dog food companies scaring people away from feeding raw meat (because of pathogen possibilities – which is very low in red meats) and WSAVA scaring people away from cooked meat diets, because they won’t be aafco nutrition table compliant. And vets won’t be able to sell them. Your dog can really struggle to get adequate quality meat protein.

It becomes very easy to think that dog food has always been this way.

Meat has been demonized by the establishment (human nutritionist, and dog food companies), yet it is still prominently shown on the front of most kibble packets like a badge of honour.

The confusion that their marketing and media arms have created, in collusion with vets selling these products, makes it hard for a dog owner to feed their dog anything but commercial dog food without feeling bad.

It is true that if you want to feed an actual balanced NATURAL dog food at home, you need to do a some searching.  To understand what amounts and types of meat, bones and offal, and variety your dog needs.

Because why would you do it, unless it was nutritionally better than commercial dog food and HEALTHIER for your dog? And yes, it definitely can be.

We understand the game that they have created isn’t ‘fair’, and for this reason realise how hard any information that potentially disagrees with the industry can be heard fairly.

That is why if you are in doubt, if you want to feed your dogs treats, if you want those treats to contribute wellness and health, and not just kilojoules, then dried meat and offal single ingredient sources might just be your best method of doing so.