Dogs are not obligate carnivores. Animals are not strictly split into the three categories. Yes, there are many different levels of carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores. The intestines of dogs are much much shorter than an omnivores such as ours. Their teeth are sharper for ripping and tearing, they have no spleen. All of these things are taken into account when classifying an animal. Cats are obligate carnivores. If you compare a dog to a cat, you see many differences. The cat does not have the amount or extremity of flat back molars that dogs do. A cats intestines are much shorter than that of a dog, and a cat will die if given a vegetarian diet. They must have the taurine only found in meat to survive.
Sure, a dog can live as a vegetarian, though they are typically not very healthy and their life span is greatly decreased. Dogs on vegetarian alone diets aren't doing well at all. The levels of being a carnivore vary depending upon the amount of vegetables the animal wold naturally eat. Obligate, TRUE carnivores, would eat less than 10% vegetables. Notice, even true carnivores are not 0%. Non obligate carnivores natural diet would contain 10%- 30% vegetables. The rest of the diet would be meat.
The major difference between an obligate carnivore like a cat, and a non obligate carnivore like a dog is enzymes. Cats posess no enzymes for breaking down grain or plant matter. Their pancreas can not create these enzymes. Any plant or grain an obligate carnivore eats passes through the system undigested. Non obligate carnivores like dogs have a low level of the enzymes to break down carbohydrates, and if it needs too, the pancreas can and will create more, but this puts excessive strain on the pancreas which must try to create the enzymes.
The decided amount of vegetables a dog should eat, which through my studies I found is 25% is decided based upon the amount of digestive enzymes found naturally accuring in the dogs saliva and stomaches and what they can tolerate - not what they need. Grains are harder for the enzymes to break down than fruits and vegetables are. With all this strain, a dog still can not make enough to absorb any nutrition from the grain, and certainly not cellulous which requires more enzymes than grains do, and cause more stress to the pancreas.
Pancreas is also what makes insulin in our bodies (and in ALL animals), when the pancreas gets stressed it stops working and stops producing insulin (among other things), and then you (or the animal) become diabetic. That's why it's not recommended to feed grains or veggies to dogs.
And, yes, wolves do eat fruits and vegetables when they pass them. Wolves will dig up and eat many roots and will eat the fallen fruit or low berries. It is not something they spend all day doing, and they will chose meat over fruits or vegetables. When hungry, their nature is to hunt, not to lounge around plants. When bored and/or curious, they chew on fruits and veggies. That is why they are a small amount of their diet. Fruits and vegetables carry vitamins and minerals that dog's bodies require in small amounts for optimal health.
Pancreas is also what makes insulin in our bodies (and in ALL animals), when the pancreas gets stressed and stops working. it stops producing insulin (among other things), and then you (or the animal) become diabetic.
AAFCO standards were developed based on the belief that dogs are omnivores and are based on cooked or processed foods AAFCO is completely irrelevant to raw diets. To gain nutritional analysis, the food must be chemically denatured, cooked, purified, and otherwise manipulated, meaning that any reading is an inaccurate representation of the raw!
Further, AAFCO standards easily lull people into a false sense of security about the food they feed their pets. They think it is nutritionally complete, when in reality it may not be truly complete. AAFCO profiles have not been tested or reproduced (and one of the biggest principles of science is that the method must be reproducible and the results verifiable.). No studies exist that prove "their adequacies or inadequacies". It is, at best, an educated guess as to what our animals really need, and is based on less-than-scientific principles.
The AAFCO has major problems and I personally wouldn't look twice at it in deciding what is good or not good for a dog. I mean they list the initial nutrient amount added, not even the amount absorbed. Thus, bioavailability is less than 100%, and the nutrients in the standards are therefore completely inaccurate representations of what the dog really needs! AFCO feeding trials weren't designed to measure the long-term effects of commercial diets. It says so right in their mission statement. AAFCO trials were designed to ensure that pet foods were not harmful to the animal and would support the proposed life stage for a period of 26 weeks. Look at the he lamb and rice commercial diets that had "EXCEEDED" the nutrient profiles of AAFCO, and that had "PASSED" the AAFCO feeding protocol yet created a taurine deficiency in the dogs that ate them. They suffered cardiomyopthy from this highly recommended AAFCO approved food. AAFCO is the best the pet food industry has. If this is the pet food industry's BEST then what does that say about their commercial foods? |