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Originally Posted by Verbena  It is so hard not to feed them treats with those cute little faces. lol my crazy butt was rubbing liver treat on his food to get him to eat   |
I used to add treats too to motivate him to eat, and then treats for training and created a little treat monster. I have been reading a fascinating book called Chow Hounds by Ernie Ward DVM. He writes articles for the PetPlan magazine. In the book he talks about 2 studies conducted 20 years apart in 1983 and 2003. Dogs when given their choice consume 20% - 30% of their calories from protein. The study then gave to dogs a choice of a diet with no protein and 6.4% sugar and one with protein and 6.4% sugar they chose the diet with the protein. But when they raised the sugar level in the no protein diet to 25% the dogs preference for the no protein diet more than doubled. One third of the dogs chose the food that contained no nutritive value other than the sugar. He goes on to explain how all the sugar, fat, and salt added to treats and food are causing little furry addicts. I really recommend the book for anyone interested in learning about their dog's diet, how to calculate the calories needed, and great information on reading labels too.
Like AAFCO regulation PF(3) the With or 3% rule. "The with rule allows a dog food to be named after a relatively minor ingredient, one constituting as little as 3% of the content weight, after any water has been removed"
So for example Healthy Recipe Dog Food with Beef would only have to have 3% beef.
