Puppy food for adults

[Michael Romanos]

Recently, I was advised by a member that AAFCO had approved an all purpose dog food and she wondered why this was so when AAFCO have slightly altered separate standards for puppy food, adult food and senior food.

Well, I finally made contact with Dr Nick Cave who is qualified to carry out testing of dog food on behalf of AAFCO.

It is ok for adults to consume puppy food but not vice versa. In other words, puppies can eat food designed for them that is also applicable for adults and seniors. But puppies should not eat food designed for adult dogs only says Dr Cave.

Dr Cave also reiterated my point that AAFCO is only designed as an organisation to approve or disapprove of food for dogs in the context of having ALL the necessary vitamins, minerals and nutrients for a complete and balanced diet to a minimum standard and maximum standard (where applicable). So this means that dog foods that contains inferior substances to others can still get the AAFCO seal of approval because they still contain all the necessary vites, mins and nutes. So if you see the content details of a dog food and it sounds ghastly to you yet the food carries a AAFCO approval, it is because of the mins, vites and nutes only.

[glencorgi]

per:
David Syverson
Chair, AAFCO Pet Food Committee
Located at:
Minnesota Department of Agriculture
Dairy and Food Inspection Division
625 Robert Street North
St. Paul, MN 55155-2538
Web Site** Commercial Feed Program

"I want to be real sure that you have the correct understanding of the nutritional adequacy statement. It is not an "approval" of any kind. AAFCO does establish the standard, it is the responsibility of the firm to meet the standard, but AAFCO does not approve any products."

Mr. Syverson continues:
"A bit more on the life stages issues. An "All Life Stages" product is a general use, "one size fits all" product which is formulated so that no nutrient (of the 30-40 required) will be below the minimum for any particular life stage. What this means is that such a product will likely be over-formulated for certain life stages, particularly for maintenance. All Life Stages diets are perfectly safe nutritionally, however, a mature couch potato pet may gain weight on this type of product since it will have higher energy and protein values than what is required for maintenance purposes."

And:
"In most consumer situations, growth and maintenance are the life stages of interests and an all life stages product and will work out for a normal and healthy animal if a person watches their adult pet's body condition and avoids overfeeding an older animal. Again, All Life stages is OK for a health animal, but, for example, an older animal with kidney issues should not be fed an all life stages/growth/lactation/reproduction diet because the protein levels will add additional loads to the kidneys."

Debbie

[Mvons]

Originally Posted by glencorgi

"Again, All Life stages is OK for a health animal, but, for example, an older animal with kidney issues should not be fed an all life stages/growth/lactation/reproduction diet because the protein levels will add additional loads to the kidneys."

The great debate whether too high protein causes kidney disease. Even in the throws of kidney disease there continues the debate making it so hard on pet owners to decide whether to deplete the muscle mass and have the kidneys work less - didn't work on my dog but she had the added problem of melamine, so I'll never know about protein helping or hurting her.
Merrie

[Clogs]

I have some direct, recent experience with feeding puppy food to an older dog.
We have a contact at Masterpet, who can get damaged bags of pet food that cannot be sold. Minimal damage i.e. the bag's outer layers may be torn, so there is no issue with safety.
Recently, she got us a couple of bags. They were puppy, rather than adult food, but I didn't realise that until after we had paid for them and had them delivered. I thought that feeding them to Rose would be OK, as long as I reduced the intake levels a little, but on doing that, she always seemed to still be hungry and came asking for more dinner, which she never normally does. So I increased the amount.
She is getting fat!! So I have stopped feeding her the puppy food and will have to go today to get soeme older dog product.