Protein

Anyone know how much protein a dog
should have daily?,I've been looking at
what's in the food I give my 2,and the protein
seems quite high,I always thought the level
should be about 7%.

It depends on the protein but it is usually between 18 & 24%

some who feed raw seem to give almost 100% not something I would advocate.

I think that 19% protein is adequate for an adult dog, at least that is what I have been told from a friend who was brought up with greyhounds and was involved with rescue dogs most of her working life.

If anyone else knows better then I stand corrected.

Not true, virtually impossible I would think actually!

Every rawfeeder I know feeds with bone, so typical analysis for a cut of bone-in meat or chicken quarter etc is approx:

60% water,
20% protein,
15% fat,
and the rest is trace milligrams of vitamins and minerals.

There are calculations you can do to equate this to kibble - alas I'm no mathematician so I'll duck out on that!

It depends on whether you're feeding wet or dry food. Canned food is typically around 7% protein, kibble generally around the 20% mark depending on the quality.

It's because the quality of the protein dictates how digestible it is. Cheaper food, tends to include alot of plant protein instead of meat protein which is harder for the dog to digest (and also harder on the kidneys and liver).

Here's a site that explains protein percentages really well:-

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index....e=protein_myth

mine get alot of protein..26 % and low carbs..no filleres,and i use stalk, for wet,in the bowl...its called FROMM,thats the kibble....tripe of all sorts ..veggies boiled

It depends upon whether you are feeding dry food or tinned. Food labels and charts tend to express protein percentage by volume so obviously food that contains a lot of water will have less protein per 100 grams of food. But a dog fed dry food will still get all the water it needs from other sources so really we need to disregard the water when considering the nutritional content of the food.

Whilst tinned food tends to have around 8% protein and kibble around 20% protein both in fact have similar protein levels when you disregard the water (which a kibble fed dog consumes separately from his water bowl).

This link explains it and gives clear examples of how to compare protein levels in foods with varying amounts of water:

http://www.thepetcenter.com/imtop/dm.html

Raw meat isn't 100% protein. In practice it works out at about half fat and half protein. The rest is just water. So it is much higher in protein than the typical kibble or tinned food.

As for how much is needed - well a lot depends upon your dog's lifestyle. Anywhere from around 20% (Dry Matter Basis) for fairly sedentary dogs to 35% for endurance athletes according to the "Small Anaimal Clinical Nutrition" book.

Digestibility of the protein is a consideration too. You can phone up the manufacturer and ask them how digestible the protein is. It's expressed as a percentage so it's easy to compare. But obviously a small amount of highly digestible protein might well give the dog's body more protein to work with than a large amount of hard to digest protein. (i.e When evaluating protein levels in food you need to disregard the protein that will come out the other end of the dog undigested).

Some argue the more protein the better. Others (Burns dog food for example) say that too much protein (i.e more than about 20% for most dogs) is overnutrition and not good for a dog. In practice most dogs seem to not much care what they're fed. Like humans they are very adaptable.

[QUOTE=Ziva;1538685]Not true, virtually impossible I would think actually!

I did not say most but I have met those who feed skinned chicken, white fish and muscle meat, yes there will be some fat but not a lot. There are a lot of ignorant raw feeders out there you will find others who feed nothing but this mince rubbish that comes from dog meat suppliers if they saw what it was before it was minced they would run a mile.

BTW I don't include water a food, you don't feed it they take what they need but yes wet food does include water.

I know what you mean but I do include the water in the food
The reason is from human nutrition it has been found that if you drink water with food it just passes through your system right away but if the water is in the food - ie in a broth then the water is digested at the same rate as the rest of the food

also with dry food the carb is just filler and most of it passes undigested through the dog so it is no more important than the water in wet food (even less so as at least the water is needed for hydration)

around 20% %w/w protien in food is a natural level that the dogs system has evolved to cope with
Many foods with a higher % than that as Scarter says some of that protien will be unavailable to the dogs - so just a marketing scam and not worth the money

It may be true that poor quality carbohydrate contained in some cheap brands of food is hard to digest, but your statement is quite untrue. Carbohydrate is known to be highly digestible. One of the most well respected quality kibbles, Burns, contains 50 - 60% carbs and is fed in very low volumes due to the fact that it is so digestible. And I can assure you that very little comes out the other end! Burns is also very low in fat (approx 10%) so the Burns fed dog gets most of it's energy from the carbs. A Burns fed dog that wasn't able to digest carbs would starve!

This may or may not be the case. But the point is that regardless of whether the water goes through the system with or separately from the food it has ZERO affect on the percentage of calories from protein.

Let me give an example that might help you to understand.

Imagine you have 100 grams of fresh meat. That might be made up of :

20g fat
20g protein
60g water

Now imagine you have a 100g bowl of kibble. It might contain:

20g protein
20g fat
50g carbs
10g water

It's clear why many people think that kibble and meat have similar fat and protein levels!

But now imagine you have a bowl of kibble that has been soaked until it contains 60% water. The weight of the soaked kibble is 100 g. It would be made up of:

8.9g of protein
8.9g of fat
22.2g of carbohydrate
60g water

If you hydrate the kibble to the same degree as fresh meat it will only contain about 9% fat and protein (similar to moist tinned food). So fresh meat does have a very high percentage of protein compared to kibble and tinned meat. Typically more than twice as much.

I'm not sure how digestible fresh meat is, or whether it makes much difference whether it's served cooked or raw. But unless it's half as digestible as the protein source in tinned food or kibble then the dog is getting twice as much protein in it's system when it is fed a meat only (i.e. no carbs) diet.

I think the point Ziva was making is that meat itself isn't 100% protein, it's made up of different things.

Chicken breast has 30% protein
White fish has 22%

They will also contain fat, water, minerals and vitamins. So even if you fed exclusively chicken breast that's 30% protein.

Not 100%