Abstract: Background – Past research on the dietary adequacy of home-prepared diets has concentrated on individual dogs, highlighting severe deficiencies in case reports or evaluating online and book recipes. There's a lack of research about how pet owners are actually feeding their dogs at home.
Objectives – To describe home-prepared diets for pet dogs, focusing on typical ingredients and their compliance with Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) standards for maintenance. Can a complete diet be achieved based on the owner's listed ingredients?
Animals – 1765 pet dogs enrolled in the Dog Aging Project.
Methods – 1765 free-text responses provided by dog owners from 1/1/2023-12/31/2023 as part of a diet survey were evaluated by two independent coders to describe dietary ingredients. The ingredients were analyzed using Balance.it to assess dietary balance. Diets were categorized as unbalanced (10+ nutrient imbalances), partially balanced (1-10 imbalances), or completely balanced (no imbalances).
Results – The most common ingredients were: meat (contained in 89% of diets), vegetables (64%), organs/offal (26%), fruit (25%), non-meat proteins (22.6%), fats/oils (14%), and nuts/seeds (6%). Of the meat and offal categories, the most common animal sources reported by owners were: chicken, beef, turkey. Due to insufficient information, approximately 17% of diets could not be categorized according to balance. 5% of diets were possibly complete, 25% were partially balanced, and 52% were unbalanced.
Conclusions – The ingredients owners choose to feed their dogs in home-prepared diets are diverse. Unfortunately, only 5% could possibly have met AAFCO standards for maintenance diets.
