Metabolizable energy intake of client‐owned adult dogs

Abstract

SummaryA post hoc analysis of the metabolizable energy (ME) intake of privately owned pet dogs from the authors' nutrition consultation practice (Years 2007(Years -2011 was carried out to identify if current ME recommendations are suitable for pet dogs. Data on 586 adult dogs were available (median age 5.5, median deviation from ideal weight 0.0), 55 of them were healthy; the others had various diseases. For ration calculation, a standardized questionnaire and the software diet-check Munich TM was used. ME was predicted according to NRC (2006). Data were evaluated for the factors disease, breed, size, age, gender and type of feeding. The mean ME intake of all adult dogs amounted to 0.410 AE 0.121 MJ/kg metabolic body weight (BW 0.75 ) (n = 586). There was no effect of size and disease. . The mean maintenance energy requirements of pet dogs are similar to that of kennel dogs which do not exercise very much. These results suggest that opportunity and stimulus to exercise provided for pet dogs are lower than for kennel dogs. Lower activity in pet dogs may reduce part of potential effects of breed, medical history and age groups.

Metabolisable energy intake and growth of privately owned growing dogs in comparison with official recommendations on the growth curve and energy supply

“…It is notable that the individual differences of ME intake are quite high. The same has been observed for laboratory and pet dogs during maintenance (Rainbird & Kienzle, ; Thes et al, ). For individual ration calculation, this problem can be approached by calculating the ME intake before changing the ration to help to get the right starting point of ME intake.…”

“…Data are checked for plausibility, and if there are discrepancies the owners were contacted and asked specifically. These methods of obtaining the data and calculating ME intake have been used repeatedly and led to plausible results in several previous studies (Dillitzer, Becker, & Kienzle, 2011;Thes et al, 2015Thes et al, , 2016, and it is discussed there.…”

“…The owners of the young dogs requested a check of the present ration for nutritional adequacy. Owners contacted our nutrition consultation service by phone, fax or e‐mail, and then filled out a standardised questionnaire as described previously (Thes et al, ). General information data, such as breed, age, actual BW, expected mature BW and case history, if appropriate were collected for each case.…”

“…The same is true for correct instructions for use in pet food manufacturing. In the past, it has been demonstrated that adult dogs kept as pet have lower ME requirements than adult laboratory dogs (Thes et al, ). For growing dogs, ME requirements have been assessed by the National Research Council (NRC) () with regard to actual body weight (BW) and expected mature BW.…”

A diet change from dry food to beef induces reversible changes on the faecal microbiota in healthy, adult client-owned dogs

“…The energy requirement for each adult dog was estimated according to information provided by the owner on type and amount of feed provided prior to initiation of the study and/or the range of 350–500 kJ ME x BW 0,75 based on activity level, coat quality, body weight and body condition score [38]. During the first 2 weeks, the dogs were acclimated to a commercial dry food diet (CD1).…”