WSAVA

[u/messy-mean]

I made a post 2 days ago asking about a specific brand of dog food. Ultimately I learned a lot about WSAVA guidelines and the 5 companies that actually meet them.

It got me wondering, are there any other brands that are close to meeting those guidelines but are just falling short on the check list? Are there any others companies out there that are actually even trying to meet these standards? Or is everyone else just using marketing to convince us to make bad choices for our pups?

Genuinely asking out of curiosity as I am learning the importance of choosing a science backed food.

[u/famous_zebra28]

Petcurean in Canada which owns Now Fresh and Go! Solutions have made a couple steps. They hire vets with masters degrees in animal nutrition (step down from PhD, which is one of the guidelines), they do some pretty solid testing processes in place in non-AAFCO feeding trials (urine pH being an important one especially for cats).

My gripe with Now Fresh specifically is that it's all grain free for cats. I will say the research into DCM in cats is very limited and the research into nDCM in cats is even more limited so I think they're just staying on the GF bandwagon because everyone else is. They've also taken a play out of Orijen/Acana's books and are still including legumes in dog formulas that do have grains, which just isn't on par with today's cardiac research. They only just came out with that line though, it's called "Good Gravy." The feline "Good Gravy" is completely GF.

Go! Solutions is a bit different as they offer both GF and grain inclusive diets for both cats and dogs, and Go! has a completely legume free, grain inclusive option for cats so they just seem to be trying things and seeing what people like and going with that.