The Dog Park: Recent Episodes
Brian Berger
The Dog Park is the dog training podcast for owners focused on learning the why and not just the how! We want to broach some polarizing topics, get several differing opinions, and help educate as many people as possible in this world of over-saturated information. Learn why our canine companions do what they do and how you can change your relationship with them for the better.
What we’re covering this week:
- How to read a pet food label, and what regulations are required for various countries?
- What is the difference between canned food and dry food in terms of protein and water content?
- What is the difference between canned food and dry food in terms of proteins, vitamins, fat, water content, etc.?
After listening through this episode, remember that there are the 5 different rules when reading a dog food label from the AAFCO: 100%, 95%, 25%, 3%, Flavor Rule!
I don't know about you guys, but this has definitely changed how I go through the pet store looking at dog foods! I was even in the kitchen the other night checking out Baby Girl's cat food label! It really does apply to a large majority of foods.
Here are the equations and a small recap of the "mathy" portion of the podcast. I know that it can be hard to follow along with just audio for some of you visual learners out there:
Formulas
Dry matter content:
- 100% - Moisture Content = dry matter content
Protein dry matter content:
-Protein content / dry matter content x 100% = Protein dry matter content
Example with Dry Food: Blue Buffalo
First, we want to find the moisture content. In this example, the package label we’re looking at has a moisture content of 10.0%. So we would first use the formula to find Dry Matter content, which is 100% - 10% = 90%. So we know that dry matter for this food is 90%. Next, we need to find the protein dry matter content. We’ll use the formula of Protein content (this food has 24%), then divide that by the dry matter content that we just found (90%), which = 0.26. When we multiply this by 100%, we get 26.6%!
Example with Wet Food: Blue Buffalo
The Moisture content is 78%, which seems like a lot compared to dry food. So to first find the dry matter content, we need to take 100% - 78%, which gives us 22% Dry Matter Content. The protein content for this wet food is 8%, which also seems low compared to dry food. But let's find that protein dry matter content. So we take the 8% protein content and divide that by the dry matter content (22%), which gets us 0.363. When we multiply that by 100, we get 36.3% Protein Dry Matter Content.
Thanks so much for listening, guys. If you have questions or have an idea about a future episode that you might like to hear, please don't hesitate to reach out to us on any of our social media platforms!
Instagram
Facebook
Urban Canine RVA
Very excited about this mini-series for The Dog Park! We're talking all about nutrition, dog food, and dog weight!
I know that this is a topic that many of you are interested in and is something that I get asked about regularly!
This is definitely a shorter format for the podcast length, but I wanted to break all of this up into small digestible segments so that it makes as much sense as possible!
Here is a link to a good doc that has all of the information, graphs, and charts that we talk about in the podcast episode. If you have any questions about the things we discussed in the episode today, please don't hesitate to reach out and ask!
The best place to do so is one of our social media pages! While you're there, give us a follow and join us on Mondays to give feedback and future podcast episode ideas. We love the feedback and are excited to continue providing as much quality information as possible!
This week we have John Justice, owner of Rockhouse K9, with us. John is a good friend from dog school; we talk about training regularly! He has extensive knowledge of working with dogs in groups and significantly more knowledge than me regarding service dog training. Today we're going to talk about some exciting topics and more!
Here are some of Rockhouse K9's links:
Facebook Page
Website
Show John some love, I loved having him on this week, and I'm sure he'll be back to join us!
Below are some of the links for Urban Canine RVA; if you've got questions or would like additional information on any topics we talked about, you know where to ask 'em!
Instagram
Website
For our first episode, my good friend Joe Perez with Outlier Canines brings some of his puppy expertise to the table as we talk about some of the best things you can do with your young pups and some of the most challenging things to work on.