Protein is an important macronutrient in your dog’s diet. It provides amino acids that the body uses for many normal functions, including the growth, maintenance and repair of tissues.
Alongside protein, dogs also need appropriate amounts of fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients as part of a complete and balanced diet.
Understanding Your Dog’s Protein Needs
Protein is made up of amino acids. Some amino acids can be produced by a dog’s body, while others must be supplied through their diet.
Animal ingredients such as meat, fish and eggs can provide valuable sources of protein and essential amino acids. However, it isn’t accurate to say that dogs can only obtain appropriate amino acids from meat. What matters is that the finished diet provides the essential amino acids a dog needs in appropriate amounts and is nutritionally complete.
When comparing dog foods, it’s also important to understand that the percentage of animal ingredients and the crude protein percentage are not the same measurement.
Animal Ingredients vs Crude Protein
You may see dog foods described using percentages for meat, fish or other animal ingredients. Separately, the analytical constituents will usually provide a crude protein percentage.
These figures tell you different things.
Animal-Ingredient Percentage
This describes how much of the recipe is made from animal-derived ingredients, such as meat, fish or eggs.
Wolfworthy recipes are made with 80% animal ingredients.
Crude Protein
Crude protein is an analytical measurement of the overall protein content of the finished food. It doesn’t tell you what percentage of the recipe is meat, nor does it identify the source or quality of all the protein in the recipe.
Wolfworthy’s finished recipes contain approximately 36–37% crude protein, depending on the recipe.
See how animal-ingredient percentage differs from crude protein.
Amino-Acid Quality
The total amount of protein is only part of the picture.
Proteins are made up of different amino acids, and their amino-acid profiles vary depending on their source. A complete dog food needs to provide the essential amino acids required by dogs in appropriate amounts.
This is why looking at a crude protein percentage alone doesn’t give you the full nutritional picture.
Digestibility
Digestibility refers to how effectively nutrients in a food can be broken down and absorbed by the digestive system.
Two foods displaying the same crude protein percentage may use very different ingredients and formulations. The number on the label therefore doesn’t tell you everything about the nutritional characteristics of the protein or the finished food.
What Should You Look for in a Dog Food?
Rather than choosing a food based solely on the highest protein percentage on the packet, look at the food as a whole.
Read the ingredients list to understand the types of ingredients being used and check the analytical constituents for information such as crude protein and fat.
It’s also useful to consider the sources of protein, the overall formulation and whether the food provides complete and balanced nutrition appropriate for your dog’s life stage.
Understanding what the different percentages on a dog food label actually represent makes it much easier to compare foods fairly.
Protein in Wolfworthy
Wolfworthy recipes are made with 80% animal ingredients, including high levels of freshly prepared meat or fish.
Our freshly prepared meat and fish are human-grade quality and gently cooked at around 82°C (180°F).
The freshly prepared meat naturally contains some bone as part of the raw material. Bone is not added as a separate ingredient.
Our finished recipes contain:
- Original: 36% crude protein
- Oily Fish: 37% crude protein
- Countryside: 37% crude protein
Our Original recipe includes freshly prepared chicken, salmon, trout and free-range eggs, as well as freshly prepared beef liver, hearts and kidneys.
The naturally occurring bone within the freshly prepared meat forms part of the animal ingredients used in the recipe rather than being added as a separate ingredient.
We don’t describe our 80% animal-ingredient content as 80% protein. These figures measure different things: one describes the proportion of animal ingredients used in the recipe, while the other describes the crude protein content of the finished food.
You can see the complete composition and analytical constituents for all three recipes on our Wolfworthy ingredients page.
Choosing a dog food isn’t simply about finding the highest protein number. The ingredients used, amino-acid profile, digestibility and overall nutritional balance should all be considered when choosing a complete food for your dog.
