How to Find the Right Puppy Food?

Host Jennifer: Well, welcome back to another episode and we're going to be talking about, I would say a very important topic and that is what to feed your puppy. Now I have not had the privilege of raising a puppy. I've always adopted and fostered. I would say ages two to three and older.

Host Dan: It's interesting though. It's like, yeah, you, you know, it's folks that tend to rescue and adopt, tend to not have experience with puppies. And it's kinda like if you, more often than not, if you're dealing with puppies, you're dealing with some, a dog that's been bred by a breeder, particularly.

So like Lexi, my girlfriend, huge amount of experience with dogs, all kinds of behavioral issues can have behaviors, like does all kinds of stuff with them. And when we got our puppy, she was like, yeah, it's my first time doing this. I was like, what are you talking about? There's your first son? You know, she was like, I used to job.

All my stuff is adoptions. And so all my dogs have been adults. And then she does these advanced behavior cases at these rescues and stuff. And they're not pumped, like puppies don't have advanced behavior problems yet. It's like that's for adult dogs that have just been like ruined by the system. So maybe this is limits our listenership. Maybe there's not as many folks out here, but this is interesting too. Yeah. I think if, if not, even if you don't have your own puppy, I think we all know someone who has a puppy and this podcast is all about education. And really, as I always say, you know, peeling back the red curtain and saying, look at this, educating them. Um, and I think there's some crossover to thinking, starting to think about adult, dog nutrition. So, uh, regardless we'll, we'll dive in, um, I'm your producer and host Jennifer rolandic. I have here with me as always Dan shoe off, and we're going to be diving into what to feed. What do I feed my puppy? I think, well, you know, we'll work on the title of the episode, but really Dan, I think you have some really good points we're going to run through. Oh yeah. And it's definitely like, you're never more, I don't have any kids. Um, you have kids, you can testify to this, but I've heard it from a lot of parents that feeling of like, I don't know anything about what to do when you have your first kid. And it's like, oh my so intimidated by like, there must, people must know so much and I'm missing out on so much. And I just highlight that at the outset of this, because it's like this puppy stuff. When it coming the issue of choosing what kind of food to feed your puppy is much less complicated than you might fear that it is. It's not that bad. Not that bad. We'll give you some simple things. We're not going to tell you what brands of feed, but we'll give you the simple framework and then you go from there and I promise you to be able to walk into a pet store, figure this out for yourself. I see. Yeah. So how about like the model of just thinking about what, what to look for to go when you're out buying the food, when you're out, trying to find the perfect brand, when you just want to understand the basics, we're here to bring in the basics and we, and you have boiled it down to four there's really these, It was four things definitely that we should talk about. I mean, the first thing, the most important, like it's like, there are a lot of ways that nutritional scientists have studied the nutritional requirements of growing puppies and determined that those requirements are different from the nutritional requirements of adult dogs. So it's not like I'm trying don't don't, let's not get it twisted. Don't interpret this. As Dan said, there's almost nothing that's different about what a puppy requires and what an adult dog requires. Cause that is not what I'm saying. There are definitely big differences. I'm just saying that as a consumer that is choosing what kind of product to choose for your puppy. It's actually pretty simple. You just got a few simple guidelines and you got to make sure you're thinking clearly about what's most important to you as a consumer. And then you shouldn't have that much difficulty. You don't need to feel intimidated by the fact that there's 400 different brands in every pet store. That's all saying we're best for your puppy. Yeah, absolutely. And I would, I would think from a brand standpoint that they want to get on the puppy train. They want to get you in as a puppy owner and then say, oh, well, now that it's this age or this weight, now you can transfer it to this. Or if it has certain sensitivities, now you can transfer to this. So they're trying to buy you in just like they do with a human children of trying to get you in at a young age. Then you fall in love with a brand or you get very comfortable with a brand. And then you say, oh, well, I'll continue to feeding this all through adulthood as well. But I think for a puppy specifically is a lot of people do ask, is this safe? Is it safe? You have This little puppy is a safe, First thing first, then you got to know is that it is possible as you would a suspect or fear or your anxiety would tell you to give your growing puppy food that is not nutritionally sufficient. You have to give it certain kinds of vitamins and minerals in order for it to develop healthfully. If you don't give it the things that it needs, it will develop a deficiency disease. Like what we think of a, you know, something like in the human world, scurvy, you get scurvy. If you don't need vitamin C, right? Something like that. Think about that. You have to make sure you give your puppy all the things that his body needs or else it's not going to develop the way that it's required. The good thing is that you don't have to know what those specific things are. As long as you know what to look for, that indicates they're all in there because puppy food that's sold in the United States today is sold with the blessing of the regulatory body that basically like governs the sale, pet food, pet food. AFCO the association of American feed control officials. I always get it kind of twisted association of American feed control officials. They set the rules for pet food companies. What you have to put in the product, how you have to label it for folks, whatever. And the Mo one of the most important things that they do is they certify some kinds of products as what they call complete and balanced. If your product is a complete, AFCO blessed, AFCO certified, complete and balanced food for some specific life stage of dog or cat, then you have demonstrated to the regulators in a way that they're satisfied with that. It contains the right nutrients for that kind of animal at that right stage in its life. So when it comes to a puppy, what you need to do in order to make sure that you're feeding it a product, that's not going to give it some kind of nutritional deficiency is you want to look for one that indicates on the label that it has been, that it meets AFCOLS requirement for complete and balanced nutrient profile for growth and reproduction. Those are the two phrases to look for complete and balanced growth and reproduction. They shouldn't be hard to find AFCO has got a handy little like logo type thing that a lot of brands just put on there, but it's, it's, there's language there's is required to be put on there. And I mean, I, I feel pretty confident saying that in 99.9 out of every 100 cases, if a brand is being sold in a pet store and it's being framed and marketed as a puppy food, that it meets those things. That even if you're like, I can't find the language, but it's might be in this fine print. If it's out there and somebody saying it's a puppy product, it's because it satisfies those requirements. And so that's how, you know, that's the way that like we, as a society have basically determined, okay, this is what consumers have to look forward to know. This is the right kind of food for a puppy. So AFCO certified complete and balanced product for growth and reproduction, Right? So that is like the safety standards that you're looking for. And it's specific to puppies because adult dog food is Africa. It's maintenance, right? That they Exactly that's what you distinguish it from growth and reproduction is what is the term that Africa uses to refer to the products or the nutritional profile of products that are for both growing puppies and female dogs that are pregnant, that are growing puppies within that they be, I mean, like just w we'll get into in two seconds, like what, in what ways is the growth and reproduction nutrition profile different from the maintenance one, but like broadly speaking, it's about like, you need to put of the nutrients that are necessary for growth into the growth and reproduction formula. It's like, whether you're you're pregnant, bitch is growing puppies inside her belly, or whether your puppy itself is already been born, but it's still growing rapidly. That's different from an adult dog that is just needs, its size is just being maintained. It's not growing, its bones are not growing anymore. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a very crucial moment of their, their growth of their life and their, their season of life. And so it makes sense that they need additional, you know, nutrients. It makes sense, but it's, but it's, it's like that whole takeaway, right? It's like, look for these phrases because I remember granted I wasn't racing puppies at the time, but I was looking for specific things for my dogs back in the day. And you do try to think of like, okay, well, what should I be looking for? Cause it is very overwhelming. So I think that's a very good boiler plate, you know, place to start of these key phrases. I mean, I suspect like if you're listening to this podcast, you're serious enough about trying to figure out like what you need to feed your puppy. That first role probably is an additive for you. Like, it's basically, that's like, if you're just like, I got a puppy, can I feed it any food? Or like any brand whatsoever or do I have to limit it to certain kinds? The answer is you have to limit this certain kinds, but like if you're walking into the pet store and you already know, okay, I need a puppy formula. I just don't know which one is best. That first point is like, not for you, you're already past that point already. Right. But, but that being said, like, that's the Final, That's the most important thing, you know, that's something that you can like truly hurt your dog and have lasting impact audit for from, Yeah. I agree. So let's get into the AFCO. Yeah. So what does it mean? What is the, what is different? Like if Africa blesses it as a complete and balanced food for growth and reproduction, what does that mean? What does the nutrition profile look like compared to a food that's just certified as complete and balanced for maintenance for adult dogs? And like I said before, it's basically about adding more in right. Like growth is like we're, we're adding more onto the animal. Like it maintenance the animal doesn't change in size at all. It ends up being the same growth. We need somewhat more of it because there's going to be more tissue at the end of the day. And so more specifically generalizing a little bit here a little bit, but generally speaking, you're talking about more protein overall, right? Protein, everybody knows is the stuff that your skeletal muscles are primarily made out of. It's the stuff that most of your other soft tissues are primarily made out of as well. And because those things are all growing rapidly in puppies, you need more protein in order to allow that to happen. If you don't give your puppy enough protein, it won't have the building blocks that it needs to establish those tissues while it's growing. So I'm roughly a quarter more protein is required to be in a puppy formula by AFCO, then a maintenance formula. Um, now, as we highlighted in our like protein episode, that number that AFCO says, uh, in, at maintenance your, your, your dog food for, in order to meet our complete balanced maintenance profile needs to contain is super low. It's just the bare bare minimum that your dog is going to not develop a deficiency disease. So like we're not taught if you are feeding a product that has anywhere near the amount of protein that is like natural for a dog that a dog like we talked about in the protein episode will choose to eat, or that a Wolf would eat in the wild. You are way above the minimums. That AFCO requires that of both maintenance and a puppy formula. Like the maintenance number is 18% on a dry matter basis. And the puppy number is 22.5%, so four and a half percent more, which works out to about a quarter more. So some, but, but again, both of those numbers way lower than what a dog would choose on its own, what you find in the wild and what all the better products basically. Yes. And you mentioned the protein episode a couple of times. So if you really want to get into the very specific numbers, that's a great, great episode. Absolutely love it. It's how much protein does my dog need and it's, we've already published. It was actually our first episode. So it's a really good starting point. And we're building off of this, of applying it specifically for puppies. So that is very interesting. So about a quarter more protein for puppies, And then similarly, uh, so amino acids are the nutrients like they're off here. It's often that it's, uh, uh, cliche that they're the building blocks of protein. They're like the little, their individual types of nutrients that are altogether classified as proteins, Mino, acids, longer proteins are made out of. There are different kinds of them and nutritional profiles for dog foods and from human foods and whatever, uh, contain specifications about each one. And in the puppy formula, just like the overall protein number needs is somewhat higher than amino acid con uh, content of the product needs to be good. You'll hire two more protein, more amino acids. And again, make sense, right? Because the puppies soft tissues are developing skeletal muscle is getting much, much, much bigger. Like the only place where you can imagine, um, muscle growth, that it all comes close to the rate that you see in like a growing, um, child or puppy, it's like a bodybuilder or something like that, like packing on muscle. That's just par for the course. When you think about like how much muscle is being added to a child's frame to a puppy's frame on a regular basis, they're just like adding tons and tons of muscle because it's just, the muscles are all getting so much bigger. Um, so they need much more protein, much more, uh, amino acids essentially. And how much more, I mean, no acids, do they, Um, it's, it's like there are, they've worked out in the course of like, you know, decades of nutritional science research, how much more is required. They're all generally in the like one and a half to two times the minimum you see in the maintenance. Okay. So double, all right. Makes sense. I mean, like you said, these are the building blocks, right? So we're trying to back on that. That's a, I love the image of puppies being bodybuilders. I mean, we had them on the shower. Rain is rain as a body. You know, my puppy Saint Bernard is six months. He's a hot, more than a hundred pounds now. And he is a steak he's so muscular already. It's insane. Like we have, we have this other Lexi fostered, uh, we showed up with a little like year old Husky type dog the other day. And it's now been staying with us for the past week. And she's sweet and, you know, a good deal older than Wayne, but kind of, puppyish just like the neck and shoulders. Like, she's not a small dog, she's a Husky, like she's the shoulders. And like neck of it's just completely insane. He's just so thick. Like he just sold huge animal. And in case you didn't catch on the other episode, Wayne is Dan St. Bernard puppies. He is big. He is Fifi. He is, he is so beautiful though. Um, so yeah. Yeah. All right. Muscles and soft tissue is not the only thing that is growing rapidly and puppies bones are obviously growing really rapidly too. And for that reason, there are different requirements surrounding calcium and phosphorous, which are micronutrients that are very important for both adults and puppies and, uh, are, are needed in higher quantities in growing puppies to support the skeletal growth that puppies go through. Right? Th th thing that takes a puppy from being, um, you know, 10 inches long when it's an infant to being whatever Wayne is now like 50 inches long or something like that, that's skeletal growth, right? And so you need more calcium and phosphorus. And so the nutritional profile reflects that as well. And then there's just like a handful of other kinds of vitamins and minerals. Uh, there are things like, you know, the brain is developing more quickly when it's a puppy than it is once it's an adult, you can't teach an old dog new tricks with is once it's an adult. And there's some nutrients things like fatty acids, specific kinds of fatty acids that have really complicated names that get shortened into acronyms, um, that are required in greater concentrations. But again, you don't have to remember any of that. Like AFCO has done all of that work. They've reviewed all of the relevant research, put together committees of people who are all familiar with that research. And over the course of like iterative work every year, updating come to like understand, you need to make sure it's above these levels for all these various nutrients or else the puppy's not going to get everything that it needs and it's not going to develop appropriately. And so all you got to look for is to certification, but those are the ways that if you want to, like, like you said, pull back the curtain a little bit and understand what AFCO is certifying. Those are the kind of general things, more protein, more amino acids, higher calcium phosphorous content. And then there are a handful of other vitamins and minerals that are kind of like for other things that aren't kind of like as, as large-scale Right. The dog's soul means. Yeah. You're saying the why you're telling the why behind all of these things. And I think it's very interesting, again, as someone who really has primarily dealt with adult or senior dogs is just the comparison. Okay. Like this is 25% more, this is double, this is, this is that it's, you know, just to understand the equations, I guess, or the proportions, um, to help provide that for the puppy hood, uh, season. So that's really interesting. And I think what's also really interesting. Again, we always joke cause I am from the small breed world. You're from the large breed world is the whole, I guess you could say it's special nutrition. I don't know, standard for large breed dogs. So this is the only place where there's like anything resembling a confusing issue on surrounding. Like what's a feed a puppy. The issue is that large breed dogs, um, in some cases have been shown to need less calcium that like, if you give them too much calcium, they're, their genes are wired to grow so much when they're puppies, their skeleton is growing so quickly that if you give it too much of the fuel that it needs to grow, it'll basically like grow too much. You'll get like a growth deformity. And so there's a cluster of studies that have been performed. They've all, every single time this work has been done inside. It, it's all done on great Danes. Um, the, like the implications of the research have been applied much more widely and it's kind of, to me, the, the logic isn't like super solid, but basically every time the study has been done, it's been done on great Danes. And what the study is, is if you give the animal too much calcium, when it's a puppy, it can develop too quick. The bones can grow too much in the wrong kinds of ways. You end up with a dog, that's got deformities that are going to make it somewhat. We're not talking about like growing a fifth limb or something like that, but like ratios and proportions, um, being incorrect and being unsound. And so the dog might have trouble moving. It might develop some kind of like other, uh, determinative kind of joint problems as it gets older. It might be something even worse than that. But basically there's a, there's enough scientific evidence that says that if you don't restrain the amount of calcium that very large breeds get that they're potentially going to get growth deformities that it's now, that's now a part of the regulatory system. And so that's the one weird thing about puppies is that if you've got a large breed puppy, you need to look for an AFCO certification. That accounts for that, there's a different AFCO standard for large breed puppies. And for everybody else's puppy growth and reproduction generally. And again, you'll see this called out in the language, it'll say for instance, and this is like the products that our company Keats Akido national mix, uh, this is the language that's on them. It says AFCO certified for all life stages, except for the growth of large breed puppies. And you'll see a called out if it's an inappropriate, if it's not calcium restricted in that kind of way, you'll see it called out in that exact same kind of like really clear language on there. Um, but that's the idea. If you've got a puppy that's very large giant breed like Wayne, you need to make sure that you're feeding it a calcium restricted diet. And you want to look for that specific call-out in the language. You don't have to worry about trying to calculate any numbers, yourself, looking at the amount of calcium and trying to figure it out. Africa has done that work for you, but you do need to look for the specific language And large breed. Remind me again, how many pounds? Well, so, this is where I said, like, I feel like the logic has been extended unfairly. I don't have like a, you know, I, I don't think anybody's getting like hurt by this interpretation of the evidence, but I also don't think it's right. Um, like I said, all the research has been done on great Danes and those are dogs that are, you know, well over a hundred pounds on average and some of the tallest dogs in the world AFCO calls large breed it for this purpose. Anything over 70 pounds is an adult. So you're lumping in, you know, tens of millions of dogs that are not the do not grow at the same rate, even close to great Danes. And that there's no ever nobody's ever, ever actually done a study on Labrador retrievers and said, okay, if we give it too much calcium, it's going to end up growing weird. That's never been done. And so it's always a little bit weird to me. You could see it in the committee notes, nobody ever liked talks through why they've done that. Um, but again, nobody's getting hurt by it. There's not like I'm saying that, um, uh, you know, if you're feeding a large breed puppy formula to a dog, that's, um, going to be 75 pounds as an adult that, oh, no, that's so wrong. Like, no, there's nothing really wrong with it. It's just kind of a case of like, I can't understand why they're doing something like that, but anyway, it goes eyes. Yeah. It's 70 pounds or more as an adult, Right? Yeah. That is really interesting when you were talking about it. That was the first thing. So I was like, why only great Danes Cause they grow so darn fast. I think, I mean, it's more, to me it's more like why 70 pounds? Why not just refer to it as, I mean, I guess I can imagine if I'm putting on my speculation hat here. So this is not me telling you anything I know for search. Yeah, yeah. Right. Um, you know, you can speculate around like, okay, well let's be safe. You know what I mean? Let's just like better safe than, sorry, let's say 70 pounds. Cause God, it would sure stink if even though we've only studied great Danes, that it's the same thing applies to a 75 pound dog. That would be my, if I'm being charitable interpretation, if I was being cynical, I might say that, well, let's carve out a big specialty so that we can allow there to be specialty products that can be sold and basically like help market specialty products, but We'll speculation, but I wouldn't lose any sleep if you've got a lab or something like that. And you realize after three months of feeding at some food that, oh my God, this is not a large breed puppy formula. I wouldn't lose any sleep over that. I would. I mean, again, I, I don't think there's anything that you're, there's no way in which the nutritional profile becomes inadequate. If you move a dog onto a large breed puppy formula when it hasn't been. Um, so I wouldn't worry about it too much, but I also wouldn't, wouldn't say like don't, don't bother making the switch. Yeah, no, that's all great advice. And I think when you were talking through kind of like the large breeds, it's just, we have to, you know, just kind of going to the claims and all of these from large breeds to small breeds, there's a lot of universal language that brands use, uh, for better, for worse, for worse or for worse. We'll, we'll get into this more intensely. We'll touch on it here, but we do get into things more intensely in our label review here too. So just want to kind of call that out of this is such a good topic, but we'll touch on it here. Um, as well as, um, additional episodes, but less, those are some health claims, Right? Uh, and you got an example, right? Like if anybody's watching this in the video version, um, general pull up an example that we can use as a reference, as a Purina pro plan product. And so, you know, that there's some common type of like marketing behavior that you see around puppy products. And I think just like having a little bit of an explanation, uh, is helpful. Um, so what you'll often see done when someone is selling a puppy formula is they will highlight the ways in which, um, the nutritional content of the product, um, goes above and beyond the adult maintenance requirements. Like basically, wait, let me see. It might be easier to kind of like highlight some specific examples. So on the look, what she's got pulled up here in this pro plan product, there's basically like a claim about what's called DHA there's claims. And this is really common in puppy formulas. You'll see some kind of claim about brain health, cognitive development supports cognitive development, supports brain health for your growing puppy improves it's you won't see language that says like improves learning, you'll see like supports healthy development of cognitive function or something to that. Yeah, it has here. I know the Texas so small. Um, unfortunately it is what it is, but under DHA from Purina, they were to from omega rich fish oil, nourishes brain and vision development. So that's an interesting call out as well. But, but so that's true. A hundred percent. It's true. It's not like I'm telling you anything. That's like, uh, yeah, these guys are saying this on the label, but it's not true. It was like, no, no, no. It is true. The issue is that it's true of every formula that meets ASCO's pub growth reproduction standard. Right? The idea here is they're saying this is something DHA. This, this, um, fatty acid is something that is not required in adult maintenance formulas, because it's not it's needed for these developmental, uh, activities that are highlighted here. So in a maintenance formula, there is no DHA requirement in a puppy formula in a growth and reproduction formula. There is. So the calling it out here is accurate. Okay. Yes, this is used for that function, but every other puppy formula that meets opcos growth and reproduction standard includes that too. So it's not that it's, um, it's, it's misleading in the sense that it tries to make itself look like it's doing something special when reality, this doesn't differentiate it from any of the other puppy products that you're seeing out there. Yeah. Certainly the positioning is very much a Purina or insert brand here, you know, DHA call-out as an it, if I were to look at this, not really knowing anything, it does make it seem like an added or an enhanced ingredient for just puppies to be able to nourish or support like the specific thing. Um, like you said, this is an essential ingredient that AFCO does require, Right? It's not like, like, you know, you could choose maybe you're somebody and I'm not advocating for this, but I'm just like, if you're somebody that's like, I think the most important thing is I want to make sure that I feed my dog, um, a protein source. That's red meat only. So I'm not going to feed a chicken formula or fish for, and if you'd have red meat formula only, well, you can look at your you're gonna be able to find that information on the bag. You're gonna see there's this like red meat formula. That's different from the chicken for it. You know, you'll be able to notice just from what's on the label, that this is the kind of thing that's right. For me, that's consistent with what I want for my dog. What you see here with regards to the call. It a DHA is not like that, that it makes you feel that way where it's like, oh, this is a product with DHA. That's different from all these other puppy foods. It's like, no, no, no, they all contain that. It's just a clever way to kind of like, make it look like it's got a whole panoply, whole, whole assortment of different puppy, specific nutrients. It's like, well, it does. But so to all the other products, Right? Yeah. I think it's just an important note where we're kind of flattening the curve, right? For all of these brands, it's like, well, they, to be able to have a puppy formula, they have DHA, they have all of these other, like you said, at the beginning of the podcast, the vitamins minerals, the D you know, the protein percentage, all of that is meeting standard. Like that is, I think, I mean, I can't see, you know, the language is really small, but it's like, it says something about protein too. It's like same concept, right? It's like more approach supports, you know, you're pumping scrubs. It's like, yes, it does. But don't just, don't view it as being unique in doing that. Like, don't be like, well, this one has DHA as if to say the others don't, um, I guess take home. If I'm thinking about shopping for a puppy, really simple framework applause in my eyes, um, this is not something that's sufficient to get you to the brand that you want, but it's sufficient to combine with your own preferences surrounding brand choice in the first instance and apply those to a puppy. So, number one is you need to look for something that meets after that's got the certification that it meets AFCO is complete and balanced requirement for growth and reproduction. And if you've got a puppy that is going to be more than 70 pounds as an adult, you want to look for the additional language. You want to make sure that it's also certified as being appropriate for large breed puppies. Um, if you do that, if you can make sure that you tick that box, then you're going to make sure your puppy does not develop any kind of deficiency disease. You're not going to do anything wrong. This is sort of about like avoiding the wrong for the puppy. Um, step number two, do your best to dissociate from the halo health halo is, are yours call it the health Claims? Yeah. Like these, what we're trying to highlight there a second ago, I hope it like made sense. These additional little like nuggets of we've got it includes this for this. It includes antioxidants for this, all that is true, but not helpful because it's also true of all the other products that have met AFCO is complete and balanced requirement. They're just marketed somewhat differently. They all contain that same stuff that Purina is highlighting is as a product containing. So you get through those two things and you might say, okay, well that hasn't narrowed the universe of products down at all. And that's sort of true where it gets you to is okay. Once you certify, once you make sure you've ticked both of those boxes, then it's about what are the choices that you're, if, if outside of puppy world, what do you think is best for your dog? What are the issues we've talked about? Lots of them. We have, I have a pretty well-developed sense of like, what are the most important things for me when deciding what to feed my dog. And it's like, once you cross those two things off the list, then you get back into that realm. What's most important to you? Is it the nutritional makeup of the product? Do you want to feed, like I do a product with essentially as much protein and as little dietary carbohydrate as possible because it's been shown to be more helpful for the animal. Are you somebody for whom source of ingredients is more important? I want to know that this is built entirely around animals that were raised using sustainable or ethical practices. Are you somebody that very ingredient specific? I want to make sure that my dog doesn't eat any, um, kelp or only eats, uh, protein from red meat sources, things like that. Um, but it's basically like, what I'm trying to say is that you walk into any puppy like food, uh, decision-making product decision-making with those kinds of things already ingrained. And we've talked at this episode, other episodes about our perspectives on what those things ought to be. But if you're taking those and applying them to the puppy world, really all you gotta do is look for the AFCO certification. Make sure you take that large breed puppy thing into account. And then don't try to ignore as much as possible. The like little health halo claims surrounding development, because they apply to all the products. Yeah. That is such a great wrap up. And I know right Before We sign off, it's really important to highlight, always consult with your vet. We're not veterinarians, and you should always, um, really default to your vets li guidance and just really advice in terms of your specific puppy. Um, and in this. So we're just the whole thing about feed your dog. Facts is breaking down the facts and just setting out what I consider pillars of information and all these building blocks of, oh, that's what it means when it says this. Just like how you broke down the packaging of, it's not that just this one brand has DHA for puppies, it's that they have to require. AFCO requires that to be within the formula. So great episode. I love this. I really hope we've helped some puppy odor out there in the universe. And thank you so much for listening until next time. I hope everybody that, uh, that's got a little pup. That's bringing lots of joy to their life. Got something out of this as well. I'm going to go play with my puppy right now. I think It's nice out here. It's Time for him to go outside. Um, yeah. Thanks everybody. Take care. Thank you for listening. Well, welcome back to another episode and we're going to be talking about, I would say a very important topic and that is what to feed your puppy. Now I have not had the privilege of raising a puppy. I've always adopted and fostered. I would say ages two to three and older. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know. Matty. You got how She was. Uh, she was about a year old, so, and we'll talk about like what defines a pub, you know, how old they are to be a puppy? Um, yes. And then Teddy was, uh, five years old. So that, and that's been the average age, usually of my dogs that passed through my life. Um, but you have a puppy I've done puppies before. It's interesting though. It's like, yeah, you, you know, it's folks that tend to rescue and adopt, tend to not have experience with puppies. And it's kinda like if you, more often than not, if you're dealing with puppies, you're dealing with some, a dog that's been bred by a breeder, particularly. So like Lexi, my girlfriend, huge amount of experience with dogs, all kinds of behavioral issues can have behaviors, like does all kinds of stuff with them. And when we got our puppy, she was like, yeah, it's my first time doing this. I was like, what are you talking about? There's your first son? You know, she was like, I used to job. All my stuff is adoptions. And so all my dogs have been adults. And then she does these advanced behavior cases at these rescues and stuff. And they're not pumped, like puppies don't have advanced behavior problems yet. It's like that's for adult dogs that have just been like ruined by the system. So maybe this is limits our listenership. Maybe there's not as many folks out here, but this is interesting too. Yeah. I think if, if not, even if you don't have your own puppy, I think we all know someone who has a puppy and this podcast is all about education. And really, as I always say, you know, peeling back the red curtain and saying, look at this, educating them. Um, and I think there's some crossover to thinking, starting to think about adult, dog nutrition. So, uh, regardless we'll, we'll dive in, um, I'm your producer and host Jennifer rolandic. I have here with me as always Dan shoe off, and we're going to be diving into what to feed. What do I feed my puppy? I think, well, you know, we'll work on the title of the episode, but really Dan, I think you have some really good points we're going to run through. Oh yeah. And it's definitely like, you're never more, I don't have any kids. Um, you have kids, you can testify to this, but I've heard it from a lot of parents that feeling of like, I don't know anything about what to do when you have your first kid. And it's like, oh my so intimidated by like, there must, people must know so much and I'm missing out on so much. And I just highlight that at the outset of this, because it's like this puppy stuff. When it coming the issue of choosing what kind of food to feed your puppy is much less complicated than you might fear that it is. It's not that bad. Not that bad. We'll give you some simple things. We're not going to tell you what brands of feed, but we'll give you the simple framework and then you go from there and I promise you to be able to walk into a pet store, figure this out for yourself. I see. Yeah. So how about like the model of just thinking about what, what to look for to go when you're out buying the food, when you're out, trying to find the perfect brand, when you just want to understand the basics, we're here to bring in the basics and we, and you have boiled it down to four there's really these, It was four things definitely that we should talk about. I mean, the first thing, the most important, like it's like, there are a lot of ways that nutritional scientists have studied the nutritional requirements of growing puppies and determined that those requirements are different from the nutritional requirements of adult dogs. So it's not like I'm trying don't don't, let's not get it twisted. Don't interpret this. As Dan said, there's almost nothing that's different about what a puppy requires and what an adult dog requires. Cause that is not what I'm saying. There are definitely big differences. I'm just saying that as a consumer that is choosing what kind of product to choose for your puppy. It's actually pretty simple. You just got a few simple guidelines and you got to make sure you're thinking clearly about what's most important to you as a consumer. And then you shouldn't have that much difficulty. You don't need to feel intimidated by the fact that there's 400 different brands in every pet store. That's all saying we're best for your puppy. Yeah, absolutely. And I would, I would think from a brand standpoint that they want to get on the puppy train. They want to get you in as a puppy owner and then say, oh, well, now that it's this age or this weight, now you can transfer it to this. Or if it has certain sensitivities, now you can transfer to this. So they're trying to buy you in just like they do with a human children of trying to get you in at a young age. Then you fall in love with a brand or you get very comfortable with a brand. And then you say, oh, well, I'll continue to feeding this all through adulthood as well. But I think for a puppy specifically is a lot of people do ask, is this safe? Is it safe? You have This little puppy is a safe, First thing first, then you got to know is that it is possible as you would a suspect or fear or your anxiety would tell you to give your growing puppy food that is not nutritionally sufficient. You have to give it certain kinds of vitamins and minerals in order for it to develop healthfully. If you don't give it the things that it needs, it will develop a deficiency disease. Like what we think of a, you know, something like in the human world, scurvy, you get scurvy. If you don't need vitamin C, right? Something like that. Think about that. You have to make sure you give your puppy all the things that his body needs or else it's not going to develop the way that it's required. The good thing is that you don't have to know what those specific things are. As long as you know what to look for, that indicates they're all in there because puppy food that's sold in the United States today is sold with the blessing of the regulatory body that basically like governs the sale, pet food, pet food. AFCO the association of American feed control officials. I always get it kind of twisted association of American feed control officials. They set the rules for pet food companies. What you have to put in the product, how you have to label it for folks, whatever. And the Mo one of the most important things that they do is they certify some kinds of products as what they call complete and balanced. If your product is a complete, AFCO blessed, AFCO certified, complete and balanced food for some specific life stage of dog or cat, then you have demonstrated to the regulators in a way that they're satisfied with that. It contains the right nutrients for that kind of animal at that right stage in its life. So when it comes to a puppy, what you need to do in order to make sure that you're feeding it a product, that's not going to give it some kind of nutritional deficiency is you want to look for one that indicates on the label that it has been, that it meets AFCOLS requirement for complete and balanced nutrient profile for growth and reproduction. Those are the two phrases to look for complete and balanced growth and reproduction. They shouldn't be hard to find AFCO has got a handy little like logo type thing that a lot of brands just put on there, but it's, it's, there's language there's is required to be put on there. And I mean, I, I feel pretty confident saying that in 99.9 out of every 100 cases, if a brand is being sold in a pet store and it's being framed and marketed as a puppy food, that it meets those things. That even if you're like, I can't find the language, but it's might be in this fine print. If it's out there and somebody saying it's a puppy product, it's because it satisfies those requirements. And so that's how, you know, that's the way that like we, as a society have basically determined, okay, this is what consumers have to look forward to know. This is the right kind of food for a puppy. So AFCO certified complete and balanced product for growth and reproduction, Right? So that is like the safety standards that you're looking for. And it's specific to puppies because adult dog food is Africa. It's maintenance, right? That they Exactly that's what you distinguish it from growth and reproduction is what is the term that Africa uses to refer to the products or the nutritional profile of products that are for both growing puppies and female dogs that are pregnant, that are growing puppies within that they be, I mean, like just w we'll get into in two seconds, like what, in what ways is the growth and reproduction nutrition profile different from the maintenance one, but like broadly speaking, it's about like, you need to put of the nutrients that are necessary for growth into the growth and reproduction formula. It's like, whether you're you're pregnant, bitch is growing puppies inside her belly, or whether your puppy itself is already been born, but it's still growing rapidly. That's different from an adult dog that is just needs, its size is just being maintained. It's not growing, its bones are not growing anymore. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a very crucial moment of their, their growth of their life and their, their season of life. And so it makes sense that they need additional, you know, nutrients. It makes sense, but it's, but it's, it's like that whole takeaway, right? It's like, look for these phrases because I remember granted I wasn't racing puppies at the time, but I was looking for specific things for my dogs back in the day. And you do try to think of like, okay, well, what should I be looking for? Cause it is very overwhelming. So I think that's a very good boiler plate, you know, place to start of these key phrases. I mean, I suspect like if you're listening to this podcast, you're serious enough about trying to figure out like what you need to feed your puppy. That first role probably is an additive for you. Like, it's basically, that's like, if you're just like, I got a puppy, can I feed it any food? Or like any brand whatsoever or do I have to limit it to certain kinds? The answer is you have to limit this certain kinds, but like if you're walking into the pet store and you already know, okay, I need a puppy formula. I just don't know which one is best. That first point is like, not for you, you're already past that point already. Right. But, but that being said, like, that's the Final, That's the most important thing, you know, that's something that you can like truly hurt your dog and have lasting impact audit for from, Yeah. I agree. So let's get into the AFCO. Yeah. So what does it mean? What is the, what is different? Like if Africa blesses it as a complete and balanced food for growth and reproduction, what does that mean? What does the nutrition profile look like compared to a food that's just certified as complete and balanced for maintenance for adult dogs? And like I said before, it's basically about adding more in right. Like growth is like we're, we're adding more onto the animal. Like it maintenance the animal doesn't change in size at all. It ends up being the same growth. We need somewhat more of it because there's going to be more tissue at the end of the day. And so more specifically generalizing a little bit here a little bit, but generally speaking, you're talking about more protein overall, right? Protein, everybody knows is the stuff that your skeletal muscles are primarily made out of. It's the stuff that most of your other soft tissues are primarily made out of as well. And because those things are all growing rapidly in puppies, you need more protein in order to allow that to happen. If you don't give your puppy enough protein, it won't have the building blocks that it needs to establish those tissues while it's growing. So I'm roughly a quarter more protein is required to be in a puppy formula by AFCO, then a maintenance formula. Um, now, as we highlighted in our like protein episode, that number that AFCO says, uh, in, at maintenance your, your, your dog food for, in order to meet our complete balanced maintenance profile needs to contain is super low. It's just the bare bare minimum that your dog is going to not develop a deficiency disease. So like we're not taught if you are feeding a product that has anywhere near the amount of protein that is like natural for a dog that a dog like we talked about in the protein episode will choose to eat, or that a Wolf would eat in the wild. You are way above the minimums. That AFCO requires that of both maintenance and a puppy formula. Like the maintenance number is 18% on a dry matter basis. And the puppy number is 22.5%, so four and a half percent more, which works out to about a quarter more. So some, but, but again, both of those numbers way lower than what a dog would choose on its own, what you find in the wild and what all the better products basically. Yes. And you mentioned the protein episode a couple of times. So if you really want to get into the very specific numbers, that's a great, great episode. Absolutely love it. It's how much protein does my dog need and it's, we've already published. It was actually our first episode. So it's a really good starting point. And we're building off of this, of applying it specifically for puppies. So that is very interesting. So about a quarter more protein for puppies, And then similarly, uh, so amino acids are the nutrients like they're off here. It's often that it's, uh, uh, cliche that they're the building blocks of protein. They're like the little, their individual types of nutrients that are altogether classified as proteins, Mino, acids, longer proteins are made out of. There are different kinds of them and nutritional profiles for dog foods and from human foods and whatever, uh, contain specifications about each one. And in the puppy formula, just like the overall protein number needs is somewhat higher than amino acid con uh, content of the product needs to be good. You'll hire two more protein, more amino acids. And again, make sense, right? Because the puppies soft tissues are developing skeletal muscle is getting much, much, much bigger. Like the only place where you can imagine, um, muscle growth, that it all comes close to the rate that you see in like a growing, um, child or puppy, it's like a bodybuilder or something like that, like packing on muscle. That's just par for the course. When you think about like how much muscle is being added to a child's frame to a puppy's frame on a regular basis, they're just like adding tons and tons of muscle because it's just, the muscles are all getting so much bigger. Um, so they need much more protein, much more, uh, amino acids essentially. And how much more, I mean, no acids, do they, Um, it's, it's like there are, they've worked out in the course of like, you know, decades of nutritional science research, how much more is required. They're all generally in the like one and a half to two times the minimum you see in the maintenance. Okay. So double, all right. Makes sense. I mean, like you said, these are the building blocks, right? So we're trying to back on that. That's a, I love the image of puppies being bodybuilders. I mean, we had them on the shower. Rain is rain as a body. You know, my puppy Saint Bernard is six months. He's a hot, more than a hundred pounds now. And he is a steak he's so muscular already. It's insane. Like we have, we have this other Lexi fostered, uh, we showed up with a little like year old Husky type dog the other day. And it's now been staying with us for the past week. And she's sweet and, you know, a good deal older than Wayne, but kind of, puppyish just like the neck and shoulders. Like, she's not a small dog, she's a Husky, like she's the shoulders. And like neck of it's just completely insane. He's just so thick. Like he just sold huge animal. And in case you didn't catch on the other episode, Wayne is Dan St. Bernard puppies. He is big. He is Fifi. He is, he is so beautiful though. Um, so yeah. Yeah. All right. Muscles and soft tissue is not the only thing that is growing rapidly and puppies bones are obviously growing really rapidly too. And for that reason, there are different requirements surrounding calcium and phosphorous, which are micronutrients that are very important for both adults and puppies and, uh, are, are needed in higher quantities in growing puppies to support the skeletal growth that puppies go through. Right? Th th thing that takes a puppy from being, um, you know, 10 inches long when it's an infant to being whatever Wayne is now like 50 inches long or something like that, that's skeletal growth, right? And so you need more calcium and phosphorus. And so the nutritional profile reflects that as well. And then there's just like a handful of other kinds of vitamins and minerals. Uh, there are things like, you know, the brain is developing more quickly when it's a puppy than it is once it's an adult, you can't teach an old dog new tricks with is once it's an adult. And there's some nutrients things like fatty acids, specific kinds of fatty acids that have really complicated names that get shortened into acronyms, um, that are required in greater concentrations. But again, you don't have to remember any of that. Like AFCO has done all of that work. They've reviewed all of the relevant research, put together committees of people who are all familiar with that research. And over the course of like iterative work every year, updating come to like understand, you need to make sure it's above these levels for all these various nutrients or else the puppy's not going to get everything that it needs and it's not going to develop appropriately. And so all you got to look for is to certification, but those are the ways that if you want to, like, like you said, pull back the curtain a little bit and understand what AFCO is certifying. Those are the kind of general things, more protein, more amino acids, higher calcium phosphorous content. And then there are a handful of other vitamins and minerals that are kind of like for other things that aren't kind of like as, as large-scale Right. The dog's soul means. Yeah. You're saying the why you're telling the why behind all of these things. And I think it's very interesting, again, as someone who really has primarily dealt with adult or senior dogs is just the comparison. Okay. Like this is 25% more, this is double, this is, this is that it's, you know, just to understand the equations, I guess, or the proportions, um, to help provide that for the puppy hood, uh, season. So that's really interesting. And I think what's also really interesting. Again, we always joke cause I am from the small breed world. You're from the large breed world is the whole, I guess you could say it's special nutrition. I don't know, standard for large breed dogs. So this is the only place where there's like anything resembling a confusing issue on surrounding. Like what's a feed a puppy. The issue is that large breed dogs, um, in some cases have been shown to need less calcium that like, if you give them too much calcium, they're, their genes are wired to grow so much when they're puppies, their skeleton is growing so quickly that if you give it too much of the fuel that it needs to grow, it'll basically like grow too much. You'll get like a growth deformity. And so there's a cluster of studies that have been performed. They've all, every single time this work has been done inside. It, it's all done on great Danes. Um, the, like the implications of the research have been applied much more widely and it's kind of, to me, the, the logic isn't like super solid, but basically every time the study has been done, it's been done on great Danes. And what the study is, is if you give the animal too much calcium, when it's a puppy, it can develop too quick. The bones can grow too much in the wrong kinds of ways. You end up with a dog, that's got deformities that are going to make it somewhat. We're not talking about like growing a fifth limb or something like that, but like ratios and proportions, um, being incorrect and being unsound. And so the dog might have trouble moving. It might develop some kind of like other, uh, determinative kind of joint problems as it gets older. It might be something even worse than that. But basically there's a, there's enough scientific evidence that says that if you don't restrain the amount of calcium that very large breeds get that they're potentially going to get growth deformities that it's now, that's now a part of the regulatory system. And so that's the one weird thing about puppies is that if you've got a large breed puppy, you need to look for an AFCO certification. That accounts for that, there's a different AFCO standard for large breed puppies. And for everybody else's puppy growth and reproduction generally. And again, you'll see this called out in the language, it'll say for instance, and this is like the products that our company Keats Akido national mix, uh, this is the language that's on them. It says AFCO certified for all life stages, except for the growth of large breed puppies. And you'll see a called out if it's an inappropriate, if it's not calcium restricted in that kind of way, you'll see it called out in that exact same kind of like really clear language on there. Um, but that's the idea. If you've got a puppy that's very large giant breed like Wayne, you need to make sure that you're feeding it a calcium restricted diet. And you want to look for that specific call-out in the language. You don't have to worry about trying to calculate any numbers, yourself, looking at the amount of calcium and trying to figure it out. Africa has done that work for you, but you do need to look for the specific language And large breed. Remind me again, how many pounds? Well, so, this is where I said, like, I feel like the logic has been extended unfairly. I don't have like a, you know, I, I don't think anybody's getting like hurt by this interpretation of the evidence, but I also don't think it's right. Um, like I said, all the research has been done on great Danes and those are dogs that are, you know, well over a hundred pounds on average and some of the tallest dogs in the world AFCO calls large breed it for this purpose. Anything over 70 pounds is an adult. So you're lumping in, you know, tens of millions of dogs that are not the do not grow at the same rate, even close to great Danes. And that there's no ever nobody's ever, ever actually done a study on Labrador retrievers and said, okay, if we give it too much calcium, it's going to end up growing weird. That's never been done. And so it's always a little bit weird to me. You could see it in the committee notes, nobody ever liked talks through why they've done that. Um, but again, nobody's getting hurt by it. There's not like I'm saying that, um, uh, you know, if you're feeding a large breed puppy formula to a dog, that's, um, going to be 75 pounds as an adult that, oh, no, that's so wrong. Like, no, there's nothing really wrong with it. It's just kind of a case of like, I can't understand why they're doing something like that, but anyway, it goes eyes. Yeah. It's 70 pounds or more as an adult, Right? Yeah. That is really interesting when you were talking about it. That was the first thing. So I was like, why only great Danes Cause they grow so darn fast. I think, I mean, it's more, to me it's more like why 70 pounds? Why not just refer to it as, I mean, I guess I can imagine if I'm putting on my speculation hat here. So this is not me telling you anything I know for search. Yeah, yeah. Right. Um, you know, you can speculate around like, okay, well let's be safe. You know what I mean? Let's just like better safe than, sorry, let's say 70 pounds. Cause God, it would sure stink if even though we've only studied great Danes, that it's the same thing applies to a 75 pound dog. That would be my, if I'm being charitable interpretation, if I was being cynical, I might say that, well, let's carve out a big specialty so that we can allow there to be specialty products that can be sold and basically like help market specialty products, but We'll speculation, but I wouldn't lose any sleep if you've got a lab or something like that. And you realize after three months of feeding at some food that, oh my God, this is not a large breed puppy formula. I wouldn't lose any sleep over that. I would. I mean, again, I, I don't think there's anything that you're, there's no way in which the nutritional profile becomes inadequate. If you move a dog onto a large breed puppy formula when it hasn't been. Um, so I wouldn't worry about it too much, but I also wouldn't, wouldn't say like don't, don't bother making the switch. Yeah, no, that's all great advice. And I think when you were talking through kind of like the large breeds, it's just, we have to, you know, just kind of going to the claims and all of these from large breeds to small breeds, there's a lot of universal language that brands use, uh, for better, for worse, for worse or for worse. We'll, we'll get into this more intensely. We'll touch on it here, but we do get into things more intensely in our label review here too. So just want to kind of call that out of this is such a good topic, but we'll touch on it here. Um, as well as, um, additional episodes, but less, those are some health claims, Right? Uh, and you got an example, right? Like if anybody's watching this in the video version, um, general pull up an example that we can use as a reference, as a Purina pro plan product. And so, you know, that there's some common type of like marketing behavior that you see around puppy products. And I think just like having a little bit of an explanation, uh, is helpful. Um, so what you'll often see done when someone is selling a puppy formula is they will highlight the ways in which, um, the nutritional content of the product, um, goes above and beyond the adult maintenance requirements. Like basically, wait, let me see. It might be easier to kind of like highlight some specific examples. So on the look, what she's got pulled up here in this pro plan product, there's basically like a claim about what's called DHA there's claims. And this is really common in puppy formulas. You'll see some kind of claim about brain health, cognitive development supports cognitive development, supports brain health for your growing puppy improves it's you won't see language that says like improves learning, you'll see like supports healthy development of cognitive function or something to that. Yeah, it has here. I know the Texas so small. Um, unfortunately it is what it is, but under DHA from Purina, they were to from omega rich fish oil, nourishes brain and vision development. So that's an interesting call out as well. But, but so that's true. A hundred percent. It's true. It's not like I'm telling you anything. That's like, uh, yeah, these guys are saying this on the label, but it's not true. It was like, no, no, no. It is true. The issue is that it's true of every formula that meets ASCO's pub growth reproduction standard. Right? The idea here is they're saying this is something DHA. This, this, um, fatty acid is something that is not required in adult maintenance formulas, because it's not it's needed for these developmental, uh, activities that are highlighted here. So in a maintenance formula, there is no DHA requirement in a puppy formula in a growth and reproduction formula. There is. So the calling it out here is accurate. Okay. Yes, this is used for that function, but every other puppy formula that meets opcos growth and reproduction standard includes that too. So it's not that it's, um, it's, it's misleading in the sense that it tries to make itself look like it's doing something special when reality, this doesn't differentiate it from any of the other puppy products that you're seeing out there. Yeah. Certainly the positioning is very much a Purina or insert brand here, you know, DHA call-out as an it, if I were to look at this, not really knowing anything, it does make it seem like an added or an enhanced ingredient for just puppies to be able to nourish or support like the specific thing. Um, like you said, this is an essential ingredient that AFCO does require, Right? It's not like, like, you know, you could choose maybe you're somebody and I'm not advocating for this, but I'm just like, if you're somebody that's like, I think the most important thing is I want to make sure that I feed my dog, um, a protein source. That's red meat only. So I'm not going to feed a chicken formula or fish for, and if you'd have red meat formula only, well, you can look at your you're gonna be able to find that information on the bag. You're gonna see there's this like red meat formula. That's different from the chicken for it. You know, you'll be able to notice just from what's on the label, that this is the kind of thing that's right. For me, that's consistent with what I want for my dog. What you see here with regards to the call. It a DHA is not like that, that it makes you feel that way where it's like, oh, this is a product with DHA. That's different from all these other puppy foods. It's like, no, no, no, they all contain that. It's just a clever way to kind of like, make it look like it's got a whole panoply, whole, whole assortment of different puppy, specific nutrients. It's like, well, it does. But so to all the other products, Right? Yeah. I think it's just an important note where we're kind of flattening the curve, right? For all of these brands, it's like, well, they, to be able to have a puppy formula, they have DHA, they have all of these other, like you said, at the beginning of the podcast, the vitamins minerals, the D you know, the protein percentage, all of that is meeting standard. Like that is, I think, I mean, I can't see, you know, the language is really small, but it's like, it says something about protein too. It's like same concept, right? It's like more approach supports, you know, you're pumping scrubs. It's like, yes, it does. But don't just, don't view it as being unique in doing that. Like, don't be like, well, this one has DHA as if to say the others don't, um, I guess take home. If I'm thinking about shopping for a puppy, really simple framework applause in my eyes, um, this is not something that's sufficient to get you to the brand that you want, but it's sufficient to combine with your own preferences surrounding brand choice in the first instance and apply those to a puppy. So, number one is you need to look for something that meets after that's got the certification that it meets AFCO is complete and balanced requirement for growth and reproduction. And if you've got a puppy that is going to be more than 70 pounds as an adult, you want to look for the additional language. You want to make sure that it's also certified as being appropriate for large breed puppies. Um, if you do that, if you can make sure that you tick that box, then you're going to make sure your puppy does not develop any kind of deficiency disease. You're not going to do anything wrong. This is sort of about like avoiding the wrong for the puppy. Um, step number two, do your best to dissociate from the halo health halo is, are yours call it the health Claims? Yeah. Like these, what we're trying to highlight there a second ago, I hope it like made sense. These additional little like nuggets of we've got it includes this for this. It includes antioxidants for this, all that is true, but not helpful because it's also true of all the other products that have met AFCO is complete and balanced requirement. They're just marketed somewhat differently. They all contain that same stuff that Purina is highlighting is as a product containing. So you get through those two things and you might say, okay, well that hasn't narrowed the universe of products down at all. And that's sort of true where it gets you to is okay. Once you certify, once you make sure you've ticked both of those boxes, then it's about what are the choices that you're, if, if outside of puppy world, what do you think is best for your dog? What are the issues we've talked about? Lots of them. We have, I have a pretty well-developed sense of like, what are the most important things for me when deciding what to feed my dog. And it's like, once you cross those two things off the list, then you get back into that realm. What's most important to you? Is it the nutritional makeup of the product? Do you want to feed, like I do a product with essentially as much protein and as little dietary carbohydrate as possible because it's been shown to be more helpful for the animal. Are you somebody for whom source of ingredients is more important? I want to know that this is built entirely around animals that were raised using sustainable or ethical practices. Are you somebody that very ingredient specific? I want to make sure that my dog doesn't eat any, um, kelp or only eats, uh, protein from red meat sources, things like that. Um, but it's basically like, what I'm trying to say is that you walk into any puppy like food, uh, decision-making product decision-making with those kinds of things already ingrained. And we've talked at this episode, other episodes about our perspectives on what those things ought to be. But if you're taking those and applying them to the puppy world, really all you gotta do is look for the AFCO certification. Make sure you take that large breed puppy thing into account. And then don't try to ignore as much as possible. The like little health halo claims surrounding development, because they apply to all the products. Yeah. That is such a great wrap up. And I know right Before We sign off, it's really important to highlight, always consult with your vet. We're not veterinarians, and you should always, um, really default to your vets li guidance and just really advice in terms of your specific puppy. Um, and in this. So we're just the whole thing about feed your dog. Facts is breaking down the facts and just setting out what I consider pillars of information and all these building blocks of, oh, that's what it means when it says this. Just like how you broke down the packaging of, it's not that just this one brand has DHA for puppies, it's that they have to require. AFCO requires that to be within the formula. So great episode. I love this. I really hope we've helped some puppy odor out there in the universe. And thank you so much for listening until next time. I hope everybody that, uh, that's got a little pup. That's bringing lots of joy to their life. Got something out of this as well. I'm going to go play with my puppy right now. I think It's nice out here. It's Time for him to go outside. Um, yeah. Thanks everybody. Take care. Thank you for listening.