Proper nutrition is foundational to dog welfare, yet the pet food market is confusing and nutritional advice is often influenced by commercial interests.
Nutritional welfare in dogs is complicated by a pet food market that prioritizes marketing over nutritional science, and by the proliferation of feeding philosophies including raw, grain-free, and homemade diets that are often based on anecdote rather than evidence. The most prevalent nutritional welfare problem is overfeeding causing obesity, which causes chronic joint pain, metabolic disease, and shortened lifespan. At the opposite extreme, nutritionally imbalanced homemade or inappropriately formulated raw diets cause specific deficiency diseases. Veterinary nutritional guidance based on evidence rather than commercial interests is the most reliable source of advice for dogs with specific health conditions.