Dog nutrition has become a contested area with commercial, raw, and homemade diets all promoted with welfare claims, yet the evidence base for optimal dog nutrition is more limited than marketing suggests.
Canine dietary welfare is compromised both by poor-quality commercial diets that fail to meet nutritional needs and by fashionable alternative diets that may introduce new risks. Dogs fed nutritionally complete, age-appropriate commercial diets from reputable manufacturers typically have excellent health outcomes. Dietary experimentation based on marketing claims rather than veterinary evidence creates preventable welfare risks.