Digestibility of Performance Dog Foods

Today's dog food world can be compared to the American wild west of a begone era. There are very few laws and even fewer law enforcing regulators. Fact is, even federal agencies charged with providing product assurance do not require pet food manufacturer's to list how high or low the quality of their ingredients are on their labels. This makes it difficult to compare products of differing brands. However, many high quality food manufacturers are more than welcome to run independent "digestibility studies" to verify the quality of their ingredients and food formula's. Make note: if a company does not run these type of studies or is apprehensive about making these quantitative digestibility numbers public information...please rise now and raise the red flag of concern.

Here is where the proverbial rubber meets the road. There is an inverse relationship between a food's digestibility and the resulting fecal volume.

• Factoid: The HIGHER the digestibility of a dog food, the LOWER the fecal volume.

A dog(and any other living organism) can digest and utilize more nutrients in a higher digestible food therefore less stool is eliminated. I think this is simple science everybody can easily understand. To research the digestibility of your own dog's food normally requires a call to the manufacturer to get their foods combined protein digestibility percentage(although not required to be put on bags some high quality, reputable manufacturers display this information readily on their website)

There is a basic mathematical formula to determine the overall digestibility of the protein source. Take the crude protein percentage(found on bag) multiplied by the digestibility percentage(found by calling manufacturer) equals the true digestibility of the protein source. For example if the crude protein is 30% and protein digestibility is 84.6% multiply: 30 x 0.8460 = 25.38%. There you have it! A very quick and efficient method to discover how truly digestible the protein portion of your dog's food really is.


If you're feeding multiple gun dogs it is a good idea to know how digestible the food really is. It will save you a ton of money in the long run! The more they absorb during digestion, the less you need to feed!


Individual protein sources contain different levels of amino acids and each protein is different in its ability to be broken down into these amino acids. Hence, not all proteins are created equal as some are better than others. The ability of a protein to be used by the dog and its amount of usable amino acids is summarized as protein quality  or Biological Value, BV for short. Egg has the highest BV and sets the benchmark standard for which other proteins are judged at a 100 score. Fish meal are close behind with a value of 92. Beef is around 78 and soybean meal is 67. Meat and bone meal and wheat are around 50 and corn is 45.  These are just a few examples of the individual digestibility of common ingredients.

The bottom line is certain proteins are hard for dogs to digest therefore they pass them without absorbing the needed nutrients in a timely manner. The result can hit your wallet or pocket book as well. The lower the digestibility of the food the MORE your have to feed to fulfill your dogs needs. The higher of course, the less! Hopefully by using the basic formula posted above and doing your own research and due diligence the conscience gun dog owner can get to the "meat" of the food he or she is shelling out hard earned cash for every month. Sorry, Pun completely intended.

Best of Luck Out There. -Mark