By now you are sure to have come across the term 80 10 10 raw dog food. This is a phrase related to the relative proportions of whole muscle meat, offal, and bone content in raw dog food. With the best of intentions it’s meant to mimic the whole prey model of wolves; i.e. if your domesticated wolf were to hunt in the wild, they would be eating rabbits and other small prey that contain 80% muscle, 10% offal and 10% bone.
The problem with idealizing 80 10 10 raw dog food diet is threefold. To begin your pup is not a wolf, they are a domesticated animal with unique nutritional needs. Next, wolves and domestic dogs are scavengers. If left to their own devices dogs (and wolves) will eat lots of things including grass, berries, vegetables and delicious smelling trash. In the wild dogs and wolves can sense what nutrients they are lacking and forage for suitable sources. Unlike cats they are not obligate carnivores, dogs need a varied diet.
Finally even if the parallel to dogs needing an 80 10 10 raw dog food were true, this is not an accurate representation of the whole prey model. It does not account for things like blood content, fat percentage, hair, hooves, stomach etc. When you boil it down, 80 10 10 raw dog food is a vast oversimplification of a diet plan.
Consider this, you are responsible for 100% of your dog’s nutrition. If you were to only feed them raw meat every day you would quickly end up with a malnourished dog that insisted on eating grass with every walk.
When creating Acabonac Pet we worked with a leading pet nutritionist to create a 100% complete dog food that has all the vitamins, minerals, essential amino acids and fiber your dog would naturally be scavenging in the wild. We found that by adding these nutrition packed extras we moved far away from the 80 10 10 raw dog food model and ended up creating a totally new food that’s 100% complete, convenient and the best food for your pup.
80 10 10 raw dog food is a great marketing catch phrase, but at the end of the day we would rather produce a food that’s great for dogs and helps them thrive.