If you’ve spent any time researching dog food online, you’ve undoubtedly encountered passionate debates about WSAVA guidelines and the “big five” pet food companies that meet them. These discussions often position WSAVA compliance as the ultimate benchmark for quality nutrition, dismissing other options as inferior or even dangerous. While these guidelines contain valuable elements, they present an incomplete picture of what constitutes optimal nutrition for your dog. Let’s explore why relying solely on WSAVA compliance might limit your options and potentially your dog’s wellbeing. 

Disclaimer: This article is meant for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for veterinary advice.

Exploring WSAVA Pet Food Guidelines: Questions Worth Asking

The World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) has developed influential pet food selection guidelines that many veterinarians reference worldwide. While WSAVA’s broader mission focuses on advancing veterinary medicine globally, particularly in developing regions, their pet food guidelines emphasize specific corporate structures, credentials and resources typically found only in large multinational companies.

When examining these guidelines closely, several thought-provoking questions emerge:

• Why do WSAVA’s guidelines place such significant emphasis on corporate infrastructure (full-time nutritionists, owned manufacturing facilities) rather than focusing primarily on nutritional outcomes?
• What considerations led WSAVA to develop criteria that effectively exclude all but the largest multinational pet food manufacturers?
• How might the focus on corporate structure rather than end-product testing or transparency affect innovation in the pet food industry?
• What alternative criteria might better evaluate nutritional quality without inherently favouring specific corporate structures and substantial financial resources?

What Exactly Are These Guidelines, Anyway?

Online pet forums are filled with passionate advocates insisting that responsible pet owners must feed a “WSAVA-compliant” brand. But what does this actually mean? Let’s break down what these guidelines actually require:

The WSAVA Guidelines: What They Really Ask For

The WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee created a set of questions they recommend pet owners ask food manufacturers. These include:

1. Do you employ a full-time qualified nutritionist? Specifically, someone with a Ph.D. in animal nutrition or board-certification (ACVN or ECVCN). Note that as of 2023, there were only approximately 100 board-certified veterinary nutritionists practicing in the United States, with many working in academic institutions or for major pet food manufacturers.
2. Who formulates your foods and what are their qualifications? Again, emphasizing advanced degrees and certifications.
3. Are your diets tested using AAFCO feeding trials or formulated to meet AAFCO nutrient profiles? More on AAFCO feeding trials below.
4. Where are your foods produced and manufactured? Asking if the company owns its manufacturing facilities.
5. What specific quality control measures do you use? Looking for detailed quality assurance protocols.
6. Will you provide a complete nutrient analysis for the dog food? Beyond just the guaranteed analysis on the label.
7. What is the caloric value of your foods? On a per-kilogram, per-cup, or per-can basis.
8. What kind of product research has been conducted? Asking for published research in peer-reviewed journals.

What’s Missing From These Questions?

Notice what’s conspicuously absent from these guidelines:

• No questions about ingredient quality or sourcing
• No mention of human-grade ingredients versus feed-grade ingredients
• No questions about artificial preservatives, colours, or flavours
• No consideration of processing methods and their impact on nutrition
• No questions about anti-nutrients in plant ingredients or mycotoxin (fungal toxins in grains) contamination testing protocols
• No questions about digestibility testing or digestibility values of the finished products
• No questions about sustainability or ethical sourcing
• No mention of organic, non-GMO, or hormone-free ingredients

In other words, the guidelines focus almost exclusively on corporate infrastructure and credentials while ignoring what’s actually in the food.

The “WSAVA-Compliant” Myth

Here’s something crucial to understand: WSAVA does not certify, approve, or endorse any pet foods. There is no official “WSAVA-compliant” designation.

What people typically mean by "WSAVA-compliant" is that a company can satisfactorily answer all the questions in the guidelines. Currently, only five major manufacturers are widely recognized as meeting all criteria:

1. Hill’s Science Diet (owned by Colgate-Palmolive)
2. Royal Canin (owned by Mars, Inc.)
3. Purina (owned by Nestlé)
4. Eukanuba (owned by Mars, Inc.)
5. Iams (owned by Mars, Inc.)

Yes, you read that correctly: three of the five “approved” brands are owned by the same multinational corporation, Mars, Inc., better known for candy bars than nutritional expertise.

The Corporate Connection: Following the Money

When you dig deeper into WSAVA’s financial structure, some revealing patterns emerge. The Global Nutrition Committee that developed the guidelines receives sponsorship from several large pet food companies, including Hill’s, Royal Canin and Purina. These same corporations also serve as major sponsors of WSAVA’s global conferences and educational programs. Additionally, many veterinary schools that train board-certified nutritionists receive substantial funding from these same companies.

Together, these relationships create a circular system in which the corporations that help fund WSAVA and veterinary education are also the ones most likely to meet the WSAVA guidelines. The criteria themselves emphasize hiring individuals with credentials from institutions supported by these same corporate sponsors, which reinforces the dominance of large manufacturers within the framework.

Nutritional Standards: What Actually Matters

Let’s be clear: nutritional adequacy is absolutely essential. At Sundog, we firmly believe that all dog foods should meet established nutritional standards. However, there are multiple recognized standards that ensure nutritional completeness:

Recognized Nutritional Standards

AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials)

The standard most commonly used in North America, establishing minimum (and some maximum) nutrient requirements.

FEDIAF (European Pet Food Industry Federation)

The European equivalent to AAFCO. FEDIAF standards are more comprehensive than AAFCO standards, with more detailed nutrient profiles based on European scientific research and regulatory approaches.

NRC (National Research Council)

Generally considered the most rigorous and scientifically based standard, the NRC publishes detailed nutrient requirements based on extensive research. Unlike AAFCO and FEDIAF, NRC guidelines focus on bioavailability of nutrients and provide more comprehensive information about nutrient interactions, though they’re less commonly referenced on commercial pet food labels.

Many high quality pet food companies formulate their food to meet or exceed these standards without necessarily meeting all WSAVA guidelines. In fact, some of the most nutritionally optimized foods on the market are formulated to the more stringent NRC standards rather than just the minimum AAFCO profiles.

Nutritional Expertise

Expertise in formulation doesn’t exclusively come from having a full-time board-certified nutritionist on staff. Many innovative companies work with consulting veterinary nutritionists who help develop and validate their recipes. They often assemble teams that include veterinarians, food scientists and animal nutrition experts, all contributing their knowledge to ensure nutritional balance and safety.

These companies also use advanced formulation software to create precise nutrient profiles and they rely on third-party laboratories to verify the nutritional content of their products. Some form research partnerships with universities or academic institutions to refine their formulas using the latest scientific findings.

Approaches like these can produce foods that are nutritionally complete and balanced according to established standards, while also prioritizing ingredient quality and minimal processing. This combination is something the large, well-known manufacturers often fail to achieve.

“Nutrition Over Ingredients”: Unpacking the Mantra

If you’ve questioned the ingredients in major brand pet foods, you’ve likely heard the refrain: “It’s about nutrition, not ingredients.” This sounds scientific, but it creates a false dichotomy.

Ingredients and nutrition are inseparable: nutrients come from ingredients. The quality, bioavailability and digestibility of those ingredients directly impact the nutritional value your dog receives. A technically “complete and balanced” food made from low-quality ingredients may meet minimum standards while failing to provide optimal nutrition.

Consider these points:

• Bioavailability matters: Two foods can have identical nutrient profiles on paper, but the nutrients in higher-quality ingredients are often more bioavailable.
• Processing impact: Heavily processed ingredients lose nutritional value and may contain harmful compounds created during manufacturing.
• Ingredient quality spectrum: “Chicken” and “chicken by-product meal” are not nutritionally equivalent, despite both providing protein.
• Cumulative effects: The long-term impact of artificial preservatives, colours, palatants, thickeners and texturizers isn’t captured in basic nutritional analysis.

AAFCO Feeding Trials: Minimum Standards vs. Optimal Nutrition

AAFCO feeding trials represent one method of validating nutritional adequacy referenced in WSAVA guidelines, yet these studies come with notable limitations. Most AAFCO feeding trials last only 26 weeks, or about six months, which represents a very small portion of a dog’s lifespan. The studies can begin with as few as eight dogs and the requirements for passing are minimal. To meet AAFCO’s standard, no more than 25 percent of the animals in the study can be removed for reasons such as poor appetite or declining health. In an eight-dog trial, that means only six dogs must complete the study successfully. The dogs must maintain their body weight, losing no more than fifteen percent and their bloodwork must stay within normal ranges. For growth trials involving puppies, participants simply need to maintain normal growth rates.

However, many common health concerns, such as itching, excessive licking, ear infections, or digestive problems, are not measured as part of these protocols. They’re only documented if they become severe enough to require removing the animal from the study, if they affect one of the few measured parameters like weight or blood values, or if the researcher decides to note them voluntarily.

As a result, a food can pass these trials while using lower-quality ingredients, as long as it meets these minimum requirements during this brief testing period. The trials don’t evaluate long-term health outcomes, inflammation, quality of life, or the potential impact of specific ingredients on dogs with sensitivities.

The Financial Reality

The cost of running an AAFCO feeding trial is often prohibitively high, which is one reason many smaller companies don’t conduct them. Each trial can cost between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand dollars or more, depending on its scope. This expense covers animal care and housing, ongoing veterinary monitoring and the necessary bloodwork and laboratory analysis. It also includes staff time, technical expertise, facility overhead and the collection and reporting of data. 

This substantial investment explains why many smaller pet food companies opt for the less expensive “formulation method” of meeting AAFCO standards rather than conducting feeding trials. For companies with multiple product lines, running feeding trials on every formula and variation would be financially impractical.

This financial barrier means that the ability to claim “animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures” is often limited to larger manufacturers with bigger research and development budgets: not necessarily those producing the highest quality nutrition.

Is this really the comprehensive proof of nutritional excellence that pet owners are led to believe?

Beyond the Big Five: What Quality Really Looks Like

If we step back from the WSAVA framework and ask what truly matters for canine nutrition, a different picture emerges:

Meaningful Quality Indicators

1. Nutritional Completeness: Formulation to established standards (AAFCO, FEDIAF, or ideally NRC) to ensure all essential nutrients are present in appropriate amounts.
2. Formulation Expertise: Development by qualified professionals using scientific principles and advanced formulation tools to create complete and balanced nutrition.
3. Ingredient Sourcing and Quality: Human-grade ingredients from reputable suppliers with transparent sourcing (as opposed to feed-grade ingredients that aren’t subject to the same rigorous safety and quality oversight). Are ingredients minimally processed to preserve nutritional integrity?
4. Minimal Processing: Methods that preserve nutritional integrity rather than destroying it.
5. Absence of Harmful Additives: No artificial colours, flavours, or preservatives with questionable safety profiles.
6. Appropriate Macronutrient Balance: Protein, fat and carbohydrate ratios appropriate for canine nutritional requirements and metabolic health.
7. Digestibility and Bioavailability: Nutrients your dog can actually absorb and utilize, with published digestibility values showing how efficiently the food is processed by the canine digestive system.
8. Individual Appropriateness: Formulations that match your specific dog’s needs, age, activity level and health status.
9. Company Transparency: Willingness to answer questions about sourcing, processing and quality control.
10. Real-World Results: Improved skin health, coat quality, energy, digestion and overall wellbeing in dogs consuming the food.

Many smaller, innovative companies excel in these areas despite not meeting all WSAVA criteria. They may lack a full-time board-certified nutritionist but work with qualified consultants. They might not own their manufacturing facilities but partner with human-grade co-packers with rigorous quality control.

Finding Your Way Through the Information Landscape

As a dog owner bombarded with conflicting information, how do you navigate this complex landscape? A good place to start is by confirming that any food you consider meets recognized nutritional standards such as AAFCO, FEDIAF, or NRC. It’s also worth looking for brands that openly share information about ingredient quality and sourcing, as this transparency helps you understand exactly what your dog is eating.

Be cautious of absolutist statements or “one-size-fits-all” advice and take note of who benefits financially from certain recommendations. Your own observations are also valuable; when your dog maintains balanced energy, optimal coat quality and healthy digestion, that feedback matters.

It can also be helpful to explore independent, evidence-based writing and teaching on canine nutrition. Resources like Linda P. Case’s books “Feeding Smart” and “Dog Food Logic,” along with her Science Dog blog and courses, offer evidence-based, scientifically-grounded information from a credentialed, independent expert (B.S. in Animal Science from Cornell, M.S. in Canine/Feline Nutrition from University of Illinois).

While the field of canine nutrition can be complex, at the end of the day we can rely on a combination of nutritional science, ingredient quality and careful observation of our dogs’ wellbeing to guide our choices. This balanced approach helps us do right by our dogs, whether that means choosing foods from WSAVA-recognized manufacturers, or from smaller, quality-focused companies.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the complexities of finding optimal foods for your dog, I’m here to help. Reach out today for a free 15-minute discovery call to see if my personalized nutrition consulting services might benefit you and your furry family member. Together, we can create an optimized nutrition plan tailored to your dog’s unique needs.