Well of course wet food shows less carbs, it's probably 50% water.
Yes, which is why you subtract the moisture content before doing the math, that's all in the article I posted if you look over it, you can do all the math yourself. If you're unsure of the numbers, you can e-mail your pet food company yourself for their breakdown. There's probably considerably more fat in most pet foods when listed on the back, you'll see it says "min." So this is just based off the information we're given, who knows what the actual amounts are... again, check the numbers yourself or e-mail if you don't agree with my math.
You have to remember the meat we're eating now is nothing like what ancestral dogs ate, which is why it's figured ancestral dogs ate the high amount of protein. Our ancestor dogs ate wild meat, not factory-farmed meat. If you don't believe how much protein you loose when you confine an animal and feed it an incorrect diet, google the protein/fat of a wild duck to a farmed duck and you'll see. We can never feed our dogs who they've evolved to eat because if you think about it, things will never be like they were then. Factory-farming has changed everything and unless you're able to feed a diet of all wild-prey, even grass-fed has less protein/more fat, then I believe it needs to be tweaked a bit. The fat content of a chicken from a factory farm is considerably different than that of a free-range, so something has to be done to offset the imbalance or the animals are getting way too much fat, way too little protein.
Also, this post wasn't meant to be offensive. It's to show you how dog food really works, and how to break down the numbers on the side to your advantage. It's very easy to figure out how many carbs are in your food, for example, take the moisture, protein, fat, ash, and fiber and subtract from 100; whatever that amount is your carbs in the food.
Again, don't take offense, learn. I think Acana is a great food, as long as you're adding some real food to go along with it; whatever you think that needs to be. Our animals can't solely derive everything they need from a bag of processed foods. Sure they can keep from being deficient but they don't get the amino acids found only in food that hasn't been heated to the temperatures the ingredients in kibble. Kibble isn't a bad thing in and of itself, it's fine, it works and works well for most dogs. But if you're dog is tired all the time, or itchy, or something it helps to look at the balance of fats/carbs/protein in your food you're feeding and make sure it meets his needs. For instance, you're aiming for a lower fat food but in fact you're feeding a food that's higher in fat than both Orijen and Acana. So with the way they put stuff on the bag, it's important to know how to break it down for when our animals have more specific needs. If you don't believe my math, perhaps e-mail your dog food company and say May I have the breakdown of fat/protein/carbs per 1,000 calories....If you ask for it, I'd imagine they'd give it to you. You can determine the carb content on your own with the ingredients.
So again, it wasn't meant to be offensive, it's meant to show you that companies can sometimes make it difficult to find out the real levels in the food, and if you really need to know the level of fat for the health of your dog, I would suggest emailing and asking how many calories per 1,000 are from fat.
yay! - I switched Frankie, per your wonderful help and suggestions to NOW! - lower protein too - and he seems to be doing great on it. However, I have noticed that his coat is not quite as shiny as it was on TOTW and his skin is a bit dry. While it could be the cold air now that winter is coming, I was wondering if anyone else feeding NOW! has had this coat/skin issue come up and if you might suggest supplementing with a fish oil or flax? I did this before when Frankie was eating another brand and it turned out he was getting too much omegas! Any help would be so appreciated!
