Canine Reproductive Nutrition & Pediatrics

We're thrilled to have partnered with Purina Pro Plan for a Good Breeder Webinar about Canine Reproductive Nutrition & Pediatrics. Watch Raj Naik, DVM, DACVIM (Nutrition), a board-certified veterinary nutritionist at Purina, speak about maintaining optimal nutrition for your dogs and puppies from pregnancy through weaning.

Further Reading

• WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee: Guidelines on Selecting Pet Foods
• Pet Nutrition Alliance: Making Informed Pet Food Decisions
• Purina Pro Club: Smart Breeding Starts With Healthy Nutrition

Transcript

Nicole Engelman [0:01] I think we can go ahead and kick things off! People will just start trickling in if they’re a little late. For anyone who doesn’t know me, I am Nicole. I am Good Dog’s Breeder Community Lead. Thank you all so much for joining us today. We are super excited about this webinar. It is with Dr. Raj Naik, a veterinary nutritionist at Purina, which is so exciting. Like I said, this is a topic that I think our community has really asked for, so we’re super excited to have him with us today. Again, we have had a bunch of questions come in already, so we’re going to do our best to answer them, but if you have anything else, feel free to drop them into the chat—any comments and questions—and we’ll do our very best to get to them. For anyone that’s new here, welcome. For anyone that’s new to Good Dog, we are on a mission to build a better world for our dogs and the people who love them by advocating for dog breeders, educating the public, and promoting canine health and responsible dog ownership. We’re a secure online community that’s built for breeders, completely free for breeders, and really empowers breeders with technology to level up their breeding programs. We offer tools like a secure payment system to protect you from scams. We have best-in-class software to help you post and manage your litters. Really, anything and everything to make your program as successful as it can be and as easy to run as it can be. So if you’re not yet a member of our community, we would absolutely love to have you. We invite you to learn more about our mission and apply at gooddog.com/join. With all of that being said, I will pass things off to Dr. Delgado who is part of our Health, Standards, and Research team at Good Dog, to take it away from here.

Mikel Delgado [1:54] Thank you, Nicole. I am super excited to introduce Dr. Naik today. We know nutrition is something you want more info about, and I will be introducing Dr. Naik and I’ll be back to do the Q&A at the end. Just to let you know: we’re going to do our best to answer as many questions as we can. We may modify your question to make it more general so that more people can benefit from Dr. Naik’s answer, but we will do what we can. Without further ado, Dr. Raj Naik developed a special interest in clinical nutrition while he was at the Virginia Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. After graduation, he completed a rotating internship at a large specialty hospital in New Jersey. Thereafter, his love of nutrition brought him to the University of Tennessee to do specialty training in small animal clinical nutrition. Dr. Naik’s trust in Nestle Purina’s innovative research formulations led him to join the company shortly after he completed his residency. As the Veterinary Communications Manager and one of several board-certified veterinary nutritionists at Purina, Dr. Naik serves as a liaison between Purina and the veterinary community. Dr. Naik serves on the membership committee for the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. So please join me in welcoming Dr. Naik.

Dr. Raj Naik [3:10] Thank you so much for having me! I really appreciate the opportunity to chat with all of you. I really want to thank Good Dog for the opportunity as well as the Purina brand for tapping me to help give this lecture. I think there’s a lot of really great nutrition content in here that not only breeders can benefit from, but veterinarians as well. This is a topic that we touch on in vet school but there’s always more to be learned. Again, thank you to all of you for joining me. I am joining you from Ann Arbor, MI, where it is miraculously beautiful outside right now, despite our basketball team (as last checked) being dragged by Colorado State. We will move on from there.

[3:57] Before we jump into specifics about reproductive and pediatric nutrition, I want to check on a few general nutrition concepts to help with our discussion. There are six basic nutrient categories: fats, carbs, proteins, water (which is one that we forget about often) are all considered macronutrients. So they’re present in the diet in large amounts. And then there are two that are considered micronutrients (present in the diet in small amounts): vitamins and minerals. Cats and dogs (as well as humans) need an appropriate amount, and balance is key of nutrients from those six basic categories. Fats, carbs, and protein provide energy. Vitamins, minerals, and water don’t provide any calories, but they are essential to life. I want to touch on a few most important macronutrients for specific reproduction and growth. 

[4:56] Water, like I said, is kind of often overlooked as a nutrient. We all know that it is the most important nutrient. It’s vital to life. It’s the most important nutrient that both we and our pets take in. It regulates and maintains body temperature. It aids in digestion and absorption of food. It transports nutrients throughout the body. It removes waste from the body. It’s important. It’s really imperative to provide access to fresh new water for all animals at all life stages at all times. Seventy percent of that pug that you see on that screen is water. We have a clear indication for providing this water/clean water at all times. 

[5:42] Protein is, of course, absolutely vital to the reproductive process: gestation, lactation, growth. Fetal growth—it’s incredibly important to have that protein available for organ development. Neonatal growth—of course the musculoskeletal system is very dependent on that protein to take. Things for the mom: mammary tissue development and milk production. Protein is vital to those processes as well. 

[6:11] Protein, if you remember back from your middle/high school science classes, is essentially this chain of amino acids. These smaller molecules that form a chain and then they form together to make this protein. Protein quality is dependent on what those amino acids are. It turns out that dogs and cats and humans don’t actually have a protein requirement. They have a requirement for these essential amino acids that you see on your screen. They have to get them in the diet. That’s what I mean by essential. A high-quality protein has a lot of (or all of) these essential amino acids. It is bioavailable, meaning it has good digestibility and those amino acids can actually be absorbed by the animal. Of course, there’s a species-specific amino acid requirement. The ones that you see on your screen are typical of cats and dogs. 

[7:19] Most protein sources that you can think of are what we would call incomplete, meaning they completely lack (or they don’t provide enough of) at least one essential amino acid. In order to fill that gap, we can combine two or more protein sources to complete that essential amino acid puzzle that you see on your screen. So remember I need to get all of those essential amino acids in my diet. Let’s take a look at an example of how we do that with pet food. 

[7:50] You see all the way on the left: an ingredient called chicken meal. Chicken meal is very rich in lysine and methionine—two of those amino acids I was talking about. Unfortunately, it’s pretty low in leucine and tryptophan, so two more of those essential amino acids. How do I balance that out? Well, I’m going to use corn gluten meal. I’m going to use soybean meal. To help fill in those low levels of leucine and tryptophan. By combining it with chicken meal, I also fill in the gaps that corn and soy have in its nutrient/amino acid profile. You can see how these kind of fit together to make what we call a complete protein. 

[8:35] Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids—there’s a lot of talk about these. Fatty acids are essentially produced when fats are broken down. They can be classified by chemical structure. We won’t go too much into chemical structure; don’t worry. Two of those important fatty acid classes are Omega-3 and Omega-6. You see on your screen some of the functions of those Omega-3 fatty acids, such as supporting brain and vision development in puppies and kittens, managing inflammation (not just in puppies and kittens but certainly in the mom, in the dad), and then supporting those healthy joints. The main source of that is going to be oily fish. You’ll notice that in our Purina diets, the source of EPA and DHA (Omega-3 acids) is fish oil because it’s a very dense source of those Omega-3 fatty acids that we’re really looking for. DHA—we’re going to talk quite a bit about DHA because it is really optimal for brain and retinal development in these puppies. Omega-6 fatty acids get a bad rep, I will say. They are thought to be associated with pro-inflammatory conditions. That’s not necessarily really the case. It’s important that we have the ability to ramp up our immune system and have that inflammation available to fight off infections. Omega-6 fatty acids are required in the diet to help towards skin and coat health. Venturing away from what we’re going to talk about today: if you have a dog that had a lackluster coat or they have certain dermatologic issues, we’ll prescribe Omega-3 fatty acids, but we’ll also prescribe Omega-6 fatty acids because it helps support that healthy skin and coat health. You see a couple of other things on the screen that it helps with. These can be vegetable oils but they’re also found in higher amounts in animal fats as well. 

[11:00] Carbohydrates! In humans and in most mammals, there is no direct requirement for carbohydrates, which might be a little jarring to folks. But there is no actual requirement, except in the particular case that we’re talking about. In gestation and lactation, there is thought to be some requirement for carbohydrates because it is needed for fetal development, and of course that lactose synthesis that we’re getting in mom’s milk. Glucose directly impacts mothering. What do we mean by that? Hypoglycemic females—females with low blood sugar—often are lethargic. They don’t encourage their puppies to nurse. We’re not getting to give these puppies what they need if their mom is unable to have the energy that she needs. And finally, we have this really beneficial effect of carbohydrates in that they have what I call a protein sparing effect. When we have a really digestible carbohydrate source present in the diet, protein doesn’t have to be used for energy. Protein can only do one thing at a time. You ought to save it for building the tissue in that puppy or in that mom rather than burning it for calories. 

[12:34] Beta-Carotene, I put in sort of as an example to show that every nutrient is really important. We don’t talk a lot about vitamin A when we’re talking about how many calories you should get. Protein is really important, etc. Every single nutrient is important for all of the reasons that you see on your screen! So, in patients that are gestating, it promotes estrogen synthesis. It helps with development of the endometrium. It prepares the uterus for implantation of embryos. Lots of different functions for vitamin A specifically, this version called Beta-Carotene, in these moms. 

[13:22] “Do I have to feed a complete and balanced food every day?” I get this question a lot. We don’t eat completely balanced diets, unless you are very, very diligent about what you’re eating. We typically do not eat completely balanced diets. We think, “Well, I’m fine. I can eat what I want. I feel okay. There isn’t anything clinically wrong with me.” But oftentimes what we’ll find is that there are very few people that eat a balanced diet and often those people have some sort of subclinical disease, so there is something brewing that we don’t have an overt clinical sign or symptom for. Because there is a nutrient deficiency, there is something going on. I’ll give you an example here. Vitamin A is one of those things where I don’t necessarily have to give it every day to a dog. It stays in the liver for 6 months. It’s pretty resilient. You’re not going to burn through that vitamin A store quickly. However, at the bottom of your screen, you see arginine. Arginine is an essential amino acid, especially for cats. If I were to give a cat an almost complete diet and just left out arginine, within about 3 hours, that cat may start having neurologic signs and potentially can die. The reason for that is arginine is an essential part of a function in our body that gets rid of waste. Without arginine, I can’t get rid of waste in that cat. Of course, those toxins build up. In a cat, they go to the brain, and we see those neurological signs. When somebody says, “Can I feed my dog or my cat what I’m eating?” I like to think of dog food as a baby formula. If I’m feeding a complete and balanced dog food, I don’t have to worry about supplementing anything else. I don’t have to worry about rotating between foods. I want to make sure my dog is getting everything that he or she needs, so I am going to be feeding a complete and balanced diet in the form of a kibble. 

[15:56] How do you pick that food? This is an incredibly important question that, again, I get all the time—not just from breeders but from veterinarians and clients. This is a list of questions that’s popping up on your screen that are really good questions to ask a pet food company. Do you employ a full-time nutritionist? Who formulates your diets? Is it someone like myself that is a board-certified veterinary nutritionist? Is it a PhD nutritionist who knows a lot about food science? Have your foods gone through feeding trials? Where are they produced and manufactured? All great questions. There are answers that I would like to hear from a pet food company. That doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a right or wrong answer, but what I’m really looking for is that they are willing to answer them. A lot of companies will ghost you or they will not get back to you. They will not fully answer your question. So I like to stick to these eight and see what they have to say.

[17:11] This list of 8 questions came from a resource on the World’s Small Animal Veterinary Association Global Nutrition Committee website. This is a group dedicated to disseminating nutrition information, as well as other animal health information. They’ve put together this great list of resources to help you make that decision. This is one of the resources they have. They also have a document called The Savvy Pet Owner’s Guide to the Internet. So they help you wade through potential misinformation or where to find the good information. I was working on this presentation this morning, and I tried to make a bunch of QR codes for different websites. My browser kept crashing, so unfortunately there’s no QR code on here, but I spoke with Good Dog earlier, and we can actually put a lot of the websites to these resources in a document to hand out to you folks. We will have these resources available to you.

[18:21] One other one I want to mention is the Put Nutrition Alliance. The Pet Nutrition Alliance is a number of veterinary nutritionists, folks that are interested in veterinary nutrition and getting the right information out to all of you. This is a screenshot from their Dare to Ask Tool. Essentially, they took 3-4 of these questions that I just showed you and they called a ton of different companies. Those companies either answered or they didn’t. All of that information is listed, so you can look at whatever company you may be evaluating for. Do they meet the questions that I mentioned earlier? A lot of those questions have been asked of them already.

[19:13] You will notice that there was no question on that previous slide about specific ingredients used in pet food. We often interchange the words “nutrients” and “ingredients.” But those are very different things. Ingredients are those raw materials used in pet foods to provide nutrients. To provide nutrients! What matters most is that we use high quality ingredients so that they can provide the nutrients the pet needs. When I say high quality, I mean that the ingredients are digestible and those nutrients are available for absorption. I mentioned this earlier. Things like chicken, beef, rice, corn—used in different combinations to make dog and cat food for specific purposes like growth, maintenance, performance, or to address certain health conditions. A lot of what I do is I am helping to evaluate patients and help veterinarians address those certain health conditions. We also deal a lot with healthy pets, and that’s what we’re talking about today. My takeaway from this slide for you: it’s important to focus on those nutrients provided by the ingredients in a particular pet food—not just on the ingredients themselves. 

[20:38] Again, do ingredients matter? How do we pick them? How does a company like Purina, like one of the other larger or smaller manufacturers, pick the ingredients that are in pet foods? First of all, we look at nutrient content. That should be the primary driver. Is this food going to provide what this dog needs? Second is palatability. Of course! We can make the greatest diet in the world. We can make it completely balanced. But if that dog or cat is not going to eat it, what’s the point? And then, of course, digestibility, we touched on before. Are the nutrients in there bioavailable? And then, of course, consumer preference. You do tend to see a trend these days. The human diet trends kind of translate over to the canine world. For the most part, we can formulate diets to meet the nutrient requirements of the dog. Sometimes it gets a little sticky because we are not the same species, especially when it comes to cats. We’re talking about mostly dogs here today but cats have very different nutrient requirements. Making sure that we’re getting everything that the pet needs in that food is of primary importance. 

[22:07] The AAFCO Nutritional Adequacy Statement! AAFCO is not a regulatory body but it is a body that makes recommendations to states and to the federal government as to what should be in a pet food. They require a nutritional adequacy statement on every pet food label. It’s probably the most important thing on the label itself. Sometimes it’s a little bit buried, so take a look. It is going to say something to the effect of—This is the nutritional adequacy statement from the diet that you see on your screen (The Purina Pro Plan Performance 30/20). The statement says: “Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate that Pro Plan Performance 30/20 Chicken Rice formula provides complete and balanced nutrition. All life stages. Including growth of large-sized dogs, meaning 70 pounds or more as an adult.” It’s a long statement, but it told me three very important things. One is that this diet was tested using animal feeding tests. We’ll talk about what an animal feeding test is in just the next slide. But it means this diet was actually fed to dogs, and they were monitored for their health, and these dogs all turned out healthy. This diet has actually been fed, as opposed to a diet that is formulated, meaning a company makes a diet based on those AAFCO minimums that AAFCO has recommended, and they say, “This should, in theory, provide adequate nutrition for this pet.” The two other pieces of information that statement told me: it is complete and balanced for all life stages, as opposed to just for adult maintenance pets. Your standard 5-year-old German Shorthaired Pointer that happens to be on this bag that is not breeding, that is not growing—that diet is okay for that maintenance of adult dogs. You may also occasionally see a growth claim on there, so you can feed this diet to a dog that is a puppy, a growing puppy, and now you have to delineate between a typical-size growing puppy and large puppy. And then, of course, this is kind of rare to see, but some diets are formulated for gestation or lactation. All life stages diets are appropriate for all of those different stages. Pro Plan Performance 30/20 is appropriate for all life stages, and that’s why it says “balanced nutrition for all life stages.” And then the last thing it told me is that this is appropriate for the growth of large-size dogs. This is a new thing, I think as of 2017. If a pet food does not have that statement that says “including growth of large-size dogs, 70 pounds or more” then you should not be feeding that to a growing puppy that is more than 70 pounds. We’ll get into the differences between the diets on the market, but that is an important caveat these days. 

[25:43] I mentioned animal feeding tests. An adult maintenance trial has to go on for at least six months. Some larger manufacturers will be able to continue this for longer. These are very expensive trials. Very, very expensive trials. A lot of the larger manufacturers have the resources to do this kind of feeding test. You tend to see the label that says “Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures” on foods that are from larger companies. Smaller companies—they don’t necessarily have quite the same resources that others do. You may see more often a “This diet is formulated to meet…” Growth trials are done in puppies and kittens as well, for a specific period of time, about 8-9 weeks. Gestation and lactation studies are done throughout the pregnancy, as well as after the puppies are born. And then those all-life-stage diets have to run the whole gamut. They have to be fed for maintenance, for growth, and for gestation and lactation. Those trials tend to be quite long. 

[27:07] With those concepts in mind, let’s turn to canine reproductive nutrition. It is absolutely vital that the sire and dam are at peak body condition at the day of conception. We have studies that show that puppies born to malnourished dogs have reduced birth weights, are prone to hypoglycemia, and have poor survival rates. There’s also a reason to believe that malnourished dams will have lower conception rates. Those dams that are obese prior to breeding have lower ovulation rates, smaller litter sizes, and perform poorly during lactation. The graphic that you see on your screen is an ideal body condition dog. Our goal is to keep them as close to the ideal body condition as possible for a pregnancy.

[27:55] When do we need to start changing the caloric intake for those breeding females? I show you this slide mostly to demonstrate how the energy needs of a female really don’t change until the third trimester of pregnancy. At that time, you can see the fetus grows at a very rapid pace that requires a ton of energy, and we have to really pay attention to the nutrition at that point. There’s very little change until about week six of gestation in terms of energy needs in these breeding females. You’re going to see a body weight increase of about 15-25% during gestation. Less than that, more than that, adjustments need to be made in the amount of food that is being offered to the mom. And then we also have a focus on these puppies. These puppies gain about 75% of their birth weight during the last 3 weeks. That’s why we’re really ramping up the amount of food we’re offering in that third trimester. 

[29:00] Those last 3 weeks of pregnancy, we’re going to increase the food that mom is getting by about 1.5x what she would have normally gotten to maintain an ideal body condition. Ideally, this dog on your screen would be in an ideal body condition when she got pregnant. She’s eating 1x the amount of adult maintenance food, and we’re going to increase that to about 1.5x what she was eating before. In lactation, you’re going to increase it quite a bit. Up to 3x what she was previously eating as a walking-around-adult. Of course, optimal nutrition is very important during this period. Optimal means not over or under nutrition. Both over and under nutrition can be problematic. 

[30:03] For this pregnant dog, we want a diet that is highly digestible. I’m talking about 85% of the diet is digestible. We want a diet that is nutrient dense/energy dense because we want to reduce the amount of stomach fill that this patient is experiencing. There’s a lot of puppies in there. We have a smaller stomach capacity. Let’s feed an energy and nutrient dense diet. And then finally, I’ve talked a lot about quality, so we want a high-quality diet that has these bioavailable nutrients. 

[30:43] I’m going to pause here for just a second, because I know you’ll probably want to take notes on this slide. From the first week to the fifth week, don’t increase the food. Every week after that, increase the amount of food that your dog is getting by about 10% up through week nine. So we’re increasing, again, up to about 1.5x what your dog is currently getting. It’s important here not to over or under feed, again. 

[31:15] Summary for a pregnant dog: increased food intake is necessary, only after that fifth or sixth week of pregnancy. That pregnant dog should be fed a puppy growth diet or an all-life-stages diet to cover that increased energy and nutrient requirement for herself and for the fetuses. Splitting the daily food into several meals during the day is helpful since that GI tract has limited space, which we talked about. And then milk production usually starts just a few days prior to parturition but it could be delayed, especially in first time mothers, so don’t panic there.

[31:59] Lactation: you see on your screen all of the six nutrient categories at the top of the talk. The milk composition reflects whatever mom is eating, so it’s important to provide a complete and balanced diet to mom.

[32:17] This is where you’re going to see that enormous increase in appetite. Mom is eating in that first 1-2 weeks after she gives birth, 2x what she was previously eating as a non-pregnant dog. In weeks 3-4, she’s going to eat triple. Potentially more. It depends on the metabolism of that dog. You’re going to start decreasing at about 5-6 weeks. Again, we’re sticking with a highly digestible, high quality, energy dense diet.

[32:52] I’m going to jump ahead for just a minute. Nutritional needs of lactation: by weeks 3-4, maximum nutrition needs are achieved. The number of nursing offspring really directly influences the needs of mom. The more puppies you have, the more food mom is going to need. Moms are amazing. The lactation needs take priority over the needs of the mother. What that essentially means is mom is going to sacrifice the energy stores that she has to feed those puppies. So it’s important to try to restore that energy through the proper nutrition that we’ve been talking about, so she doesn’t start losing a lot of body mass, a lot of lean muscle mass, as she is feeding these pups. Some is normal! That is the idea. But you don’t want to lose too much.

[33:55] We are again looking for a highly digestible, energy and nutrient dense diet. I would say just feed the same diet that you were feeding during gestation, as long as mom is doing well. This is not the time to be experimenting with new diets, while mom is going through a lot of change. Providing adequate calories to prevent excess weight loss. I mentioned there is going to be some weight loss, but we don’t want it to be excessive. The best way to assess that is to do body condition scoring that we talked about a little bit earlier. Weighing a patient is a little bit insensitive because where are you losing the weight from? But you really want to look at the overall body condition score of your dog to make sure that they’re not losing an excessive amount of weight, an excessive amount of muscle mass. This is really important. Feeding multiple times during the day during peak lactation helps keep that milk supply up. It helps mom to get really energy dense meals in a small package. Oftentimes we recommend separating mom from the puppies to eat, so she has a break, honestly. So she can actually focus on eating. We’re going to start weaning those puppies at about week four. The only way to really do that is to start scaling back the amount of food that we’re offering mom so she is producing less milk. Of course, if any of you are parents, you know how thirsty lactating moms get. This is incredibly important: to have fresh water at all times. 

[35:52] Four specific periods: we’re going to breeze through some of this because I want to get to the nutritional part of it. There are four very important parts of puppy development. That newborn puppy has a really, really high rate of growth. That birth weight can double during the first 10 days of life. They don’t have a shivering reflex, so they’re relying on mom as the primary heat source. They’re going to spend most of the day eating and sleeping. She should be nursing them 4-6 times a day. The first few days: 24-72 hours are nutritionally very critical. The puppies are getting all of their nutrition needs from their mother. Those newborn puppies need about 25 calories per 100 grams of body weight. I mentioned previously that first milk is known as colostrum. Compared to regular, mature milk, colostrum has a lower amount of fat and protein. It still has all the energy of protein/fat requirements and those essential vitamins and minerals. What’s special about colostrum is that it contains antibodies. Those immune and bioactive substances are absorbed through the intestine in those first few days of life, really the first few hours. It helps provide immunity from diseases that mom has been exposed to or that mom has been immunized against. So it’s incredibly important, if we can, to get these puppies to get some of that colostrum in those first 72 hours. In the first 2-4 weeks, puppies are becoming much more alert. They don’t require mom to stimulate them to urinate or defecate. They’re learning a ton. They start to be more interactive with things in their environment. And then teeth start appearing at about 3 weeks of age. A huge developmental change here: milk alone is going to be adequate to support normal growth until just about 4 weeks of age. After that, we will not be able to provide enough calories for these puppies just through milk alone. At that 3-4 week stage, I would start introducing a semi-solid food. What I mean by that is like a gruel of kibble, made with 1 part of growth diet and then 2 parts of warm water, so 1-2 parts. That’s going to get puppies a little more used to what kibble tastes like, as well as decrease the risk that they choke on a piece of kibble, so that gruel is really important. Semi-solid at 3-4 weeks. 

[39:02] This weaning puppy stage: weeks 4-8 of life is a critical phase. They’re losing mom as a temperature regulator. They are exploring the environment. They are exposing themselves to new pathogens. They’re changing to a new food, and they’re developing their immune system. Supporting these pups during this period is very critical. 

[39:28] I mentioned that we will not be able to provide enough calories for these pets at this stage, just from milk. Mom actually loses interest in nursing. This is a stage when it’s imperative that you start introducing that gruel. By the fifth week, they should be eating solid food. By 6 weeks, they should be able to chew that dry food. Up until about 6 weeks, we can continue to give them that gruel. We can lower the amount of water that we’re mixing in, just to get them a little more use to a thicker gruel. And then we have them eating dry food by 6 weeks. Behavioral weaning is a little different. Nutritionally, they’re totally on kibble by 6 weeks of age. Behaviorally, they’re still going to want to nurse from mom up until 8 weeks of age. It takes a little bit longer. That’s why we recommend leaving puppy with mom until about 8 weeks of age, at least. 

[40:39] Growing puppies are adorable. First 6 months of life, there’s huge rapid growth and development. Most dogs are going to increase their birth weight 40-50 fold. This is a really interesting chart that I want to show you. You see on the bottom part of your screen the growth chart for a number of small breed dogs. You have your medium to large breed dogs, and then you have your Great Danes—your giant breed dogs. These giant and large breed dogs have a higher growth rate than the smaller breeds. That does not mean—I want to emphasize this part—that you need to provide more calories in relation to what a smaller breed would get, based on body size. Just because they are growing faster, it does not mean that we need to make them grow faster through the nutrition that we’re giving them. It’s actually the opposite. They’re going to get to whatever size they’re going to grow to, regardless of how quickly they grow. If we grow them too quickly, there can be a lot of things like skeletal issues and growth development problems. (We’ll talk about that in just a minute.) The age of skeletal maturity for these dogs: for smaller breeds, they might be skeletally mature by 9-12 months. That’s when I would recommend switching from a puppy food to an adult food. These medium to large breed dogs: anywhere from a year to 1.5 years of age is where I would transition to an adult food. Great Danes: 2-2.5 years honestly. It takes a long time to get these pups off puppy food. For good reason! I highly recommend not switching earlier than any of those dates that I recommended there.

[42:45] There’s an immunity gap at this stage. The puppies have not fully developed their own immune systems. They may get sick more often. This lasts till about 5 months of age, so this is a critical period where we need to provide adequate nutrition for them. These growing puppies have a higher energy requirement, higher protein requirement. We want an appropriate level of calcium and phosphorus. We’ll talk about calcium supplementation in just a minute. Especially for those large breed dogs, it’s really imperative that we’re not giving them too much calcium and phosphorus. They also need those essential fatty acids like DHA and antioxidants to help support that growing immune system.

[43:32] Protein builds new tissues. It supports the muscle, skin coat, and organ development. We want about 25% of the calories that they’re getting from their food to be from protein. Maybe a little confusing because I said protein we want to use for building muscle and building lean body mass. You still need to take protein in, in relation to the rest of the diet. We often, as nutritionists, look at what percent of the diet/how many calories from that diet are coming from protein. We talked about the need for a high quality, highly digestible diet. 

[44:12] Inadequate protein can lead to a lot of dysfunction: reduced resistance to toxic or infectious agents, reduced resistance to parasites, and wound healing. Puppies are rambunctious. They’re going to get some wounds. It’s important that they have enough protein in their diet to repair those wounds. And then, of course, skeletal malformation. If you don’t have enough protein in the diet, your bones don’t attach to your muscles appropriately, and you can have skeletal malformations. 

[44:50] Along those lines, this is a question that I got before I even jumped on the lecture: what do we do about calcium and phosphorus in these dogs? It is imperative that we avoid excessive calcium to large and giant breed dogs. Growing puppies do need more calcium than adult dogs, to help with those healthy bones and teeth. But you have to be careful not to give excessive calcium to large and giant breed dogs because it can contribute to skeletal diseases. The reason for that: puppies cannot regulate their calcium absorption like adults. They will absorb whatever you give them. Unlike adults, they have no ability to regulate how much their intestines are absorbing calcium and phosphorus. We can really unbalance their diet by supplementing calcium on top of an already complete and balanced diet. Those puppies that get excessive amounts of calcium can lead to things like osteocondrosis, curving of the radius, stunted growth actually which is the complete opposite of what many folks intend by supplementing calcium. We want to stick to a diet that has a calcium/phosphorus ratio between 1:1 and, in growth, 1.6-1.8. What I want you to take away from this is if you are feeding a complete and balanced diet, you really do not need to supplement any calcium. In fact, it can cause more harm than good if you are supplementing calcium. Just stick to that complete and balanced diet! 

[47:03] DHA is vital for optimal brain and retinal development. I mentioned that a little bit earlier. It accumulates in the puppy’s brain during perinatal development. By about 6 weeks of age, 70% of that puppy’s brain mass is DHA. Obviously extremely important, in terms of a nutrient. By 12 weeks of age, they are at 90% of adult brain mass of DHA. This is incredibly, incredibly important in terms of the nutrients. What does that mean for you and for the eventual owners of this puppy? These pups that were supplemented with DHA actually had higher trainability scores than puppies that did not get DHA. So they were more able to learn the things that you are trying to teach them. Fish oil, an incredibly important nutrient in puppy foods. 

[48:13] With that, I just wanted to quickly summarize what we talked about today and then we’ll take a couple of questions. Optimal nutrition is not going to guarantee a perfect outcome. There’s a lot of things that go into puppy development, but it definitely significantly reduces the risk that something is going to go wrong. Many aspects of dog breeding are very difficult to manage, as you all know. Nutrition was one of those things that can be controlled. I highly encourage you to feed a complete and balanced diet—not only to your moms but to your puppies as well. Anything that we add to that kibble, to that canned food, potentially has the risk of unbalancing that diet. If you’re planning on adding something like that, please reach out to a board-certified veterinarian or nutritionist. They can work with you to come up with a plan that’s best for your situation, as well as talk to your veterinarian. They have a lot of great resources as well. 

[49:25] Proper nutrition is vital to the production of healthy litters. Start feeding mom and a growth and gestation diet at the fifth week of pregnancy. That’s also when you’re going to start increasing calories for her. Gestating and lactating moms growing puppies—they have very unique nutritional requirements compared to non-breeding adult dogs. Those puppies are trying to nurse, trying to ensure that they get enough of that antibody-rich colostrum. And, of course, I mentioned growth diets. Those are absolutely necessary until that pup is skeletally mature. With that, I think we’ve reached the end.

[50:10] I will turn it back over to take any of your questions that we might have.

MD [50:13] Thank you so much, Dr. Naik. That was a very engaging talk. I learned a lot. We have lots of questions coming in! We will not have time to answer every question. I apologize in advance. I know everyone wants their question answered. But we do have some questions that we got from more than one person, so we’ll try to ask some of those. Probably the biggest one—you touched on this, but can we clarify: Can you please address calcium supplements for the mother? There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there, and we did get a few questions about calcium for moms.

RN [50:46] Absolutely. Let me go back to that one. The reason that I recommend avoiding calcium supplementation in the mom is because the puppies are getting their calcium from mom, right? If you are feeding an excessive amount of calcium to mom, it doesn’t necessarily help with improving the amount of milk that she’s producing. I think that’s often the reason that calcium is supplemented. Unfortunately, it goes right into the milk, and these puppies cannot regulate how much calcium they’re taking in. They’re just physically incapable of regulating that. If we are giving too much calcium, we are very significantly increasing the risk that these puppies are going to grow up with skeletal deformities, that they are going to have stunted growth that I mentioned before. If you are feeding a complete and balanced diet, don’t worry about the calcium supplementation. It’s a good question! I think it’s a very common misconception. 

MD [51:54] Yeah, and on a similar note, would you say the same is true of folic acid in the pregnant bitch? 

RN [52:00] Yes, absolutely. If you’re feeding a complete and balanced diet, you don’t need to supplement anything. 

MD [52:09] We got a few questions on picky eaters. If the mom is maybe picky, doesn’t want to eat the kibble… What can people mix in with a kibble diet if the mom is just not really into the diet she’s being fed, especially in that last trimester?

RN [52:25] That’s a good point. That’s why I recommend sticking with whatever diet mom likes. Honestly, I would just feed her the same diet regardless. You find a good all-life-stages diet. Not to be an ad, but that Purina Pro Plan 30/20 is an all-life-stages diet. Just feed it all the time! You don’t have to worry about transitioning there. The things that I can recommend adding in: I always say as long as you are not going above about 10% of their caloric intake, from what we would call treats. A lot of people won’t consider things that you mix into the diet a treat, but it absolutely is. There is less chance that you’re going to unbalance that diet. If mom really likes low-sodium chicken broth, that can be a good addition. A lot of dogs love things like carrots. Anything that you can mix in there to spice it up a little for them is helpful. Oftentimes, I recommend just taking a can version of that similar formula and mixing it in with the dry food. That’s totally acceptable. It makes you not have to worry about unbalancing this diet potentially.

MD [53:49] Since you mentioned the Pro Plan Performance 30/20, we did get a question about vets and the complete nutrition for puppies. How do people navigate the several different kinds of puppy food out there? Is this something they need to be looking at labels carefully? Or is it just giving people choices or puppies choices?

RN [54:10] A lot of it is just giving people choices. In some puppy formulas, there are things like higher levels of Omega-3 fatty acids. If that’s something that you’re looking for for your puppy and your veterinarian has recommended that that’s something to look for, certainly. You can look for a diet where the primary protein is salmon. There’s a good chance it’s going to be high in Omega-3 fatty acids. What I tell people is look for a reputable manufacturer. Ask them those questions that I outlined earlier. As long as it is complete and balanced for puppy growth (and if you're breeding Golden Retrievers, it should be large breed puppy diet), I’m okay with whatever consumer choice you have as long as your veterinarian is okay with it as well. They’ll be the best arbiters of “this puppy needs this particular diet.” But a lot of it is consumer choice.

MD [55:13] Great. We have a question from someone with a small breed (20 pound Border Terriers). They say that: some breeders suggest small breed puppy food is too rich and promotes too-fast growth and they recommend feeding it large breed puppy kibble with no supplementation. It’s also what I’m feeding the dam. Do you have any thoughts or feedback on that?

RN [55:31] That’s an interesting question. This ties into the previous question, and I should have mentioned this. The formulas that are on the market vary pretty significantly from one another. Some diets, if it’s marketed as a large breed diet, oftentimes are lower in calories because you’re feeding this dog a lot of food and you don’t want them to grow too quickly. Some of the “premium diets” tend to be really high in calories. So it takes a lot of evaluation of that pet food to know what is right for your pet. Is your pet obese-prone? Or overweight-prone? If you have a small breed dog that—I don’t want to pick on… I’ll pick on pugs. They tend to be obese. I’m going to look for a lower calorie diet for that particular dam. However, there are some pugs that have fantastic metabolisms. You can look for a higher calorie food for them. I’ll use senior diets as an example. There is no AAFCO definition of a senior diet. There is none. What the manufacturers can say is: “This is what we think is a good senior diet.” Same goes for a small breed diet. Find a manufacturer you trust and believe in their nutritional philosophy. As long as that diet is complete and balanced and meets that patient’s/that dog’s nutritional needs, I’m okay with that. Again, talk to your vet. They’re going to be able to say, “You need a lower calorie food,” or “You need a higher calorie food.” 

MD [57:22] Thank you. Is there any danger in supplementing DHA for mom or puppy? 

RN [57:26] It’s not specifically a danger of DHA. It is a potential danger of fish oil, Omega-3 fatty acids that we’ve seen. Sometimes in cats as well. If you give X to them (I’m talking a huge amount of Omega-3 fatty acids), you could potentially see blood clotting issues. So on the human side, surgeons will tell folks to stop taking fish oil supplements 2 weeks before they have surgery for that specific reason. Chances are, the doses that you’re using on a label of a supplement—you’re going to be okay. But if you are using a premium diet, it is important to talk to your vet because that diet may be really well-supplemented with Omega-3 fatty acids, and then you’re just adding on top of that. 

MD [58:25] Thank you so much! Unfortunately, we are out of time! I feel like we could ask you questions about nutrition all day! But unfortunately, we can’t. Thank you so much for your time and your excellent talk. 

RN [58:42] Thank you! I appreciate the opportunity. 

MD [58:45] Thank you everybody who came today! We will be sharing a recording for everyone who came or who wants to watch it again. Like Dr. Naik said, we will be sure to provide you with access to those resources he mentioned.