The WSAVA is a non-profit, worldwide organization dedicated to supporting veterinarians, health, science, and nutrition. Any food brand can sponsor these important efforts, however, most boutique brands do not.

The WSAVA has released a set of common-sense guidelines to consider when choosing food for your dog. These guidelines are simply a set of recommendations. There is no such thing as ‘WSAVA Approved’, and the WSAVA does not make ‘kickbacks’ or money from food brands.

See the guide HERE.

Some science-backed food companies (including Royal Canin and Purina) make ‘Giant Breed’ specific formulas, and those are fantastic!

The Royal Canin Giant Breed line is perfect.

However, many ‘giant breed’ formulas have been phased out or are hard to find.

Large Breed foods from Purina, Hills, Science Diet and Royal Canin are formulated and tested for dogs over 70+lbs, and this includes our giant breed dogs.

Therefore, both giant and large breed formulas are ideal and can be correct for Great Danes!

Many people see ‘Meat Meal’ or ‘Meat By Product Meal’ on the ingredients list and immediately believe that it must mean the food is full of cheap protein and junk.

Meal and Meat By-Product Meals are a concentrated form of whole-prey meat, not junk as you may have been led to believe.

Dogs don’t eat nicely cut and trimmed steak and chicken filets like us humans do.

They eat the WHOLE animal! Bone, organs, muscle, tendons and more. There is absolutely nothing wrong with meat meals and meat by product meals.

“By Product” simply means that the food is a rendering left over from some other process. Us humans don’t eat a lot of organ meat. Therefore, organ is ‘by product’.

Dogs NEED organ, bone and other ‘yucky’ things in their diet.

Whole prey model raw diets rely heavily on bone, organ and other tissues.

It’s not junk, it’s necessary nutrition.

A boutique food brand is a dog food from a company that:

-Does not employ a board-certified Veterinary Nutritionist (DACVN) to formulate and test foods
-Does not regularly utilize ongoing AAFCO food trials to test and substantiate their formulas
-Does not participate in or contribute to veterinary-level research and nutrition science
-Does not support ongoing veterinary health efforts (WSAVA, for example)

Boutique food brands often:

-Use marketing to make you ‘feel good’ about the food

-Rely on generic, unregulated terms such as ‘holistic’, ‘farm fresh’, ‘family-owned’ and ‘human grade’ to guide you so that you look past deficiencies in their scientific practices

-Will intentionally misrepresent science-backed and heavily-researched foods as ‘trash’, ‘garbage’, ‘fast food’ or ‘horrible’ so that you feel emotional or worried about food and buy their brand instead

Boutique food brands are linked to secondary DCM, a devastating heart condition that can cause sudden death in ‘healthy’ looking dogs.

Popular foods seen in the Great Dane community include Victor, 4Health, Diamond Naturals, Costco, Fromm, Zignature, Nulo, Nutro, Solid Gold, Orijen, Acana, The Farmer’s Dog, Honest Kitchen, Canine Caviar, Liberty, and Holistic Select (among others).

These are all ’boutique’ foods.

They do not employ DACVN Board-Certified veterinary nutritionists to formulate their foods. They do not participate in well-run nutrition research and food trials for their brand or for the greater good of dogs.

For example, Fromm foods are formulated by a chemical engineer.

Contrary to popular belief, boutique food brands are not inherently ‘higher-quality’.

Marketing is what makes you believe that it is.

Boutique food brands are linked to secondary DCM, and should be fed with caution.

Many dogs that suffer from nutritional DCM have healthy coats and good stools! They die suddenly, often without warning because their heart enlarges and eventually gives out.

It is believed that a majority of nutritional DCM cases go undiagnosed, because of this.

Nutritional (Secondary) DCM is caused by unbalanced nutrition.

We recommend sticking with science at this time and feeding only the highest quality, heavily researched diets that were substantiated in actual feeding trials, not just looked over by a ‘nutritionist’ on paper.

Many people believe that the only reason their veterinarian recommends Purina, Hill’s or Royal Canin is because their vet is receiving kickbacks and took all of their nutrition education from those companies.

Considering that those companies are the ones spearheading and funding most, if not all of our existing canine nutrition research, those are the companies that should be educating veterinarians!

Veterinarians that sell foods in their lobby mostly offer the prescription formulas to pets who need them and yes, they do receive a nominal amount of money for this, which covers the costs associated with stocking the food.

Keep in mind that the pet store who is trying to sell you the pricier boutique food brand with the higher margin is ALSO receiving a ‘kickback’ to promote the foods they sell. As a matter of fact, these kickbacks can be both high-pressure and HUGE.

No matter what food you buy, somebody somewhere stands to make money on the deal. Veterinarians are approached by ’boutique’ food brands OFTEN and absolutely could sell those options in their lobbies.

But they don’t, because veterinarians believe in science and research. Not marketing and woo.

Your trainer and breeder are not nutritionists. They are subject to the same marketing as you, which was created to make you feel nervous and guilty about choosing food for your dog. Follow the money here!

‘Nutritionist’ is an unregulated term. Anybody can take an online course and obtain that as a ‘title’. There are many ‘nutritionists’ out there, many of whom charge money for their services.

The only legitimate nutritionists are veterinarians who have obtained additional credentials, study, degrees, and board certifications in the field of animal nutrition.

We believe in fresh foods!

As a matter of fact, studies have shown that feeding a dry-kibble-only diet may increase the risk of bloat.

We recommend supplementing a healthy, well-formulated science-backed kibble with up to 10% raw or fresh foods. Balanced raw, Olewo Carrots, fresh fruits and vegetables, or Dr. Harvey’s are some of our favorites.

Raw feeding can be done right!

We recommend working with a board-certified Veterinary Nutritionist and learning a lot about raw feeding before getting started. www.perfectlyrawsome.com is a great resource.

Formulating your own food at home is rewarding, but you have to do it correctly.

We do not recommend raw-feeding giant breed puppies during their extreme growth phase (birth to 9 months) without professional veterinary nutritionist support.

Meat, veggies, and rice is NOT a balanced diet and may be extremely dangerous, despite the fact that it makes you feel like you are doing something ‘healthy’ for your pet.

If you do make a home-cooked stew, use it as a topper for an already balanced, science-backed commercial food.

To feed a full home cooked diet, work with a veterinary nutritionist and utilize BALANCE IT to view what nutrients are missing from your recipe.

You can hire a DACVN HERE.

We do not recommend home-cooking for Dane puppies under the age of 1 year, if ever at all.