Flipping the Label on Commercial Dog Treats: Treating with Nutrition

The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) has current guidelines in place for product labeling of commercial pet food products. Unfortunately, the guidelines prove to be rather lenient in terms of ingredient transparency. In turn, this leniency allows pet food and treat conglomerates to label products with marketing buzzwords like "Natural" and "Organic" without any merit or certification. The disconnect lies within the consumer's perspective of what is considered a "Natural" product and what the AAFCO requires for a product to be labeled as such. My creative project focused on surveying current dog owners about their purchasing behaviors of commercial dog treats and gaining insight to what influences their decision to buy a certain type or brand of dog treat for their pet. I analyzed the results of the survey and examined the ingredients of the most popular brands of treats for nutritional benefit. My focus on this analysis was to find discrepancies between the product label, the perception of the consumer purchasing the products, and the ingredients listed on the back of the package. The next part of my project was to create a dog treat recipe using only ingredients that provided a nutritional benefit. The recipes I crafted excluded artificial preservatives, fillers, coloring, etc. The last part of my creative project was to package and label the finished dog treat in accordance to AAFCO guidelines, complete with labeling requirements and guaranteed analysis. My product labeling provides transparency in the ingredients used and omits marketing slogans that are misleading. The goal of my thesis was to create a dog treat that was not only palatable to our canine companions, but, also preserved a nutritional benefit to them. Keywords: dog treats, animal nutrition, product labeling