In this article:
- What makes a Board-Certified Veterinary Nutritionist® an expert?
- Do board-certified nutritionists formulate The Farmer’s Dog food?
- What do board-certified nutritionists say is important in dog food?
This article was originally published in December of 2024, and has been updated.
If you’ve found yourself on this page, you know that a dog’s diet is a key factor in their health—and you want to be sure that your best friend’s food is made by qualified professionals who have their long-term well-being in mind.
Every recipe from The Farmer’s Dog is developed by our on-staff, board-certified nutritionists. We talked to them about their reasons for getting into the field, what education and experience they needed to become board-certified, what they do for our company and the dogs we feed—and what you should know before picking a pet food. Here are some of the key takeaways from our conversation.
What makes a Board-Certified Veterinary Nutritionist® an expert?
A Board-Certified Veterinary Nutritionist® is a veterinarian whose specialty is nutrition—the way a board-certified veterinarian might specialize in anesthesiology or surgery.
A Board-Certified Veterinary Nutritionist® must earn a veterinary degree, gain experience via an internship or several years of clinical practice, complete a residency training program, and pass a two-day test. They also have to be the primary author on a publication in an accepted journal to give them a better understanding of research.
That’s a high bar to clear, which is why there are very few Board-Certified Veterinary Nutritionists® in the United States. There are only around 100, and three of them—Dr. Renee Streeter, Dr. Joe Wakshlag, and Dr. Susan Wynn—work for The Farmer’s Dog.
Achieving this level of education and experience takes a tremendous commitment, so it should come as no surprise that our board-certified nutritionists love dogs and are passionate about their health.
Dr. Wakshlag, who’s been with our company since the beginning, was fascinated with animal nutrition from a young age. “When I was five years old,” he remembered, “I used to ask my parents, ‘What do monkeys eat? What do guinea pigs eat?’”
Dr. Streeter grew up with animals including dogs, cats, fish, rabbits, and mice, and took a keen interest in feeding them. “One of my favorite things to do,” she remembered, “was make the rabbits various lettuce wraps.”
Dr. Wynn practiced veterinary medicine for three decades before she specialized as a nutritionist. She made the switch because she saw the impact food had on dogs’ overall health. “The cornerstone of health really is nutrition,” she said. “The diet is where it all starts.”
Do board-certified nutritionists formulate The Farmer’s Dog food?
Yes, always.
Even if a company has board-certified nutritionists on staff, they don’t always formulate the food. They might work in a sales or marketing department, for example. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with this, but it won’t impact the nutritional composition of that company’s food.
At The Farmer’s Dog, our on-staff, board-certified nutritionists bring their expertise to every formulation, making sure that it provides optimal nutrition for dogs in every stage of life, from puppies to seniors.
Of course, for questions about your dog’s health, ask your vet.
What do board-certified nutritionists say is important in dog food?
There’s a lot you can’t control about your dog’s environment—but you can control what they eat, and that can make a big impact on their health. Keeping that in mind, there are certain requirements that board-certified nutritionists consider nonnegotiable in a dog’s daily diet. The first is an Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) statement indicating that it’s safe for daily feeding. The statement will specify whether a food is for puppies (AAFCO’s terminology here is “growth and reproduction”) or adult dogs (“adult maintenance”)—The Farmer’s Dog is safe for dogs in any stage of life, as soon as they’re weaning.
“There’s a huge book, over 300 pages, that talks about how to make an appropriate dog food,” Dr. Wakshlag said of the AAFCO guidelines. “It’s sort of the Bible of dog-food production in this country.”
But while an AAFCO statement is an absolute must, it’s by no means all you need to look for in a dog food. Any company who’s feeding your dog should be able to answer these five questions:
1. Who formulates your food, and what are their qualifications?
2. Do your products meet an AAFCO nutrition profile, as verified by a third-party nutrition analysis on all of your finished products?
3. Do you conduct third-party digestibility studies for each of your formulas?
4. Do you have a positive-release program and ensure there are not any microbial contamination issues?
5. Does the manufacturing facility where your food is made have third-party safety certifications in place?
As noted above, board-certified nutritionists formulate every recipe from The Farmer’s Dog, and we can answer “yes” to all of these questions. All of our sourcing, cooking, packaging, and storing processes meet the same standards as those for human foods. Furthermore, said Dr. Wakshlag, “fresh, whole-food diets like ours are easily digestible”; third-party studies show that our foods are highly digestible and nutritionally bioavailable.
Companies should be willing to answer specific inquiries about the nutrients in their food—passing along their full list of ingredients or the proportions of nutrients like protein, fiber, and fat in their typical analysis (that’s a term for a test showing the nutritional contents of their food). This information is not proprietary, and companies should be regularly testing their products and happy to share the results with you.
The same goes for us—if you have any questions, please reach out. You can contact us here.
The post Meet Our On-Staff, Board-Certified Veterinary Nutritionists® appeared first on The Farmer’s Dog - Digest.
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