Is too much protein harmful?

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Old wives tales about dry dog foods high in protein causing kidney disease run rampant both on and off the internet and many people deprive their dogs of what they crave most for fear of damaging their health.

Unfortunately the whole protein thing is not easily explained in just a few sentences, so bear with me if I ramble on for a while. I'll try to keep it as simple and straightforward as possible without going too much into scientific terms.

First of all, it is important that we understand that protein isn't only a nutrient - the amino acids it is made up of (think lego bricks forming a bigger structure) also serve as building blocks for body tissues, organs, enzymes, hormones, antibodies and so on - roughly half of the dry body mass of a dog consists of protein. Knowing this it is easy to understand that growing puppies need protein to build above mentioned body tissues, organs, enzymes, hormones, antibodies and both adults and growing puppies constantly need to replace and rebuild these as well. The body recycles amino acids to some extent, but part of them need to be replaced, just like you can't endlessly recycle paper or plastic.

Protein is processed in the liver and any waste materials are filtered and excreted by the kidneys. High quality protein does not generate large amounts of waste that needs to be removed from the body, but poor quality protein which is difficult to digest does and thus puts stress on the kidneys. The liver needs water to process protein and as a medium to carry waste products to the kidneys, where they are filtered out and most of the water is reabsorbed. The less concentrated the waste products in this primary filtrate are, the easier it is for the kidneys to do their filtering work - that's why it is unhealthy to feed dry food only and so critical that dogs eating mostly or exclusively dry food and dogs with liver disease get lots of extra water. Dogs who eat mostly canned food or a home prepared diet automatically take in more moisture and do not need to compensate as much by drinking. Contrary to what many people think and pet food companies claim, dogs (and cats) do not know instinctively how much extra water they have to drink to make up for what is lacking in the dry food. This is why I so highly recommend that people always add water to the kibble at feeding time.

Now that we have the basics laid out, we can return to the protein in the food.

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