Is a high-carb diet bad for my Golden Retriever? How much is safe?

For a dog without allergies, they should be getting between 30-70% of their daily diet. This is a little low for a dog, and I don't recommend feeding grain free or low carb diets unless the dog has been diagnosed with food allergies.

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. Unless your vet had given you specific diet requirements for a specific disease (kidney disease for example), this percentage should be fine. I will warn that some dogs actually develop diarrhea on high-protein foods, though I have seen many pets do great on it. Best wishes to you and Chloe!

There is no one "best" food. The optimal diet is one that your dog eats, can easily be bought and does not cause stomach upset. That said, certain brands are better than others. Stay away from store or discount brands. These typically contain low quality ingredients and more fillers. Better or premium brands include ProPlan, Canidae, Orijen, Royal Canin and Acana.

Too much protein isn't good for dogs, and it's recommend they have 18% of their diet be protein. Now some dogs, such as working dogs, require higher amounts of protein due to their increased caloric demands. In addition, too much protein in dogs can lead to weight gain. Now too much protein per say doesn't cause health issues, but if a dog has a pre-existing health condition like kidney or liver disease, too much protein is not good for them because it increases the workload of those organs. Low carb diets are bad, yes. Totally unnecessarily. Brands of grain free diets try to sell you their diets by claiming outrageous things like it's the diet of their ancestors, the wolves. Todays dogs are so far removed from the wolf, it's not even funny. When was the last time you saw a pack of pugs take down a deer in the wild???

A maintenance diet would be 1 cup (8 ounces) of dry food per 30lbs body weight daily. For example, if Rooney weighs 60lbs then he would need 2 cups of food daily. This amount can be adjusted up or down based on activity, body weight and body condition.

No, I do not recommend it. It's a grain free diet, and vets are seeing a rise in heart disease in dogs who are fed grain free and boutique diets. Dogs are dying from this, and the FDA is now researching it. Grains are fine for dogs, grain free is a fad. I recommend brands such as Royal Canin, Hill's Science Diet, Purina ProPlan, and Iams. I hope this helps!

Hello, the calorie per cup measurement in any dog food means that if your dog needs to eat 500 calories per day then you'll be giving overall less amount of food to meet his caloric demand with the food that has more calories per cup. With either food, you will have to meet his daily caloric demand. What this means for you, is that you'll likely go through the dog food with less calories per-cup much quicker than the dog food that is more dense in calories per cup. Hope this helps and best of luck.