Also, if I were so inclined, I can find studies that find the opposite conclusions of the ones you've quoted. Statistics are easily manipulated to support a point of view.
I am simply going on what I have personally seen in 17 years of dogs - my own, my friends' dogs, etc. That said, another point is EVERY DOG IS DIFFERENT so their metabolism is different too. Some dogs do better on one diet over another. I have tried just about every premium food on the market (as well as having tried raw back 10 years ago for about a year) and there are some whose recipe I like better but the bottom line is how my dogs do on the diet - it might be a better food according to experts, but if my dogs do not do well on it, it's worthless to me.
So I go by their coat, stool, energy level, muscle tone, mucous membranes, breath, scent and tartar build-up, if any. So far I have kept coming back to Royal Canin formulas time and time again as my dogs seem to do the best on it overall. I like Taste of the Wild's recipe, though, so I use that, too. I do not ascribe to feeding a dog just one kibble, I think that leads to potential gaps in nutrition.
And though some folks may say that large breed puppy food is OK, I am not willing to take that chance - I've been safe with what I've done so far and I am satisfied with that. I would feel so stupid if I tried a puppy formula and my dog came up with Pano - because I knew better!
So I am slow to change what I think is working just fine. If I see good reason to, I have no problem doing it, but otherwise I will stick with what works for my guys.
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