Pet Food Nutrition

Good nutrition is the foundation for good health.

Whether you want to improve the diet of your own pet or you work with owners and want to help them provide nutritious meals for their own pets, navigating the pet food industry can be a challenge.

The pet food industry is constantly evolving and they’re watching consumer trends to get a leg up on the market. The good news is that consumers are demanding higher quality pet foods - and the bad news is that many pet food companies are focusing on their demands not by creating healthier foods, but by creating the illusion that the quality has improved.

As a Certified Pet Food Nutrition Specialist, you’ll be able to look at any commercial dog food and know if the food that’s inside the packaging meets the manufacturer’s claims. In just a short time, you’ll understand:

• How the digestive system works and how easy it is to cause digestive imbalance, which can result in many common health issues
  

• How the pet food industry is regulated and how that influences the quality of the ingredients
  

• How pet food packaging can play an important role in health and how most pet owners make this one critical mistake with dry diets

• How the FDA and AAFCO define natural and organic ingredients and how pet food manufactures can trick consumers into thinking their food is better quality than it is

• How AAFCO defines ingredients and how these definitions can allow pet food manufactures to use inferior or even harmful ingredients

• How to decipher the guaranteed analysis and calculate the real amounts of nutrients

• Which macronutrient sources are safe and which can be harmful

• How to spot inferior protein sources on the label and how to know how much carbohydrate is in the food

• The problems that processing can create and how to fill any nutritional voids they create (and how to avoid the toxic substances they produce)

• How to calculate energy density and energy requirements

• Why starch is high in most dry diets and how this creates chronic disease in the animals eating it

• Why cats differ from dogs when it comes to nutrient requirements and why they should not be eating certain types of common foods

• How veterinary diets are regulated and exactly how they differ from over-the-counter diets

• How to feed dogs and cats for different life stages and activity levels

• The foundational rules required to evaluate any pet food (and the calculations you'll need to analyze foods)

• How and why commercial diets should be supplemented

Why Should You Choose DNM University Certification?

If you are a breeder, rescue worker or pet owner, this course will train you to choose the highest quality commercial diets. As a breeder or rescue worker, you can help educate new pet owners and your certification will show them you’re fully qualified to help them with nutritional advice.

If you are a breeder, rescue worker or pet owner, this course will train you to choose the highest quality commercial diets. As a breeder or rescue worker, you can help educate new pet owners and your certification will show them you’re fully qualified to help them with nutritional advice.

If you’re an employee or student, this certification can show your company that you’ve gone the extra mile to get certified by a trusted source and your added value to the company can get you higher pay.

How the Course Works

The Pet Food Nutrition Certification is an advanced, 9 module, 46 lesson course. Each module is followed by a short quiz, which you must pass before moving to the next module. This makes sure you’re prepared for the final exam. Once you’ve completed the final course, you can take the final exam. After passing the exam, you’ll earn the Certified Pet Food Nutrition Specialist designation and you’ll receive a certificate you can frame and a digital badge you can display on your Facebook or LinkedIn account or in your email signature.