By breed · what to do
What to feed your breed
Most breeds eat the same balanced bowl. A few have one thing to get right — and for most of those, a DNA test from a registered breeder settles it before the bowl is ever an issue. Pick your species, find your breed, do what it says.
Find your breed
Urate stones · low-purine bowl
Dalmatian
Ask the breeder: No test to ask for — every Dalmatian carries the urate variant. The diet is the answer.
What to do
- Build the bowl from the low-purine foods in the checker: egg white as the bulk, white rice, the vegetable mix, curd, a spoon of olive oil. Chicken breast, skinless, in a small measured portion — about 40–50 g a day for a 25 kg dog.
- Keep out: organ meat, sardines and other oily fish, mutton, dal and other legumes, tofu, and anything yeast-flavoured.
- Use DogPro-L, not DogCore. Its palatant is the plain hydrolysate from the growth line, a quarter of the purine of the adult umami stack. A 25 kg dog: three 20 g sachets a day, one per meal.
- Water everywhere, always. Your vet may add a pinch of iodised salt a day to drive thirst — that is a prescription, follow the vet's gram.
Why
A Dalmatian cannot reabsorb uric acid in the kidney, so it goes straight into the urine and crystallises into stones — in males, a blocked urethra. The target is under 100 mg of uric-acid equivalent a day, and the foods above get there with room to spare.
Where the vet takes over: This is a vet-guided diet for life: urine pH, urate crystals and serum urate on the vet's schedule; thyroid T4 yearly. Blood in the urine or straining is an emergency.
Weight · joints · blood sugar · copper (tested)
Labrador
Ask the breeder: Ask for KCI registration and the copper-metabolism (ATP7B) DNA result. Cleared means copper is not your problem.
What to do
- Cleared: standard BARC bowl and DogCore. No copper tweak — the sachet's copper is capped, and the body caps absorption again on top.
- Feed for the Labrador you have: no rice or roti bulk. Satiety comes from the rainbow vegetable stack — ash gourd (white pumpkin) as half the mix, then yellow pumpkin, chayote (chow-chow), zucchini, button mushroom and bell pepper in equal parts — cooked. It fills the stomach at almost no sugar.
- Weigh monthly, set the activity slider honestly, and hold the waist — a lean Labrador is the single best thing you can do for its hips and elbows.
- Taurine is in the sachet; cooking destroys the taurine in meat, so do not skip the sachet on "meat days".
Why
Labradors carry an appetite variant, a starch-heavy home bowl spikes blood sugar and lays down fat, and extra weight lands on joints that are already the breed's weak point. Copper hepatopathy exists in the breed but is screened at source.
Where the vet takes over: A raised liver panel in a cleared dog, or any dog with confirmed liver copper on biopsy — that is a prescription low-copper diet the sachet cannot reach.
Weight · joints · omega-3 · copper (tested)
Golden Retriever
Ask the breeder: Same as the Labrador: KCI registration and the copper-metabolism DNA result.
What to do
- Cleared: standard BARC bowl and DogCore, rainbow vegetables for satiety (the same six as the Labrador), weigh monthly.
- Push omega-3 higher if you want to: swap part of the tilapia for sardines in the rotation. The sachet count does not change.
- Never skip the sachet — the taurine in it is the only taurine that survives your cooking.
Why
Goldens carry the highest cancer burden of any breed, and an anti-inflammatory omega-3 baseline is the defensible nutritional position. They also appear in the diet-linked heart-disease literature alongside Labradors, which is the taurine point.
Where the vet takes over: Lumps, weight loss, a cough or exercise intolerance — vet, not diet.
Pancreas (EPI) · spine (DM)
German Shepherd
Ask the breeder: Ask for the SOD1 (degenerative myelopathy) DNA result. No diet changes DM; a cleared dog simply does not have it.
What to do
- Cleared: standard BARC bowl and DogCore.
- Once a year: a GI panel with a serum B12. The breed has the highest rate of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency in dogs, and B12 drops before it shows.
Why
EPI means the pancreas stops making digestive enzymes; food quality cannot fix that. What diet can do is keep B12 topped up, and the sachet carries it every day.
Where the vet takes over: Big appetite with weight loss and greasy stools — that is EPI until proven otherwise, and enzyme replacement is the vet's job.
Heart (taurine) · PFK (tested)
Cocker Spaniel
Ask the breeder: Ask for the PFK (phosphofructokinase) DNA result; tested lines do not produce affected pups.
What to do
- Standard BARC bowl and DogCore. Nothing breed-specific to add.
- Never skip the sachet: Cockers sit in the diet-linked heart-disease literature and the sachet's taurine is the fix that cooking cannot undo.
Why
The breed's dietary risk is a taurine-short home bowl, not a food to avoid.
Where the vet takes over: Exercise intolerance or pale gums in an untested dog — vet.
Weight · breathing · bowl shape
Pug & French Bulldog
What to do
- Standard BARC bowl and DogCore, dosed to the real weight with the activity slider set low — an apartment Pug is sedentary, and the plan must say so.
- Weigh monthly. A flat-faced dog that gains weight breathes worse and moves less, and the cycle feeds itself.
- Serve soft mixed food in a wide, shallow bowl — no chunks to chase, no gulping.
Why
There is nothing metabolic to correct; the risk is structural and the fix is portion precision.
Where the vet takes over: Noisy breathing at rest, collapse in heat — vet, and lose the weight first.
Copper storage (COMMD1, tested)
Bedlington Terrier
Ask the breeder: Ask for the COMMD1 DNA result. Responsible lines are clear.
What to do
- Cleared: standard BARC bowl and DogCore — a cleared Bedlington handles copper like any dog.
- Affected: not a diet you can build at home. Vet-supervised copper restriction and chelation.
Why
COMMD1 disease breaks copper excretion; even normal copper accumulates in the liver.
Where the vet takes over: Affected or untested with any liver sign — referral.
Calcium window · Labrador, GSD, Golden, Rottweiler, Great Dane, Mastiff, St Bernard
Large & giant-breed puppies
What to do
- Expected adult weight 25 kg or more: use the PuppyPro growth line and add no bone, no eggshell, no calcium supplement — ever, on this line.
- Feed lean; a fast-growing giant puppy should be rangy, not round. Weigh weekly.
Why
Up to about six months a big puppy absorbs almost all the calcium it is given, and the surplus warps a fast-growing skeleton. The growth sachet holds calcium inside a tight window (3.0–4.0 g per 1000 kcal); the one thing that breaks it is a scoop of bone meal "for strong bones".
Where the vet takes over: Bowed legs, swollen joints, limping in a puppy — vet the same week.
Indie, Beagle, Shih Tzu, Spitz, Boxer, Rottweiler and the rest
Every other dog
What to do
- Standard BARC bowl: mixed vegetables, curd, egg, chicken, mutton, tilapia. One DogCore sachet per 100 g of food (per 80 g under 10 kg), or the count on your plan.
- Weigh monthly; set the activity slider honestly.
Why
No breed lever applies. The same balanced bowl, dosed to the dog you actually have.
Where the vet takes over: Any dog on a prescription diet stays on it — talk to the vet before changing.
The one rule
A tested, cleared animal eats the standard bowl. An affected one has a vet's diet.
PKD1, MYBPC3, COMMD1, ATP7B, SOD1, PFK — every one of these is a cheek swab, and a registered breeder has the result. Ask for it. The Dalmatian is the one breed where the diet itself is the answer, and the page above gives you the bowl.
Build the bowl for the animal you have
Species, weight, activity and life stage go into the builder; it returns the grams and the sachet count.