[aimee]

Hi Spycar,

Guess you just didn’t look deep enough if you only found one controversial study reporting salivary amylase in the dog. But as I said really I find it immaterial. Dogs don’t retain food in their mouths for long periods of time there would be no selective pressure to maintain it. It just seems silly to me that people trot out the dogs don’t have salivary amylase as a line in the sand type of thing as some studies report dogs have it and not all omnivores do.

In regards to New World monkeys, who do not make salivary amylase, in the herbivore, omnivore, carnivore scheme they are classified as omnivores. It could be said that frugivore is a type of omnivore which is how wkipedia defines it “A frugivore /fruːdʒɪvɔːr/ is a fruit eater. It can be any type of herbivore or omnivore where fruit is a preferred food type.”

But if you want to separate out the different feeding patterns than this descriptions should suit you better. This taken from an overview of the group “Diets also vary widely; some species are nearly completely folivorous (eating a diet of leaves), some are frugivores, and some are omnivores” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK232186/

Overfeeding any macronutrient leads to obesity.

Unfortunately your understanding of the pathophysiology of pancreatitis is incorrect. You wrote “excessive amylase destroys tissue in the pancreas.” Amylase breaks down bonds in starch.. starch is only found in plants. Amylase can not destroy the pancreas because the pancreas is not made of starch.

Dogs don’t become deconditioned via diet. High fat diets support stamina because the cells are filled with fat, the fuel is readily available. If you are going for intensity (anaerobic)that is where carb comes in. Sled dogs, endurance, low intensity exercise do best with high fat diets. Sprinters.. do best with a diet that contains a fairly significant amount of carb.

The activities that most people do with their dogs don’t fall into either extreme, racing greyhound vs endurance sled dog, and a balance of carb and fat is probably best. Dogs are very flexible in their requirements.

P.S. Tooth crowns will be cleaner with chewing activity but oral health(periodontal disease) was found not to be different between dogs and cats eating a natural diet vs a commercial food