# Glucosamine in dog food



## PRR (Jun 29, 2012)

Somebody correct my calculations, because they can't be right.

I'm trying to figure out how much glucosamine is in my dog's food.

In Hills Science Diet large breed, there is 400 ppm (parts per million). I'd like to find out how much glucosamine is in there, in terms of milligrams.

Now the bag says 17.4 kilograms, which works out to 17,400,000 MILLIgrams.

dividing that number by 1 million gives me 17.4, then multiplying by 400 gives me 6960 mg of glucosamine (in a large sack of dog food). And so 400 ppm, in a bag of food weighing 17.4 kilograms, would give me 6960 mg of glucosamine--in the entire bag.

6960 mg would be about 4 days' worth of glucosamine for a large dog.

Am I right? I can't believe that this is all that is in a large back that is supposed to last at least 2 weeks for the dog. 

My figures (math) must be wrong somehow, but I double checked.

EDIT: I'm not ragging on Hills Science Diet. I believe most large breed dog foods have similar if not the same amount of glucosamine. This was just the particular brand that I use (per vet's recommendation).


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## PRR (Jun 29, 2012)

Now that I think about it, maybe that's not so bad. For the same price as other dog food, you're providing a small amount of glucosamine that can provide a small supplement for the joints (and this is, by definition, for all large breed dogs, not just for those with diagnosed problems). I suppose their thinking was to give something as a way of a preventative, and then if there is a medical problem, then more would be added via a prescribed tablet/dosage.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

Without doing the math over again I am sure you are on the right track. It is very little joint supplement but might help a little. Any dog food with meal that contains bone is going to have the stuff in it as it is basically cartilage. I don't think the company is allowed to put therapeutic amounts in and call it dog food.


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## PRR (Jun 29, 2012)

I just saw somewhere on the Hills website that mg per kilogram is the same as ppm, so I could have saved myself a bit of trouble up above. So the 400 ppm is the same as 400 mg per kilogram of dog food.


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