About the Authors

Milena Schmidt

Roles Conceptualization, Project administration, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

schmidt-milena@gmx.net

Affiliation Clinic of Small Animal Medicine, LMU University of Munich, Munich, Germany

Stefan Unterer

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Project administration, Supervision, Validation

Affiliation Clinic of Small Animal Medicine, LMU University of Munich, Munich, Germany

Jan S. Suchodolski

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Gastrointestinal Laboratory, Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Julia B. Honneffer

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Visualization

Affiliation Gastrointestinal Laboratory, Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Blake C. Guard

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Visualization

Affiliation Gastrointestinal Laboratory, Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Jonathan A. Lidbury

Roles Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Visualization

Affiliation Gastrointestinal Laboratory, Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Jörg M. Steiner

Roles Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Visualization

Affiliation Gastrointestinal Laboratory, Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Julia Fritz

Roles Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Napfcheck, small animal nutrition consultation, Munich, Germany

Petra Kölle

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Clinic of Small Animal Medicine, LMU University of Munich, Munich, Germany

Competing Interests

Concerning possible competing interests, we would like to point out that the first author Milena Schmidt is a doctoral candidate at the clinic for small animal medicine of the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. Furthermore, she is employed part-time at Napfcheck, a private small animal nutrition consultation practice in Munich with Julia Fritz as owner of the company (diplomate ECVCN). Besides nutrition counselling for dog and cat owners, the practice is also advising companies and giving lectures (f.e. for veterinarians, companies and pet owners). In the year 2015, J. Fritz published a book about the BARF-diet (“Hunde barfen: Alles über Rohfütterung”). Funding for analysis was provided from internal funds of the Gastrointestinal Laboratory at Texas A&M University. There are no other patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the objective and neutral perspective of the authors. This does not alter our adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.