About the Authors

Jean A. Hall

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft

Jean.Hall@oregonstate.edu

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, United States of America

Matthew I. Jackson

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Pet Nutrition Center, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Topeka, Kansas, United States of America

Dennis E. Jewell

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Grain Science and Industry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, United States of America

Eden Ephraim

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Pet Nutrition Center, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Topeka, Kansas, United States of America

Competing Interests

We have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: three of the authors (MIJ, EE) have an affiliation or formerly had an affiliation (DEJ) to the commercial funders of this research, as employees of Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc. (http://www.hillspet.com/our-company.html). This does not alter our adherence to policies on sharing data and materials. Data is freely available upon request. The funder provided support in the form of salaries for authors (MIJ, DEJ, EE), but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.