Dry food is the most popular type of pet food in the United States for its convenience, economy, and reliability to provide your dog with 100 percent of the necessary nutrients.
Itching is probably the number-one complaint from people about dogs and their food, and the finger of blame is usually pointed toward an undiagnosed food allergy. When I ask people what food they feed, I often want to cringe, because they’re feeding a bargain food with more grains in it than meat. Commercial foods that rely heavily on grains are “complete and balanced” as far as scientists are concerned; but if your dog fails to thrive on them, the food is not doing its job. It’s not always a true allergic reaction; sometimes it’s just poor-quality food. On the other side, people often go overboard by saying that dogs shouldn’t have any grains. There is a middle ground. What if we just didn’t select foods that were predominately grains, especially corn?
One of my Dog Stew customers has a beautiful Lab named Paddy, who was breaking out in hot spots and itching like crazy. Paddy was being fed a pretty good commercial dry food that I once had Jackson eating. When we transitioned Paddy to fresh food, he was eating all three of my basic recipes, which included rice, barley, or oatmeal. When his owners called me after one week of Paddy’s being on the food, they were extremely excited about his improvement. I didn’t believe the change could happen so quickly, so when I delivered the food the following week, I inspected him for myself. His hot spots were improving and the incessant itching had stopped. It wasn’t just having grain in his food that was causing problems; it was the quality and quantity of the grains. As my clientele expanded, I had opportunities to feed other dogs who were on the same exact dry food with the same conditions. I still fed them grains, and their skin problems all cleared up.
If you have a concern about allergies, ask your veterinarian to recommend a specialist. But also look carefully at the food you are feeding and question whether it measures up.
Dogs often develop skin conditions and become bored with their dry food. Although the common mantra is feed one food for life, it makes more sense to try rotating through different foods to provide variety and simply avoid digestive upset by gradually introducing new dry foods. This will also prevent dogs from developing allergies from being fed one food for life, as often happens.
When shopping for commercial dog food, take a few minutes to review the ingredients panel. The first half of the label should list quality foods that you can readily identify, because these will make up the bulk of your dog’s diet. Often when particular ingredients are listed it’s by scientific names, so definitely ask the staff at your local pet store to help you understand the ingredients panel. If the staff doesn’t know, then they should be able to easily look it up. If they can’t look it up, try another pet store.
The following chart breaks down the quality of common ingredients; within each box, items are ranked by desirability, with the more preferable ingredients at the top of the list.
|
Poor Quality: Leave It on the Shelf |
OK with Higher-Quality Ingredients |
Better Quality: Put It in the Bowl |
Meat |
Poultry Digest Animal Digest Meat By-Products Meat and Bonemeal By-Product Meals Blood Meal |
Dried Egg Product Salmon Meal Fish Meal Cheese Product Hydrolyzed Soy Protein Isolate |
Eggs Named Meats: Chicken, Beef, Lamb, Turkey, Duck, Salmon, etc. Liver, Heart, Kidneys—when specified by specific type of animal source |
Vegetables, Fruit |
Beet Pulp Potato Product or Potato Starch Peanut Hulls Soybean Mill Run Powdered Cellulose Grape Pomace Citrus Pulp |
Tomato Pomace Apple Pomace Potatoes Celery Pea Starch or Pea Fiber |
Yams, Sweet Potatoes, Pumpkin Leafy Green Vegetables: Spinach, Kale, Parsley Peas, Carrots, Green Beans, Broccoli, Zucchini Apples, Bananas, Other Fruits Cranberries, Blueberries |
Grains |
Flours (Wheat, Barley, etc.) Brewer’s Rice, Rice Gluten Soy, Soy Flour, Soybeans, Soy Grits Sorghum, Milo Cornstarch, Corn Gluten Meal Wheat Mill Run |
White Rice Whole-Grain Wheat Ground Whole Corn The same grain split into separate ingredients Rice Bran Alfalfa Meal |
Amaranth, Millet, Oat Groats, Quinoa Oats Barley, Rye Brown Rice Tapioca |
Fats |
Animal Fat Beef Tallow Mineral Oil Soybean Oil Cottonseed Oil |
Vegetable Oil Canola Oil Safflower Oil |
Salmon Oil Fish Oil Chicken Fat Flax Oil Olive Oil Safflower Oil |
Preservatives |
BHA (Butylated Hydroxysanisole) BHT (Butylated Hydroxytoluene) Ethoxyquin TBHQ (Tertiary Butylhydroquinone) Sodium Metabisulphite |
Citric Acid |
Rosemary Extract Other Herbs and Extracts Vitamin E (Mixed Tocopherols) |
Vitamins Minerals |
Menadione or Vitamin K supplement Zinc Oxide Iron Oxide |
Non-Chelated Minerals Hydroxyapatite (Calcium) Psyllium Seed Husks |
Chelated or Sequestered Minerals Flaxseed Lactobacillus acidophilus Yucca schidigera |
Additives |
Sugar “Meat Broth” High-Fructose Corn Syrup Food Colorings/Dyes |
Salt Molasses Liver Flavor |
Chicken Broth, Beef Broth, etc. Apple Cider Vinegar |
Ingredients are listed according to their predominance by weight; the higher the item is on the ingredients panel, the more your dog is depending on it to provide nutrition. Just like you, nutrition for your dog is best sourced from whole foods rather than by depending solely on vitamins thrown in at the end. Don’t be surprised that there are so many vitamins and minerals added; manufacturers want to cover all the bases.
Two examples:
(The size of the type has been altered to illustrate approximate proportions.)
The first example is the food that I use to supplement the home-cooked meals for my own dogs.
Meat is the first ingredient, so we’re off to a good start. Chicken meal is next, and then shortly after that come turkey and fish meals—that’s a good amount of meat. The only caution about this food comes in early; three sources of protein may aggravate dogs with allergies. Dogs with allergies should stick to a single source of protein. For dogs without allergic conditions, this food supplies more diverse proteins and can be a healthy choice.
Oatmeal is pretty far down the list, with flaxseed and a smidge of barley (way down on the list) being the only other grains included, so grains make up a small amount of this food. Carrots, sweet potatoes (whole, not just the skins), blueberries, and cranberries are all great additions to your dog’s meal.
Notice that salt appears way down on the list of ingredients. The manufacturer has added so many good ingredients they don’t need to pump the flavor up with salt.
There are no preservatives that raise flags here. This manufacturer is obviously proud of their ingredients, and they should be. If you can find a food like this, you can feel comfortable putting it in the bowl.
When reading the fine print, you’ll notice the manufacturer includes some interesting ingredients:
Foods like this are best found at local and independent specialty pet stores. My experience has been that the smaller the store, the more knowledgeable the staff and the better the quality of the foods sold.
This second example doesn’t fare as well, and it wouldn’t be surprising if your dog didn’t do so well on this food.
Corn is the first and third ingredient, leaving your dog depending on a grain for the majority of nutrition. Corn does provide some necessary nutrients, but it’s a lot of bulk without a lot of punch. Corn is valued for its high linoleic (omega-6) acid content in comparison with other grains, but ¼ teaspoon of flaxseed oil contains almost as much omega-6 fatty acids as a cup of ground corn and a better proportion of omega-3 oils. In the United States, corn is quite inexpensive, so it’s easy on the manufacturer’s budget, but it’s far from a high-quality ingredient.
By the AAFCO (American Association of Feed Control Officials) definition, chicken by-product meal consists of necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines. Although some nutrients do exist in these animal parts, are they really the best nourishment for your best friend? If the ingredients panel contains the word by-product, say “bye-bye.”
Animal fat comes in the middle, but from what kind of animal? Generic terms mean that the manufacturer isn’t held to using one particular source, and so it can contain any type of animal. If you consistently feed your dog the same brand of food and all of a sudden your dog is not doing well on the food, it may be that the source of generic items like this has been changed.
The manufacturer advertises this food as: “Moist, chewy chunks made with real beef are rich in quality protein to help build strong muscles.” But there’s really not much beef inside, given that the beef is sandwiched between animal fat and sugar.
Your dog has no nutritional requirement for sugar and sorbitol. These taste-enhancing ingredients are still included because dogs do have an affinity for sweet flavors, and without them the food probably wouldn’t interest your dog as much.
By definition animal digest, which appears in a small amount, cannot contain hair, horns, teeth, hooves, or feathers. That’s a comfort. The bad news is that it’s very generic, so you have no idea what kind of animal or parts are used, and the composition may change from batch to batch.
The manufacturer includes dried peas and carrots, which sound great on the label, but there’s more salt in this food than there are peas or carrots. It’s unfortunate that peas and carrots are featured predominately on this food’s packaging but not inside the bag.
Then the manufacturer adds red, yellow, and blue food colorings. Your dog doesn’t care what color the food is, so why should these be necessary? On the plus side, there are no preservatives in this food to raise concerns.
This food and others like it are very well marketed. I see ads in magazines and television commercials all the time for this very food. If the food is so inexpensive at retail and the manufacturer is spending so much money on advertising, it’s understandable that they don’t have much left over for high-quality ingredients. The more advertising I see for a brand, the less likely I am to buy it.
Canine Calculation: Spend a Little, Save a Lot
A note on cost: The first example was a 30-pound bag available for $38. The second example was a 31-pound bag available for $27. As with most things, you’ll get what you pay for. With nutrition being the key component of good health, it might benefit you to hedge your bets on paying a little extra every month for a better-quality food.
$38.00 - $27.00 = $11.00 added cost
$11.00 x 12 months = $132.00/year
$132.00 x 14 years = $1,848/lifetime additional food costs
In comparison, my veterinarian bills for Jackson’s lymphoma alone were more than $7,000. Baxter’s diabetes treatment with insulin, blood tests, and office visits total about $1,500 per year, as does medication and treatment for Chloe’s heart disease.
When transitioning from one commercial food to another, always do so gradually. The following chart illustrates the proportion of new and old foods over the course of a week. If your dog has a sensitive stomach, you can perform the same transition over two to three weeks to avoid upset.
Current Food |
New Food |
|
Day 1 |
75% |
25% |
Day 2 |
75% |
25% |
Day 3 |
50% |
50% |
Day 4 |
50% |
50% |
Day 5 |
25% |
75% |
Day 6 |
25% |
75% |
Day 7 |
0% |
100% |
