Dog Food Facts: Tips for Choosing the Best Pet Nutrition

Dog Food Facts

February 12, 2024

Fact #1 – There is no such thing as a 100 % complete and balanced diet of processed food!

Fresh wholesome natural foods, fed in variety, create health. Anything else creates something less. If your family eats a healthy diet of fruits (except grapes), vegetables, whole grains, dairy products and meats – then table scraps of these wholesome foods, added to your dog’s diet will be beneficial. You should not include high fat unhealthy leftovers such as french fries, greasy gravies, meat fat and poultry skin – high fat foods cause diarrhea and pancreatitis in dogs.

Fact #2 – Kibble is a biologically inappropriate form of food for dogs

Their dental structure is designed for shearing or tearing a piece of food that is small enough to swallow whole – not for grinding kibble (a texture not found in nature). When feeding dry food, soaking for 20 min in hot water will promote better dental health by decreasing the amount of kibble residue in the cheek space near the back teeth.

Fact #3 – There is no single commercial pet food that is best for your dog.

Select at least four good quality foods using the criteria listed below and feed each type of feed for a month or two – then gradually change to a different one. Don’t feed one food for extended periods of time – any nutritional deficiency, excess or imbalance in that food will become entrenched in your dog’s body if he is fed the same food for months on end.

Fact#4 – Dogs are Carnivores.

This means that fresh raw meat and raw bones should be fed to your dog on a regular basis. Good bone choices include poultry necks and backs and clean beef knuckle bones. Raw bones provide important dietary elements including minerals, protein, fats, proteoglycans, collagen, vitamins and enzymes in perfect proportions, exactly as nature intended (as well as the exercise and entertainment derived from bone gnawing and chewing). Dogs can be confined in their dens while chewing fresh bones to prevent carpet soiling. Make sure the bones are large enough to prevent your dog from swallowing them whole. Do not feed cooked bones – they are brittle and indigestible and can injure your dog. Lean raw meat should be added to your pet’s diet on a regular basis. Suitable raw meats include 90% lean hamburger, organ meats (such as liver, kidney and heart) and occasional chicken or turkey necks. Note: Dogs cannot tolerate diets high in fat so poultry skin and fat meats must be avoided.

Factors in evaluation a good dry dog food – you MUST read the list of ingredients (Summarized from the Whole Dog Journal Volume 6 Number 2, February 2003)

Meat meal and/or whole meat should be in the first two ingredients – three meat sources among the top three ingredients are even better. By law, ingredients must be listed in order of their weight contribution to the food so you must be aware of the fact the fresh meat is 70% water – when the food is dried there is less meat protein than in foods where meat meal (ground and dried meat) is used. Remember, the ingredients are listed by weight – so when you see a list of ingredients that begins “ lamb (70% water and weighed wet), rice flour (dry weight), rice bran (dry weight), brewer’s rice (dry weight)” you should be aware that there is far more rice in the product than lamb.
Most dried pet foods contain less than 50% meat because higher quantities of meat gum up the machinery that mixes and extrudes the kibble. Adding fresh meat and vegetables improves even a marginal quality pet food.
An identified single source meat protein – i.e.: chicken meal is better than “poultry meal”
Whole unprocessed grains, fruits, vegetables, and other foods have a better chance of surviving the food making process with some of the nutrients intact.
Avoid food fragments (lower cost by-products of other food manufacturing processes) such as brewer’s rice, wheat bran, peanut hulls. Most foods contain at least one but some food makers use several to disguise an excess of low-value ingredients.
Avoid Meat by-products – When animal by-products are used they should be animal specific, play a supporting role to whole meat or meat meal and be somewhere below the top five ingredients.
Hallmarks of low-quality dry food “Generic” Fats or Proteins: For example, “animal fat” can be just about anything from recycled grease from restaurants, or an unwholesome mystery mix of various fats a preferable ingredient list would specify “beef fat” or “chicken fat”, etc.
- Artificial Preservatives: These chemicals include such agents as BHA, BHT, or Ethoxyquin which frequently cause skin problems in dogs.
- Artificial Colors: Your dog does not care what color his food is so please do not expose him to a lifetime of these chemicals.
- Propylene glycol: The same goes for this chemical which is added to some “chewy” foods to keep them moist.
- Sweeteners : Dogs, Like humans, have a taste for sweets. Corn Syrup, Sucrose, ammoniated glycyrrhizin, and others are sometimes added to low quality foods to increase their appeal but dietary sugar is unnecessary in your dog’s diet and can aggravate health problems including diabetes.
- Beware of Flavoring in the ingredients list. It is code for MSG and is an excitotoxin that can cause seizures in some dogs.

Waggie Pet Zone

Dog Food Facts

Always apply common health sense in making decisions about your dog’s diet. He depends upon you to make the right decisions for his life – don’t let him down.

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Dog Food Facts

Always apply common health sense in making decisions about your dog’s diet. He depends upon you to make the right decisions for his life – don’t let him down.

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