Dog Food Secrets

Do you ever wonder what's really in your dog food? I know I do, and that's why I've been checking out ingredients on dog food packaging for some time. When you do that you're probably not going to be too impressed in a lot of cases, and you may consider a home made dog food diet. 

When reading dog food labels, the order of the ingredients tells you how much of each item is in the food. This isn't an exact amount, but what it does tell you is relative amounts. For example, if the label reads like:

corn meal, chicken, rice

Then the dog food has more cornmeal in it than chicken, and more chicken in it than rice. 

So the first thing I look for is where animal protein figures on the list. The reason I do this is that dogs have descended from a long line of carnivores. Dogs were domesticated from wolves a long time ago. Wolves are meat eaters and so it makes sense that the best thing to do for your dog is give him what he naturally needs-meat. Sure he can get by on cornmeal, but that isn't necessarily  the best thing for his health. 

The second big item to note when it comes to analyzing dog food is that some meat items are listed as "by products". What on earth is a by-product? According to About.com, chicken by-products are described as follows:

Definition: Chicken by-product meal consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidable in good processing practice.

Well, that's not exactly breast and thigh meat. Do you want your dog eating chicken feet as his main source of protein? Probably not. I don't either, so I prefer brands of dog food that have by-products lower down on the list of food items. 

Unfortunately if you're looking for bargain food you're going to be getting items like corn, corn meal, and by-products as the top ingredients. An example I like to use is comparing Purina Dog Chow to the more expensive line sold by the same company, Purina One. Dog Chow consists of lower quality ingredients like chicken by-products and corn meal. Purina One, on the other hand, has real meat in it. How do you know this? Its going to say "chicken" instead of "chicken by-products". I think this is better food for dogs.

Here's a secret tip: be careful changing your dog's diet. Dogs have sensitive digestive systems and changing your dogs diet abruptly can lead to problems like diarrhea. It could even lead to bloat, but I can't prove that. So start off by mixing in the new dog food a little bit at a time.

All of this begs the question-if you want your dog to eat real meat, why not just put her on a home made dog food diet? That's exactly what thousands of people are doing.

If you do a home made dog food diet, some items you might consider are cooked chicken, steak, pork, and a carbohydrate like rice. You're going to need to do some research to make sure that your dog is getting all the vitamins and minerals he needs, to maintain proper dog health supplements are going to be necessary on that kind of diet. Vegetables will also have to be included. 

I own a large number of dogs, so preparing home made meals is just not realistic for me. I barely have the time to make my own dinner. But if you only have one or two dogs, it might be something you should consider. But talk to your veterinarian to make sure your dog is getting all of the nutrients she needs. 

BARF Dog Food

Recently I came across something called "BARF Dog Food". Well its not what you think-it really doesn't have anything to do with barf. The BARF diet is about bones and raw food. Makes sense, that's what dogs would eat naturally if given the choice.

Any-who, here is an article about doggie diets you might find helpful. 

What's Really Going into Doggie's Dish?

The AAFCO sets the standards for pet food safety and nutrition, and the testing done by the AAFCO is used to determine whether or not specific ingredients are acceptable as pet foods. But the AAFCO will rate both low and high quality ingredients as being nutritionally adequate, because there is a demand for pet food in all price ranges. So you need to learn how to read past the AAFCO approval statement on your dog food labels if you want to know what Buster is really consuming.

Reading a Dog Food Label

The label tells us many important facts and figures that may otherwise dissuade or persuade us from purchasing the food. In short, it is important to read the labels. To actually read that label, and not to just give it a cursory glance, we will have to first know a little something about what can be found there and what it means.

The first thing most of us notice on any label is the product name. The product name may also contain primary ingredient names such as “Beef Dog Chow”, or what kind of dog the food is intended for, such as “Puppies, Adult, Lactating”, etc.

If, in the product name, an ingredient is listed, say for example that “Beef Dog Chow”, that beef must be at least 95% of the total weight if there is no water required for processing, and at least 70% when water is included. So, for dry kibble, 95% of that weight needs to contain beef.

When the title contains “dinner, formula, nuggets,” and other similar words, the ingredient named must be at least 25% of the weight. So in a product named Lamb Dinner, 25% of the total weight for the product must be lamb.

But, if only ¼ of that entire product needs to consist of lamb, the lamb may not (and probably is not!) the main ingredient. Ingredients must be listed in a descending order of weight. So, even though the bag says Lamb Dinner, the lamb may be fourth in order.

Information on the BARF dog food diet: Click Here

Example:

    * Lamb Dinner Ingredients: Corn, meat and bone meal, wheat, lamb.

In that Lamb Dinner, the main ingredients are really the corn and meat and bone meal. Not desirable for a healthy meal.

On the other hand if the ingredients listed were

    * Premium Lamb Dinner Ingredients: Lamb, ground rice, ground yellow corn…

This presents a more desirable meal and one that your dog can actually consume and digest properly.

When it comes to the words “flavored” or “flavor” such as Lamb Flavored Nuggets, no exact percentage of the named ingredient, the lamb, needs to be present, but enough of that ingredient needs to present as to be detectable

Often times, the main ingredients will not be present in the title. In such a case, these foods often include items such as: ground yellow corn, meat byproducts, tallow, and other items that are not particularly digestible for your pet. The actual named ingredient will probably be down the list and make up only a very small part of the product.

Besides naming an ingredient with the product name, other phrases and adjectives are used.

Premium Dog Food, or X Premium and other like titles are making a justified boast, as these products complied with the nutritional standards for a complete and balanced dog food. This is definitely something to take into consideration when shopping.

Natural Dog Food means that there are no artificial colors, preservatives or flavors.

If a product has given the calorie content on the bag, “Premium Beef Dinner: now with lower calorie content,” this is done so voluntarily as a service to the consumer. Because the calorie content of pet foods does not have to be displayed in their labels, however, here's a formula to help you make sure Buster is not eating too much:

Multiply the carbohydrate by 4.2kcal (kilocalories) per gram, the protein by 5.65, and then the fat by 9.4 kcal per gram. If you need to convert the kilocalories to kilojoules (another unit of measurement for energy) simply multiply the total by 4.184. Of course, rounding to the nearest ten might be helpful, as long as you keep in mind that it’s an approximation erring on the low side.

Where's the Fat?

A good way to find the higher quality dog foods by reading the ingredient list is to search for that first source of fat. Everything that is listed before that fat source, and including it, is the main part of the food. Everything else is generally used for flavor, preservatives, vitamins, and minerals. 

For example:

    * Food A:Ground yellow corn, meat meal, chicken fat, ground wheat, chicken byproduct meal, dried beet pulp …

    * Food B:

      Turkey, chicken, chicken meal, ground brown rice, ground white rice, chicken fat, apples, carrots, sunflower oil…

The importance of finding the source of fat and where it is listed is so you can find ingredients that may or may not be harmful to your pet, such as beet pulp or corn gluten meal. 

Learning to read the labels on dog food is the single most important thing you can do if you intend to feed your pet a commercial diet. Buster may be the smartest dog who ever wore a collar, but he can’t read, and he needs to rely on you to keep him healthy.

If what's in that can or bag doesn't sound like something you'd want to eat, it's probably not something your dog would eat if there were an alternative. So take the time to learn the language of labels! 

Sharda Baker has published several dog ebook and audios, including the internet best selling "Complete Guide to Your Dog's Nutrition". She is the proponent of the BARF dog food diet.

Visit the link below now for more information.

The BARF dog food diet

Dog Food Update

Well last night was the clincher. At about 3 AM my German Shepherd Brandy walked out into the hallway, waking me up. I didn't pay much attention until I heard a big explosion: of the diarrhea kind! Almost complete liquid. Brandy is a really good dog and has never had problems with going potty inside, but she looked awfully happy after this episode! I was miserable, having to clean up dog poop that was completely liquid at 3 AM! Luckily I had some Nature's Miracle on hand that made it much easier. Anyway so this afternoon I stopped by PetSmart and picked up a big bag of Nutro. Give that a few days to see if it clears up the digestive problems with the dogs. If not I guess I will have to head to the vet and see if its something else, but at this point I'm pretty sure the Solid Gold just hasn't been agreeing with the dogs. I am putting Brandy all on Nutro right away, but will be mixing half and half Solid Gold/Nutro for the other dogs.

Thumbs Down on Solid Gold

Well my experiment with Solid Gold dog food is coming to a disappointing close. Despite the rave reviews given by most people it just isn't sitting well with two of my dogs, who have been having chronic diarrhea since being on it. I was hoping that they would become acclimated to the food and the problems would fade. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be happening. Not sure where to turn next, I could just go back to Purina One. I did feed my dogs Nutro at one point, which is supposed to be a good dog food, I may try that.

Iams Dog Cruelty

Want to feed your dog Iams dog food? Watch this video to see how they treat dogs in their testing facility. Sick.



Iams Cruelty Website

The Switch to Solid Gold Dog Food

Today I decided to go ahead and drop the Purina Dog Chow and switch to Solid Gold Dog Food. This stuff ain't cheap: a thirty pound bag was $44. I also picked up a couple of cans and they were $1.40 each. Since I've heard so much good stuff about it, I decided to ignore the prices and take the plunge. I opted for a variety of Solid Gold Dog Food made from Bison!

It's going to take some time to find out if Solid Gold Dog Food improves skin conditions and shedding, as many owners have claimed. But one thing I can tell you is the dogs love it. My Akita, Naomi, hasn't been eating all that well the past several weeks. Usually she leaves half her bowl uneaten and this is even true if I mix in an entire can of Pedigree. Well this morning I gave her 2 cups of Solid Gold Dog Food mixed with about 1/3 of a can, and she gobbled it down.
So Solid Gold has passed the first test: the taste test. All of the dogs seemed to love it. Even Brandy, my female German Shepherd who is a notoriously picky eater.

It might be educational to talk for a moment about what is in this stuff. For the sake of brevity, I am going to list the top 5 ingredients in the 3 dog foods I have used. First the newest one which is Solid Gold WolfKing:

1. Bison
2. Ocean Fish Meal
3. Brown Rice
4. Oat Meal
5. Millet

In case you don't know, Millet is a kind of cereal crop. Solid Gold WolfKing is 22% crude protein, 9% crude fat, 4% fiber, and 10% moisture. Now for comparison, consider Purina One, a brand I have been feeding my dogs most of the time for many years. The top five ingredients are:

1. Chicken
2. Brewers Rice
3. Corn Gluten Meal
4. Whole Grain Corn
5. Poultry By-Product

Purina One has 26% crude protein, 16% crude fat, 3% fiber, and 12% moisture. A couple of things pop out comparing Purina One to Solid Gold. The first is that Solid Gold Dog Food has two animal protein sources in the first two ingredients, but Purina One has brewers rice. Now brewers rice is probably fine for your dogs, but this observation makes Solid Gold look better for dogs in my opinion. Dogs are carnivores, which means they are meat eaters. So if you can find a dog food that has more meat in it, I think the dogs will be better off.

The second thing I noticed was ingredients 3 & 4 are corn. I have been hearing that lots of dogs develop allergies to corn. Given that dogs, as I said, are carnivores descended from predatory wolves, is it any wonder they would develop allergies to corn, a starchy plant basically invented by humans? I'm going to have to do more research on this, but I am inclined to think that feeding dogs food with large amounts of corn in it is a bad idea. The Great Dane Lady, who I stumbled on doing some Google Searches, disagrees. She thinks the corn allergy thing is a myth and that feeding dogs corn is fine. I'm going to have to research this topic in more detail, for now I am withholding judgment. The fact is the "Great Dane Lady" might be wrong. I was able to find several articles that contradict her point of view and assert that corn, wheat, and soy are major sources of allergies in dogs.

Bolstering this opinion is the fact that my dogs have been doing much worse since I started feeding them Purina Dog Chow. Let's look at the top five ingredients in Dog Chow:

1. Corn
2. Poultry By-Product
3. Animal Fat
4. Corn Gluten
5. Meat/bone meal

WOW. Corn is the top ingredient meaning that this is the ingredient for which there is the most of. Also, corn shows up again at #4. Moreover, the animal protein sources are less than appetizing. Poultry by-product is basically ground up chickens without the good stuff. It includes internal organs and undeveloped eggs, among other things. Does that sound appetizing? Let's be rational, by-product is not going to kill your dog, but I am sure you would rather have your dog eating the meat off the bones, not some left overs after the meat has been stripped off for other purposes. The protein in poultry by-product is also rendered. I suggest you read the link to see what you think about that.

Well, I am sure that millions of dogs have led perfectly healthy lives eating Purina Dog Chow and Purina One Dog food. Also, Purina One, which is a more recent addition to the Purina product line, is a big improvement over Dog Chow from my read of the ingredients. That being said I think Solid Gold Dog Food, or another brand of equivalent quality, is definitely the way to go. Just keep in mind a few things:

• Dogs descended from Wolves
• Wolves are predators that survive on an almost exclusively carnivore (meat-eating) diet
• Corn is a starchy food meant to be eaten by humans
• Poultry by-products is, well pretty gross
• Eating straight out meat would be the best thing for a dog, when it comes to their protein content

Well, I'll keep everyone updated to see if there are any improvements in coat, skin, and other areas.

Dog Food Choices

Early this past summer I was shopping for dog food at a local grocery store. Normally, I purchase Purina One, but that day they were out. So feeling too lazy to drive to another grocery store or to a Pet store, I picked up a bag of Purina Dog Chow.

The dogs seemed OK with it, and it was a little bit cheaper, so I ended up buying it the rest of the summer. But the results have been less than stellar. For one, my dogs have all developed massive shedding problems. At first I took it as normal shedding when my Akita Naomi was shedding like crazy. Getting rid of her winter coat I told myself. But this went on: June, July, August, and now September and Naomi is still shedding like there's no tomorrow. To make matters worse, my German Shepherds Jake and Brandy are now having coat problems. Basically they look like shit. Big clumps of dog hair come out at the slightest touch. And my wacky Wiemaraner Lucy? Well she has symptoms of diabetes. Drinking water in quantities that you wouldn't believe and always hungry all the time. Plus they are all pooping in massive quantities.

A woman I know at the ranch where I board my horses is an ex-professional dog trainer. So I mention this stuff to her and she says "its the food stupid". She said that Purina has a lot of filler in their food (corn, rice) that not only isn't good for dogs for nutrition but may even cause allergies. Then she says the protein in Purina dog foods ain't that great, its stuff like ground up hearts and spinal chords. In other words, the left overs at the slaughter houses.

She recommended feeding my dogs a gourmet kind of dog food called SOLID GOLD. I haven't made the change yet but am giving it some serious consideration. The problem? This crap is expensive. Its $44 for a bag that would normally cost me $24. But my dogs look so pathetic with their coats I am thinking of making the jump. Another consideration is my dog Jake has skin allergies, and reading about Solid Gold Dog food on Pet co I came across a testimonial by a lady whose dog had the same problem and was on the same medication as Jake. She was able to get her dog off the medication just by feeding him Solid Gold.

Another option is some kind of natural diet. But that takes time. If you are having diet problems, what are you doing for your dog? I would like to hear suggestions, in particular if you feed your dog Solid Gold natural dog food.