I’ve always been a pretty no-nonsense guy when it comes to dog food. In general, I felt that fussing about your dogs diet and buying expensive food was a waste of time and money. The article What’s the Best Diet For a West Highland Terrier laid out my thinking on the subject quite clearly.
My thinking is changing now. Doctor Jones webinar was a real eye-opener for me, because it described the difference between high-quality and low-quality food, and provided the education we need to choose wisely.
There are three things wrong with lower-priced dog foods.
- The ingredients that are missing
- The extra ingredients that are in them
- The proportions of the various food types
The ingredients that are missing
So, how can you find a good quality dog food? Learn to interpret the label on the package. That’s the only guide you have and, as long as the manufacturers are reasonably honest, the only one you need. Since watching the webinar I’ve been paying much more attention to the labels on dog food.
The important thing to realize about the contents label is that it lists the relative proportions of the various ingredients in descending order. Dogs are carnivores, so the most important ingredient in the food should be some kind of protein from an animal source. That means that the first item on the list of ingredients should be something like beef, lamb, salmon or duck. Being first in the list is important, because its the most important part of your dog’s diet. Contrast this with the ingredient list of the food I have been feeding Willow. The product is Beneful made by Nestle and she likes it a lot. Here are the first ingredients:
- Ground Yellow Corn
- Chicken byproduct meal
- Corn gluten meal
- Whole wheat flour
- Animal fat
- Rice flour
- Beef
- Soya flour
I’m not picking on this particular brand, either. Its a typical dry dog food you can buy in the super-market. Other dog foods in the same store show pretty much the same ingredients.
You might think that buying more expensive food from your vet is the answer, but it isn’t. Food from your vet will cost you two or three times as much but display pretty much the same ingredients. What you buy at the vet will probably have some extra supplements added, but not enough to justify the increase in price.
Extra ingredients in dog food
We’re talking here about artificial preservatives, artificial flavorings and dyes. These are powerful chemicals. Some are known to be bad for dogs, Some are suspected of being evil. In either case they aren’t good.
The best rule of thumb to follow is, if you can’t pronounce it or don’t know what it is, then it probably shouldn’t be in you dog’s food.
By the way, these things aren’t good for us either. Read the labels on some of your favorite foods and you’ll find them there as well. I’m not any shining example of health awareness myself, but, if you get into reading labels on food stuffs you will find yourself wondering where the actual food is. ‘Nuff said.
Proportions of ingredients
What’s first on the list? What’s second? Remember, the protein source should be first and it should be something you recognize.
Besides a list of ingredients, you’ll also find an analysis of what’s in the food. To take the example of Beneful again, we find the first item on that list is crude protein – 25%. This is very deceptive. All that means is that the amino acids found in the corn gluten, wheat flour and soya flour can be assembled into a simple protein by the dogs digestive system. There’s no guarantee that the dog can actually use that protein and it will certainly have to use a lot more energy to do so than it would if the protein was from an animal source.
This protein analysis is what was behind the big Melanin disaster a few years ago, and its one of the hidden dangers of globalization. Manufacturers buy their ingredients from the cheapest sources. The cheapest gluten available for sale came from China. One or more of the Chinese manufacturers of gluten realized that adding Melanin to the gluten would make it appear to have more protein than it really did, but the side-effect was destroying the kidneys of dogs and cats. The same manufacturer added Melanin to powdered milk that was destined for childrens’ formula and several kids died because of it.
The main message here is that it is better to get the protein directly from an animal source instead of cheaping out and supplying amino acids instead.
Quality dog food
I’m going to use Timber Wolf dog food as an example. It is representative of good quality dog food. I’m not associated with them in any way and I’m not saying it is the best food. Its simply a quality brand that I know. Here’s an excerpt about this brand from the Dog Food Chat blog.
Timberwolf formulas attempt to mimic the diet of a wolf in the wild including high levels of meats and essential fatty acids. To assure freshness and wholesomeness, Timberland dog food is placed in food grade foil-lined bags that will protect the food from oxygen and retain the dog food’s natural moisture balance.
There are currently 8 Timberwolf dog food formulas which have all been guaranteed to meet the AAFCO nutrient profiles required for all life stages.
The protein-rich rations of Timberwolf dog food products are derived from top meat sources including chicken and chicken meal, herring meal, lamb meal, salmon and salmon meal, elk, bison, white fish meal, and turkey meal. Each Timberwolf dog food formula pairs up a raw meat source and a meat concentrate particularly meat meals in an effort to achieve optimum meat content and consequently high protein levels in the diet.
Fresh meat sources such as lamb, elk, chicken, or bison are desirable meat ingredients however these contain high amounts of water which is lost during processing thus leaving only a fraction of the original weight. The incorporation of meat meals is an effort to add to the protein content of the dog food since meat meals contain more than 300% protein compared to fresh or raw meat. In many dog food brands, meat meals are generic, which means the source/s are not specified. The usual sources for these meat meals are meat parts and by-products of meat processing which have been declared unfit for human consumption.
For Timberwolf, they made it a point to specify the type of meat meals to add authenticity to their claim of using only top quality ingredients.
Timberland dog food formulas may be grain-free and the main carbohydrate source is sweet potatoes, a good source of complex carbohydrates.
There are also Timberwolf dog food formulas which contain grains such as oats, barley, and millet which are also good sources of complex carbohydrates with low glycemic indices.
All Timberwolf formulas do not contain soy, simple carbohydrates, corn gluten meal, and artificial additives such as BHA,BHT, and ethoxyquin.
The addition of herring oil, chicken fat, and salmon guarantees a dog food which is rich in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids which are essential to the numerous physiological processes in the body.
Other notable additions include probiotics and chelated minerals. Probiotics are beneficial microorganisms that enhance the functions of the digestive and immune system. Chelated minerals are those which have been chemically attached to amino acids to enhance their absorption and utilization inside the body.
Those are the kinds of ingredients and proportions that you want in a high-quality dog food. It doesn’t matter much what brand you choose as long as
- The main protein source is animal
- The main carbohydrate source is something like sweet potato
- No chemical preservatives, dyes or flavorings
- Supplements of fish oil and probiotics are desirable.
Final thoughts
It is definitely worth it to spend the extra money on a premium dog food. Be cautious when switching your dog over, though. Good quality dog food is so rich in nutrients that it can cause stomach upsets of various kinds. Switch over gradually because it will take your dog some time to adjust to the better food.
What about the cost of premium dog foods? Well, the do cost more, no question, but how much more depends on how you slice it. I’ve been feeding Willow Beneful and mixing it with canned food or Roll-Over. When I switch over to the better food I won’t need to add the wet food, so that will save some money to offset the higher price. Over the years, I expect her to be healthier and that will save money on Vet bills. It doesn’t take much of a vet bill to wipe out any saving I might have realized by staying with the cheaper stuff.
Another way to deal with the problem of low quality dog food is to make it yourself and forget commercial brands altogether. There is a report in the free downloads section of this blog that contains several excellent recipes for DIY dog food and cat food. Give them a try. Even if you don’t want to go that route all the time, whipping up a batch of home-made dog food will make you feel good and provide a nice change of pace for your dog.
The first picture is this one that was taken at the Maple Ridge Equisport Center in the summer of 2010. Willow was almost two when this was taken. Let’s put that on the extreme left.
This is one of the first examples of the three images together. There are two things, at least, wrong with this early effort. First, ther’s too much stuff happening over on the right-hand side. Puppy Willow is crammed under Jim’s table, and the backgrounds are quite different. That’s going to make erasing the top image more difficult.
All those problems are relieved simply by flipping the photo. Now the gray of the deck boards and the gray of the pavement are easier to blend. The coffee-table that was squashing Puppy Willow is now over on the edge. Much better. Also, mature Willow will be standing right next to Puppy Willow, which I think is kind of cool.
