How to Choose the Best Commercial Dog Food For Your Dog

Choosing the best commercial store bought food for your dog feeding can be a huge challenge with so many different brands and a multitude of diverse types of food being offered in stores today. Hopefully, this article will simplify things for you to make selecting the best food and the everyday routine of feeding a dog as uncomplicated and enjoyable for both you and your best friend.

Don't be deceived by glossy packaging and enticing slogans... know what to look for when buying commercial food for your dog.

Here are some of the things you should look for when buying a commercial dog food:

There should not be any generic fats or proteins like "animal fat" or meat meal". Instead, look for named sources such as chicken fat, beef fat or lamb meal...the generic term indicates the mixture is coming from several different sources, which is a sign of a very poor quality food. Poultry fat is not considered as bad as animal fat, but chicken fat is even better.

"IMPORTANT": you should never feed a food that uses the generic ingredients "meat meal", "meat and bone meal", or "animal fat".

USDA approved Human Grade Ingredients: This term is somewhat controversial, because dog foods cannot be labeled "human grade" by law. But you can look for companies that use human grade meats and not meats that were rejected by the human food industry. Better yet, for even higher quality, look for hormone free and antibiotic-free meats, especially those that are free-range or pasture-raised.

Note: all poultry is hormone-free, since it's against regulations to give hormones to poultry).

You should avoid any foods that contain "corn gluten meal"! This is a cheap waste product from the human food industry that provides incomplete protein for dogs. This ingredient is considered to be a "red flag" of poor quality foods. Also, "wheat gluten meal", one of the ingredients that caused illness and death because of contamination in the recent Menu Foods recall, is similar...it's a cheap source of poor quality protein used primarily by the lower-quality foods. "Rice protein concentrate", which was also involved in the pet food recalls, is a slightly better quality than the other two, but still provides incomplete plant protein rather than the more desirable animal protein. Soy protein also has the same problem.

There should be no "meat by-products" or "digest" ("meal" is OK). Some disagreement exists as to whether whole meat is preferable to meal. Meal is meat that has been rendered, but is also dried, so if a meal is listed as the "first ingredient", there is greater likelihood that the food contains more meat than grains.

When whole meats like chicken, lamb, turkey, etc. are listed as the first ingredient, there may actually be much less meat because of the moisture weight in the meat. Both whole meats and meals are considered acceptable, provided they are identified by name and not just generic (e.g., not "meat meal" or "meat and bone meal"). Some by-products may be OK if the company specifies they are from human-grade organs such as liver and kidney. Otherwise they usually mean parts not considered fit for human consumption.

Absolutely no BHA, BHT or Ethoxyquin (artificial preservatives) should ever be present! This is another "red flag" for low quality dog food. Ethoxyquin is banned from use in foods for human consumption, except for the use of very small quantities as a color preservative for spices. Ethoxyquin is used to preserve fish meal, which will not be disclosed on the dog food label as it is added before the fish meal reaches the manufacturing plant. Unless the manufacturer provides a statement on their web site that the fish meal in their food does not contain ethoxyquin, you can assume that is does. You should contact the product manufacturer if you are unsure.

There should be no artificial colors, sugars or sweeteners (like corn syrup, sucrose, ammoniated glycyrrhizin), no propylene glycol (added to some chewy foods to keep them moist, toxic in large amounts).

There should be as few grains as possible. A whole-meat source should be one of the first two ingredients, preferably two of the top three. Watch out for splitting of ingredients, like listing ground yellow corn and corn gluten meal as two separate ingredients which together might add up to more than the first ingredient.

Please note: canned foods often have fewer grains than dry.

Anita Boyd, a dog lover and "dog person" her entire life recently learned she's been feeding toxic ingredients to her dogs over many years by feeding a commercial dog food that she trusted would nourish them. One of her beloved champion show dogs suffered from severe bladder issues and died at a very early age and some of her other cherished pets died far too soon from cancer



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3590582