Selecting the Right Food for Your Dog

Selecting a food may seem straight forward for pet owners. There is such an array of food to choose from and so many flavors. You may go with whatever is cheapest for your dog. Unfortunately, this is not the way to go about getting your pet food. You have to do some research and figure out what will work best for them. The cheaper food brands are not the best of quality and do not maintain ingredient consistency. Sure, the "Guaranteed Analysis" on the back of the back looks good and doesn't contain a whole lot of protein or fat. These percentages, however, do not tell you anything. What it is basically giving you is the content of everything in the food along with the moisture. The moisture content throws off all of the percentages and you are not getting JUST protein or JUST fat, you are getting protein and moisture or fat and moisture.

What you need to look for is "Dry Matter Analysis". These percentages will be all content excluding moisture to give you a more accurate percentage. This is an expensive analysis and most small pet food companies do not have this information. A couple of other things you will want to look for is the AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) statement on the back of the bag and a statement saying that the food was "Trial Fed".

Science Diet is a brand that has stuck to their name and professionalism. Their research for dog food is the best in the dog food industry. They are currently researching anti-aging formulas and are coming up very successful, something that if ends up doing well, the human side will want to get their hands on the research for humans. Science Diet has a wide array of prescription diet dog food that fits almost any of the special needs dogs. There is food for kidney disease, liver disease, urinary crystals, dimentia, allergies, cancer, obesity, etc.

Smaller companies and mom and pop companies may offer what looks and sounds like a good food, but they may not be. There were dozens of the smaller companies that were shut down after the Melamine scare which came from an ingredient out of China. This means that most of these companies outsource their ingredients, which is not good not knowing where exactly your pet's food ingredients are coming from. Science Diet has their own plant where they process their own food and they even have an area for dogs that are trial fed. These dogs are taken care of better than our own pets! They have their own rooms with play areas, etc.Next time you decide about going cheap, think about what your dog deserves best. Would you buy a food for yourself if it was cheaper but possibly had toxins from an ingredient from China? Going cheap does not always better your finances, sometimes it hurts it. For example, many of the dogs that were being fed the poisoned food had to go through kidney failure treatment because of it. You think that was cheap?