What is in My Pet's Food?

The best way to really know what your dog is eating is to read the label. The label is not as hard to read as one might think.

Things to look for on the label are the first three ingredients. These first three make up 75% of the contents of the food you are feeding. The first three items listed are usually easy to read, easy to understand, and common words we all might know. The FDA reports that 25% of the product would be listed as the third or fourth ingredient. This link will take you to the FDA label report. Dog Food Ingredients and Cat Food Ingredients

The pet food maker may have thrown in a couple of tricky words for you so I'll try and help you with those.

Corn. Corn meal or any variation of corn is CORN. Dogs have a hard time digesting corn. Several dogs develop skin allergies after eating corn over a long period of time. You will notice corn allergies by head shaking, butt biting, and endless scratching. Animal Digest. Means manure. Someone has collected the manure from another animal and put it in the pet food your are feeding your pet.

Mechanically Processed. Means ground up "stuff". Who knows what all " stuff" is. Most times the "stuff" are anything from feathers to toe nails.

Wheat middlings. Junk that is left over after all the good stuff is removed from the wheat.

Soy, Soybean Hulls. Junk left over after the good stuff is removed. This is just a filler dogs are allergic to soy and can't digest it. You will notice soy allergies by a dog licking his paws.

Meat by-products. Any left over animal parts including cats and dogs. Yes, it's hard to believe but many pet food makers actually use dead (I hope they were dead) dogs and cats in the making of the products for dogs and cats. EPA :Provides information about meat rendering plants."

By-Products may include but are not limited to: spines, hair, hooves, feet, heads, euthanized dogs and cats from veterinarian offices and animal shelters, roadkill, zoo animals, dead animals and those declared unfit for human consumption due to disease and illness are also placed in the mix, pentobarbital, rancid restaurant grease, toxic chemicals and additives.

Meal. Concentrate of what the meal is made from. Meaning = more of the "made from" ingredient than if it were not in meal form.

Gluten. Allergies and inability to digest. Wheat gluten was named as the reason for the recent Pet Food Recall. Maybe, I should include Rat Poisin in this list of contents???

Pentobarbital. This is the drug used to euthanize dogs, cats, etc.

Animal and Poultry Fat There's a unique, pungent odor to a new bag of dry pet food - what is the source of that smell? It is most often rendered animal fat, or vegetable fats and oils deemed inedible for humans. For example, used restaurant grease was rendered and routed to pet foods for several years, but a more lucrative market is now in biodiesel fuel production. These fats are sprayed directly onto extruded kibbles and pellets to make an otherwise bland or distasteful product palatable. The fat also acts as a binding agent to which manufacturers add other flavor enhancers such as "animal digests" made from processed by-products. Pet food scientists have discovered that animals love the taste of these sprayed fats. Manufacturers are masters at getting a dog or a cat to eat something she would normally turn up her nose at.

Independent plants obtain animal by-product materials, including grease, blood, feathers, offal, and entire animal carcasses, from the following sources: butcher shops, supermarkets, restaurants, fast-food chains, poultry processors, slaughterhouses, farms, ranches, feedlots, and animal shelters.

AAFCO = Association of American Feed Control Officials

This organization is a private organization made up of memebers of state and federal officers of agricultural departments and the FDA. They have no Regulatory Authority and Do Not Monitor or Test Pet Food. AAFCO's purpose is "to establish and maintain an association through which officals of any state, dominion, federal and other governmental agency charged with a responsibility in enforcing the laws regulating the production, labeling, distribution, or sale of pet food may unite to explore the problems encounted in administering such laws. AAFCO does not perform any analytical testing on pet food nor dies it issue and certificate that the pet food is balanced and complete. The only rel requirement is that the manufacturer comply with an extensive list of ingredient definitions, which means that a manufacturer could use old tires and an ingredient as the means source of pretein for pet food as long as the ingredient met one of the approved definitions.

Should you suspect pet food as the cause of your pet's illness or death be sure to

Retain food samples for analysis

Save all packaging and receipts, and document the product name, type of product, date codes and/or production lot numbers

Document the dates that the product was fed to your pet, how much was eaten, and the time when you first noticed symptoms

For more information, please visit ASPCA.org. Helpful tips for veterinarians and pet parents may also be found at the American Veterinary Medical Association online.