Choosing a dog food can be a daunting task. With so many options available in the pet food aisle, it can be tough to know what is best for your dog. To help you get started, check these eight tips on choosing the best dog food for your dog!
1. Get Your Information from the Right Sources
The dentist on the internet, your breeder, the high school kid working at the pet store, and the dog trainer next door don’t have training in veterinary nutrition! When you’re looking for information on veterinary nutrition, make sure you’re getting it from trustworthy educated sources. The best sources of information on nutrition for dogs are board-certified veterinary nutritionists. Board-certified veterinary nutritionists are veterinarians who have completed years of additional training in the field of animal nutrition and passed a certifying exam conducted by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. A board-certified veterinary nutritionist will have the credentials Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (DACVIM). Other trustworthy sources of veterinary nutrition information include those with a Ph.D. in Animal Nutrition, a Masters in Animal Nutrition, and your veterinarian. Your veterinarian is most familiar with your own dog’s individual needs and can best advise you on products that will suit your dog’s needs.
2. Check the Nutritional Adequacy Statement
The nutritional adequacy statement – also known as the AAFCO statement – is the most important piece of information you’ll find on a pet food label. This one sentence statement is located on the back of the bag or can and tells you the species the food is intended for, whether the food is complete and balanced, how the food was developed, and which life stage the food is intended to support. Examples of nutritional adequacy statements include:
- Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate that Joe’s Dog Food provides complete and balanced nutrition for growing puppies.
- Joe’s Dog Food is formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles for the maintenance of adult dogs.
- Joe’s Dog Food is formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles for all life stages.
The nutritional adequacy statement must be present on all bags or cans of pet food sold in the United States. To ensure your dog’s food is complete and balanced – meaning it provides all the nutrients your dog needs and those nutrients are present in the correct ratios – you’ll want to look for a nutritional adequacy statement that says “complete and balanced” or “meets nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles”.
If the nutritional adequacy statement says “for intermittent or supplemental feeding only” or you can’t find a nutritional adequacy statement on the product, that food is likely not complete and balanced and should not be fed as your dog’s daily diet.
3. Feed a Diet That Is Appropriate For Your Dog’s Life Stage
The nutritional adequacy statement also tells you the life stage for which the food is intended. Make sure the dog food you choose is appropriate for your dog’s life stage. There are four life stages recognized by AAFCO. The recognized life stages are:
- Growth
- Maintenance
- Gestation and Lactation
- All Life Stages
If your dog is less than a year old, you’ll want to choose a dog food that is formulated for growing puppies. If your dog is an adult, choose a dog food with a nutritional adequacy statement that says “for the maintenance of adult dogs.”
Dog foods that are formulated for all life stages are actually diets that are intended for growing puppies. This is because growth is the life stage that has the strictest nutrient requirements. Diets formulated for all life stages are high in calories and certain nutrients to support growth and development. This may result in excess weight gain in adult animals. In general, it’s best to have an adult animal on a maintenance diet.
4. Don’t Get Caught Up In the Ingredients List
Studies show that the ingredients list is one of the primary ways pet owners choose their dog food. But the ingredients list tells you nothing about the quality or safety of the ingredients used! Unfortunately, many pet owners believe common pet food misconceptions and that leads them astray when choosing a dog food. Much of what pet owners believe to be “healthy” for their dogs is actually included in the ingredients list only because it looks good to pet owners and it doesn’t necessarily provide significant nutrition for the pet. The ingredients list is also easily manipulated by manufacturers to place more desirable ingredients higher up on the list. In general, the ingredients list just doesn’t tell you that much about the quality of the quality of the dog food and you’re better off focusing your attention elsewhere!
5. Choose a Product from a Reliable Company.
Much of choosing a dog food comes down to choosing a product from a reputable company or brand. How do you know a brand is reputable? The World Small Animal Veterinary Association recommends calling the manufacturer and asking them these four questions:
- Do you employ a board-certified veterinary nutritionist?
- Who formulates your diets and what are that person’s credentials?
- What is the quality control process for ingredients and finished products?
- What kind of product research or nutrition studies have been conducted?
If the company can’t or won’t answer these questions, or if the answers to the questions are not satisfactory, don’t buy that dog food!
6. Don’t Believe Common Pet Food Misconceptions
Unfortunately, there are many common misconceptions about pet food that get circulated by the internet and the media. Whether it’s by-products, corn, preservatives, or grains, there are a lot of ingredients in pet food that are maligned by consumers who have little understanding of what those ingredients actually contain. Before you judge a pet food based on these common misconceptions, make sure you do your research and get your information from a reliable source, like a board-certified veterinary nutritionist.
7. Don’t Fall For Dog Food Marketing Schemes
Much of what appears on the front of a pet food bag is just marketing! Terms like “holistic”, “premium”, “healthy”, “primal”, “high-quality”, and “wholesome” have no legal definition when it comes to pet food labeling, which means anyone can put these terms on any bag of pet food regardless of the ingredients or manufacturing processes used to make the food. Similarly, the picture on the front of the bag has nothing to do with the safety or the quality of the food inside. Just because there’s a picture of a wolf on the bag does not mean that the food is healther for your dog! Don’t fall for these common marketing schemes – they are designed to get you to pay more for a product that may be inferior.
8. Don’t Trust Dog Food Ranking Websites
Dog food ranking websites are run by people with little to no knowledge of veterinary nutrition. They focus on ranking pet foods based on their ingredients lists, which as we’ve already discussed, is not a reliable indicator of the quality of a pet food. They also spread common pet food misconceptions, causing further confusion for pet owners. These websites make their money by affiliate marketing, meaning they get paid for every bag of pet food you buy after visiting their site. Remember, there’s no one kind of pet food that’s “best” for every dog, or even every dog of the same breed!
For more tips on choosing a dog food, check out our comprehensive veterinary nutrition class for pet owners, What Should I Feed My Dog?
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