Nutrition Introduction

I have studied canine nutrition for 12 years and have worked as a veterinary technician, pet food salesperson, animal shelter care technician and professional dog groomer.  I have seen firsthand the damage that is done to our pets by feeding low quality foods- obesity, diabetes, impacted anal glands, allergies, body odor, rotting teeth, hot spots, shedding, dandruff, digestive disorders, tear staining, itching and scratching are just some of the more common side effects. 

Dogs were not meant to eat significant amounts of grain or highly processed proteins and fats. Grain is used  extensively in many dry pet foods as a cheap filler and binder. Not only are most dry commercial pet foods full of grains, but a high percentage also contain multiple allergens, low quality protein sources, artificial and/or chemical ingredients and other questionable items. 

The pet food business is a very lucrative one (retail pet food sales alone accounted for an estimated 14.3 billion dollars in 2004, according to APPMA projections) and most of the time, the quality of their marketing is much better than the quality of their products.  You can't trust TV commercials or pretty bags with healthy sounding names like "Beneful" to be guidelines to how you feed your dog- it is impossible to learn about dog food from advertisements because they are biased!

Even many "all natural" foods are not truly healthy because they are loaded with grains and have less than 40% meat in the formulas.  That means that more than 60%  of their formula is grain. (and it could be much, much more than 60%- many companies refuse to disclose this information) Deceptive labeling practices make it possible to list meat as the first ingredient, when in fact most of the food is comprised of grain. For example, fresh meat is 80-85% water.  When a bag lists meat as the first ingredient on the label, it is by weight before the water was removed.  After the water is removed to make the dry kibble, 100 pounds of chicken becomes 15-20 pounds and the meat becomes a very small part of the kibble's actual content. 

Click on the link for Feeding recommendations