Choosing the Best Food for Your Dog
by Robin Bennett
As professional dog trainer, I talk to many owners who are
concerned about their dog's hyperactivity, lack of focus, and
general inability to learn. Owners are often surprised to
learn some of their concerns can be resolved, in part, by a
change in diet. Since a dog's diet can have a dramatic
influence on the animal's mood, ability to learn and overall
health, behavioral counseling always includes information
on choosing the best food for the dog.
With so many different brands of dog foods on the market today, choosing a healthy diet for your dog can be overwhelming. I will attempt to discuss some common areas of concern in choosing the best food for your dog. How do you decipher dog food labels? Just as with human food labels, dog food ingredients are listed in descending order by weight. We know in choosing cereal for our children, a listing of ingredients that displays sugar first contains more sugar than any other ingredient. The same is true of dog food. The combination of the first three ingredients makes up the bulk of the food and is usually indicative of the overall quality of the food. Finding a meat source listed as the tenth or eleventh item in the list usually means very little meat is actually used.
Which ingredients should be listed first? A healthy diet should be based on an adequate, and clearly defined, protein source such as beef, chicken, or lamb (not something vague such as “meat” or ‘poultry”). Ingredients may list "by-products" or "meal". Generally speaking, meal is the better option. By-products are those items left over after the meat is removed from the animal source. Since byproducts are not actually meat, they can often be difficult for your pet to digest.
Lamb, chicken, or beef meal, on the other hand, is the meat
after the water and fat have been removed. Meal is highly
digestible and filled with approximately 65 percent protein.
Grains are often included in dog food because they are a
cheaper alternative to quality meat sources. However, a
larger volume of food must be eaten to fulfill the nutritional
needs of the dog if grains are used as the primary protein
source.
Are any ingredients bad for my dog? In people, a diet free of chemicals, colorings, and other fillers is considered far superior than one that is pre-fabricated and chemically preserved. The same is true for dogs. Chemicals and other additives are used in dog foods for several reasons: to make the food more palatable to the dog; to make the food more appealing to the human eye; or to preserve the dog food. However, dog food free of chemicals and naturally preserved is better for your dog. Constantly eating chemicals, food coloring, additives and other fillers is no better for our pets than it would be for us. Corn, a relatively inexpensive ingredient used in many dog foods, has been linked with some behavioral concerns. Recent studies indicate corn can inhibit the intake of serotonin, which makes it more difficult for the dog to “chill out” and focus on training.
Better quality diets are made without preservatives or artificial colorings. The chemicals BHA and BHT are a particular concern when used in foods. These products are usually added to preserve the food but have also been shown to cause cancer in livestock. Most dog food manufacturers are beginning to take BHA and BHT from their food lines. A better preservative for dog food is Vitamin E or Vitamin C.
Are some dog food brands better than others? Generally
speaking, most dog foods can be classified into three
primary categories: commercial brands, premium brands,
and super premium brands. The commercial brands are
usually found in supermarkets and grocery stores. These
brands are, by far, the cheapest in terms of cost per pound.
A cheaper price usually means cheaper ingredients.
Although the cost per pound is relatively low, owners
feeding commercial brands will have to feed a much larger
portion to their dog in order to meet the animal's nutritional
requirements.
Premium brands are usually better quality than the commercial brands. They tend to be slightly more expensive, but feeding requirements are slightly less than commercial brands. In other words, smaller amounts of the higher quality foods can be fed to achieve the correct nutritional level.
In today's market, a new classification of foods has been developed. These foods, known as super premium dog foods, take a holistic approach to dog feeding. They usually have the highest quality ingredients and often use more high-quality meats and meal as the main source of protein as compared to commercial and premium brands, which use mostly grains. The super premium brands contain no "fillers" such as artificial colorings, flavoring, or chemicals, and they are usually preserved with Vitamins E and C. Super premium brands are usually purchased through distributors or shipped directly to your door from the company (usually at no cost). The food is usually prepared in small batches and is fresher than commercial or premium brands.
How do you know if your dog is eating a well-balanced diet? First, examine the overall health of the dog. The eyes should sparkle, the ears should look clean and smell fresh, and the coat should be glossy. If your dog has chronic ear or eye infections, has red or draining eyes, licks his paws all the time, or constantly bites at himself (as if he has fleas although you can't find fleas), talk to your vet or a holistic health practitioner about possible food or environmental allergies.
Dogs, like people, can have allergies and illnesses due to a
weakened immune system. The immune system may fail
after repeated ingestion of a poor quality diet. The effects
may not be immediate but may be caused by a gradual
chemical build up that weakens the immune system over
time. Dogs can also be allergic to items in the food, such as
wheat or beef, which can cause health problems.
Some behavioral problems caused by an inadequate diet
may include: extreme bouts of hyperactivity, short attention
span, or inability to learn.
Owners of dogs with such problems often describe the dogs as unruly, untrainable, and wild. I compare these dogs to children after they have eaten a large volume of candy. The child, like the dog, will have no attention span due to the inadequate diet. However, for the dog, the same "junk food" is being fed day after day, and the dog will always appear hyperactive.
Other complaints come from owners who describe their dogs as Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde in that the dog's personality seems to change dramatically throughout the day. One minute the dog is sweet and peaceful, the next minute the dog is racing around the room, biting and snapping at everything. Often the change in behavior can be linked to the feeding schedule.
If your dog displays any of the problems mentioned in this article, or if you would like to improve your dog's overall health and appearance, consider a change in diet. If your dog is on a particular diet due to a medical condition, be sure to talk to your vet before switching food.
If you decide to switch foods, make the change a gradual one since a sudden change in diet can upset the dog's digestive system and cause diarrhea. All About Dogs recommends choosing a food recommended by “Whole Dog Journal,” the periodical rated number one for health and behavior information by the members of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT).
Dog Food Labeling Rules
From Dog Health & Nutrition for Dummies, by Christine Zink (p. 101)
- Beef for dogs: Must contain 95% beef by weight
Beef dog food: Must contain 70% beef by weight - Beef dinner, beef entree, or beef platter: Must contain 25%
beef by weight
Dog food with beef: Needs to contain only 3% beef
Beef-flavored: Doesn't need to contain any beef; it just needs to taste like beef (using artificial flavors)
Vocabulary 101 (p. 75)
- Animal by-product meal: Rendered animal tissues that don’t fit any of the other ingredient definitions. It can’t contain hair, horns, hoofs, hide trimmings, manure, or intestinal contents or extraneous materials.
- By-products: Meat by-products are non-human-grade proteins obtained from animal carcasses. They can vary greatly in their digestibility, and there is no way to for the consumer to determine their digestibility.
- Meat: Clean flesh of slaughtered cattle, swine, sheep, or goats. It must come from muscle, tongue, diaphragm, heart, or esophagus.
- Meat and bone meal: Rendered from mammal tissues, including bone. Other than that, it is similar to meat meal.
- Meat by-products: Fresh, non-rendered, clean parts of slaughtered mammals. It does not include meat, but does include lungs, spleens, kidneys, brains, livers, blood, bones, fat, stomachs, and intestines. It cannot include hair, horns, teeth, or hoofs.
- Meat meal: Rendered meal made from animal tissues. It cannot contain blood, hair, hoofs, hide trimmings, manure, or intestinal contents or extraneous material. It may not contain more than 14% indigestible materials. Lamb meal is made from lamb parts. Meat meal is made from cattle, swine, sheep, or goats.
- Poultry (or chicken or turkey) by-product meal: Ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered poultry, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines. It cannot contain beaks or feathers.
- Poultry (or chicken or turkey) by-products: Non-rendered clean parts of slaughtered poultry such as heads, feet, and guts. It must not contain feces or foreign matter.
- Rendering: The process by which animal parts are heated slowly over a long period of time to liquefy the fat so it can be removed. What remains is mainly dry proteins and is called meal. (You partly render your bacon when you put it on a paper towel before putting it in the microwave. The heat liquefies the fat, which drips onto the paper towel. The bacon comes out dry and crispy.)
