What criteria should determine your choice of dog food when you are faced with such a tremendous choice of brands and ingredients? Dog food packages often display alluring messages, invariably claiming that they offer the necessary ingredients for your dog. It is easier for us to choose our own diet and vary the ingredients based on our needs. We however do not taste our pets’ food to be able to improve it. If the dog food you pick is unbalanced, the dog will be suffering from malnutrition for as long as you keep buying that same food. What follows are some tips that should help you better understand the difference between different types of dog food:
The AAFCO certificate that should be apparent on the dog food package is a guarantee for safety and minimum quality. The AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) develops and implements laws, regulations, standards and enforcement policies for regulating the manufacture, distribution and sale of animal feeds. The AAFCO certificate is a guarantee that the product has been controlled and approved as being safe for dogs. Information about the basic nutrients provided by a specific type of dog food should also be found on the package. To conform to the AAFCO regulations the label should display the ingredient which has the highest percentage of the total weight first. Each ingredient should appear under its specific name. For instance, “corn” or “wheat” should not be replaced by “grains.”
Grocery stores offer a wide variety of dog foods which, despite the large number of brands, are all intended to meet the minimal needs of dogs as opposed to more specific needs. This type of generic dog food might therefore not be the optimal source of nutrition for all dogs. It can still be a complicated task to find specialized products for your dog. The vet is more qualified than the grocery store employees to guide you in your choice.
Certain products are more expensive than others. Should one opt for top of the range dog food to guarantee quality? Not necessarily.
There is little variety of ingredients in expensive, top of the range dog food Regardless of the season or the price of the ingredients, the latter will have the same origin, hence the same quality, week after week. The same stability cannot be expected from cheaper dog food brands. As the low cost of production is maintained in part by using cheaper ingredients, the origin of those ingredients would be consistent with their price and not their quality. Quality can therefore vary from one time to the other.
Indicating the nature and proportion of the basic nutrients helps ensure a specific product meets minimum requirements, but does not solve the problem of what specific product is best for your dog. If they really want to know what is on their dog’s plate, consumers should demand more information, just as they do for their own food.
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