Nutrition

What is best?  How do we decide from the amazing array of dog foods around what is best for our pets? What options are there?  I have found some websites that may help people start to find their way through the various options.

Because most people tend to use commercially produced foods most of the time I have started with two sites looking at these, the first is mainly looking at dry/complete  foods but has a good explanation of the ingredients used in commercially produced foods and whether or not they are beneficial/harmful

The third looks more widely at what the choices are and offers a ‘league table’.  In my opinion this site is well worth a look but it has to be remembered that it has its own commercial interests – if you use it try and consider the site objectively and not be swayed by all the advertisements for supplements (they are from the USA anyway – I am sure there are UK equivalents for UK readers) or for Dr Becker’s, no doubt excellent but very expensive, cookery book.

The Dog Food Project – Identifying better foods  -  This site is a great introduction to understanding manufactured dog foods.  On this page you can find out how to: 1.  Determine the main ingredients of the food,  2. Evaluate the quality of the ingredients and the amounts used, 3. Acquire the necessary information (required reading, talk with reps etc), 4. Do your own feeding trial and explains the ingredient groups – what to look for and what to avoid

 

Pet Food Review – chosen for inclusion because it is a UK based site and covers a range of wet and dry foods, this site provides a convenient point of reference for those wanting to make choices regarding what to feed their dog (or cat)

 

Best and Worst Pet Foods – In this article Dr Karen Becker lists 13 categories of food and ranks them best to worst her premis is that ‘as a general rule, people who are feeding their pets a lesser quality diet are doing so either because they can’t afford a better food – or they simply don’t know what constitutes good nutrition for their pet’ and that with the right information we can improve our pets’ diets.  I would just add that within the dog world there does seem to be some controversy as to whether wet or dry is in fact best.  Dr Becker’s arguments seem however to be good to me, although I personally mainly feed dry.

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