The Best dog food is usually not found in the grocery store. Natural food stores, veterinary offices, and feed stores will often carry the best choices for dog food. Do some research before purchasing any brand of dog food. Just because its at the veterinary office or feed store doesn’t mean its high quality, they do carry low quality dog food too.
One of the ways to tell if the food is high quality is if they list the ingredients. Always check the ingredients first. If you see corn or some other grain as the first ingredient than chances are it’s not something you want to feed your dog. Grains are fillers and will fill your dog up but will leave him mal-nourished. The first ingredient should always be meat and the meat preferred by most vets is chicken. Lamb, turkey, fish, beef and venison are all good choices, too, but subtle nutritional variations in amino acid spectrum and the fatty acid composition contributed by the “meat” may be different when these protein sources are compared to chicken. Look for the Protein content to be at least 30 percent, the Fat content to be at least 18 percent, preservatives to be via Vitamin E and/or C and look for Omega Fatty Acid to be present.
Buying high quality dog food is obviously going to be more expensive than the dog food at the grocery store but the health benefits are huge. Plus you’ll find that you feed your dog less when the food is high quality and visits to your vet will be greatly reduced.
Check out WoodHavenLabs.com for the list of definitions of dog food ingredients. The Dog Food Project has some very useful information to help make your dog food choice easier.