Introduction
Hello my friend. I see that you are searching the Internet looking for the top rated dry dog food. This tells me quite a bit about you.
First, you care about your dog. Secondly, you are concerned about his / her nutritional health and thirdly, you want to give your dog the best food possible.
Well, I've got some good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that even if you find the highest rated dog food, it does not necessarily guarantee that you are providing the best nutrition for your dog. The good news is that armed with a little more information you can take your care, concern and health of your dog to a whole new level.
Looking closer at the highest rated dog food...
In this article, I wanted to look at a real world example of a top rated dry dog food. The name of the company and brand are not as important as knowing that a highly rated dog food does not guarantee the best nutrition for your dog.
Example #1
Here is a listing of ingredients for this food:
Lamb Meal, Ground Brown Rice, Ground White Rice, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, Potassium Chloride, Vitamins/Minerals, Taurine, Rosemary Extract.
To be fair, this pet food label looks a million times better than most dog food ingredient labels.
There are far fewer ingredients than is typical and the ones that are listed are named animal species (Lamb) vs. a meat "by-product", whole grains, and no harmful additives. So far so good, one can see why this particular brand was highly rated.
However, there is more that we must examine. The ingredients on the label must be listed in descending order by weight. In this label there is one meat and two grains, plus the rest of the ingredients. We do not know what percentage of this product is actually lamb and what percentage is actually grain.
If the lamb content isn't above 60% then you are not feeding your pet a sufficient amount of meat in each serving.
Example #2
Let's take another example from this same manufacturer. Again, this brand routinely tops the highest rated dry dog food list. Here is a listing of its ingredients:
Herring, Barley, Oatmeal, Herring Meal, Herring Oil, Sunflower Oil, Sweet Potatoes, Natural Flavors, Dicalcium Phosphate, Calcium Carbonate, Vitamins/Minerals, Potassium Chloride, Rosemary Extract.
Again, the list is very impressive in comparison to the usual junk that is found in many processed pet foods.
Whole meat and grain sources, good veggies, no artificial stuff. Indeed, both these foods could function as substitutes to test your dog for allergies since they are limited in their ingredients and their meat source is something other than beef or chicken.
But again, there is a catch. The regulations that govern dog food labels state that the ingredients must be listed in descending order by weight BEFORE COOKING. This means before all the moisture is removed from the meat.
The herring is first on the list prior to having its moisture removed. Since 80% of the weight is water, once you remove the moisture to make kibble, the ingredients true position is farther down the list, most likely after the barley and oatmeal.
Thus once again, it is a grain heavy food.
The Right Answer
So where does that leave a dog owner who cares about their pet, is concerned about their nutrition and wishes to provide only the best for their dog?
Well, your first step is to stop trusting the ratings and start looking into pet foods and their manufacturers. You must do some homework on that.
But the second step is to become acquainted with the homemade dog food recipe movement. If you want the highest rated dog food and the best nutrition for your canine, preparing homemade recipes is the natural, exciting and correct way to go. About the Author
Kent Simmons believes the highest rated dog food is the one you lovingly prepare for your dog.
For more information on the top rated dry dog food, visit http://recipes4dogfood.com.
Kent Simmons
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