How Can You Tell Which Food Is Best For Your Dog?

We know how hard it can be to choose the right food for your dog, especially at a time where many families are re-evaluating their pet care budget as the average cost of living increases across the country. While it might be tempting to save money on cheaper dog food, the truth is, finding the right balance between cost and quality when choosing dog food is crucial for pet owners. Quality dog foods, typically featuring real meat as the primary ingredient and fewer fillers, can lead to better overall health, more energy, and fewer visits to the vet. However, this doesn't mean you need to overspend blindly. 

A quality pet food brand will be transparent with customers about their ingredients.

But how can you tell which foods are good for your dog?

The first thing you should do when you pick up a bag of dog food is flip the bag over and read the ingredients list. Sure, makes sense, right? But what is it that we are looking for when we read through the ingredients? There is a LOT of conflicting information out there about what you should feed your dog, nutritional requirements, and which ingredients are “good” or “bad”. Plus, some dietary requirements vary by breed and life stage. 

The first ingredient listed is always the most predominant by weight in the recipe, and ingredients are listed in descending order from there. Typically, we like to see real meat from a specified protein as the first or second ingredient. You will often see ingredients listed as “meat meals”. This tends to scare people away, however a meat meal can be a healthy, protein-packed ingredient and is made by simply cooking down the meat and drying it until it is a powder. But not all meat meals are created equal!

A quality meat meal will specify the source animal that it was made from, like chicken meal or lamb meal. We also suggest staying away from any meal that contains the words “by-product” in the name. 

Unspecified meat meals can be made out of anything from spoiled grocery store meats (still in its packaging!) to road kill or even euthanized shelter animals. [source]

A quality pet food brand will be transparent with consumers about their ingredients. For example, check out Verus Pet Foods’ list of ingredients on their website vs. Pedigree’s List of Ingredients. Verus breaks down each ingredient and protein in detail, explaining the requirements that they adhere to for each, while Pedigree remains vague and doesn’t cite any source animals in their meals. 

Here at Bark + Boarding, we only sell quality dog food brands that we can stand behind. We never carry anything in our store that we wouldn’t feed our own pets, so you can rest assured that we have done the homework for you on all of the brands we carry!