• Who Makes Your Food
  • Alphabetical by Brand
  • Castleberry
  • Colgate Palmolive
  • Del Monte
  • Diamond Dog Foods
  • Heinz
  • Mars
  • Menu Pet Foods
  • Nestle
  • Proctor and Gamble
• Foods Made with
  • BHT, BHT, and Ethoxyquin
  • By Products
  • Corn
  • Nut Hulls and Shells
• Ingredient Form
• Processing Method
• Grade and Variety
• Digestibility
• Metabolized Energy (ME)
• The Bottom Line
• Dog Food Quiz
• Quiz Results
• Baked vs. Extruded
• Food FAQ

Understanding Foods

Dog food companies pay advertising firms thousands upon thousands of dollars each year to market "their" food to the ever increasing population of pet owners.  Knowing what is best for your dog gets very confusing with all the television commercials and magazine ads saying their food is the only one that is best for your dog. 

Lets remove some misconceptions, according to AAFCO all dog foods must be sold as containing complete and balanced nutrients for the health and wellbeing of a dog.  Here are two of the first questions you need to ask yourself; "What is complete and balanced?" and "What is the difference between dog foods if they are all complete and balanced?"  Complete and balanced means that the dog food must meet the AFFCO requirements for that stage of a dogs life. The difference between dog foods comes about by the quality, form, processing method, grade, and digestibility of the ingredients used to make the food in the first place. 

Remember that the AAFCO guide can be tricked. In the late 90's a scientist decided to test the AFFCO guide and create a new dog food, the ingredients used were items like; shoe leather, motor oil, rubber, coal, water, and some vitamins and minerals. After mixing and processing the food a sample was then sent to an approved AAFCO lab for testing, it passed the minimum nutritional requirements with flying colors¹.

Armed with that knowledge the deciding factor in dog food categories is the quality of the initial ingredients, food categories include; Sub-Economy, Economy, Premium, Super-Premium and All Natural Super-Premium brands.  Economy brands use the cheapest and lowest quality ingredients they have access to, and All Natural super-premium use the highest quality ingredients. In fact most of the time All Natural super-premium foods get their ingredients the same place people get their food.

High Quality Ingredients
The quality of the ingredients contribute to the availability of the nutrients.  There are 5 basic nutrients in food; carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals that contribute to the health and wellbeing of a dog.  They are further explained in "Understanding Ingredients."
Not all parts of the ingredients will be utilized by the body, only a certain portion is available for the dog to use.  The source of the ingredient is a huge determining factor as to what is used by the body and what type of body is doing the using is another.

1. This information can be corroborated at Pet education and Drs Foster and Smith websites.