While most Vets do have your dogs best interest in mind when it pertains to treating problems, they mostly miss the boat when it come to nutritional requirements.
Like human Doctors seem to let drug reps sway their decisions on what drugs to prescribe, so do Vets let dog food reps talk them into what foods to sell.
Dog Food
The ingredient list below is from a dog food brand found in most Vets offices, so lets take a look at the ingredients and see if it would pass our test of a healthy pet food.
Ingredients:
Ingredients Ground Whole Grain Corn, Chicken By-Product Meal, Animal Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Dried Beet Pulp, Soybean Oil, Dried Egg Product, Flaxseed, Potassium Chloride, Iodized Salt, Choline Chloride, vitamins (L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (source of vitamin C), Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Vitamin E Supplement, minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid, Beta-Carotene, Rosemary Extract.
First lets see what this company says about this formula, and then I'm going to tell you the truth.
They says: If your dog lives life on fast forward or just has trouble keeping weight on, This formula is packed with wonderful flavor, calories, and nutrients. It has all the nutrition an active dog requires to stay healthy and strong. It's the perfect choice for sporting dogs, show dogs or finicky eaters.
Now let's use what we learned about reading labels and see if this formula is something you should feed your dog.
1)- Ingredient number one is Ground Whole Grain Corn, which means by weight this is the prominent ingredient in this formula. So what's wrong with ground whole grain corn?
When corn products are used as the primary ingredient in a dog food, they are using it as the primary protein source. Short term this will not hurt your dog, but long term it does deprive him of the animal based protein that their bodies are better equipped to absorb and retain. Much of the corn protein will pass through your dog as poop.
2) - The 2nd ingredient listed is Chicken By-Product Meal, which if you read my article titled Best Dog Food - The By-Product Debate; you'll know that this ingredient alone is a show stopper for me. I will not feed my dogs any food that uses by-products as an ingredient. There is no real consistency of this ingredient and it could be anything, in this case to do with Chickens...
I should say anything except actual Chicken meat, believe me if they use enough Chicken meat to legally call it Chicken they would. They don't even try to use the word Chicken in the name of this product... I wonder why?
3) - The 3rd ingredient is Animal Fat: STOP and Back Away from the bag! Never feed your dog a food that has Animal Fat listed as in Ingredient.
The only thing we know for sure about Animal fat is it comes from the tissues of mammals. These mammals could be horses, pigs, goats, rats, roadkill and even dogs or cats. These animals could have been put down because they were sick or they died of old age.
The bottom line is we don't know what Animal fat is at any given batch, and I don't know about you but I'm not taking the chance that I'm feeding my dogs any of their sick dead peers.
What they should of used here would have been Chicken Fat, which then we would of know exactly what we were getting, but if they wouldn't even use real Chicken meat, I am not surprised not to see Chicken fat.
There are other ingredients in this formula that doesn't make me happy, but there really is no need to go past the first three... not one of them would be included in a food I would feed my dogs.
Best Dog Food - Bad Ingredient Examples Dog Food
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