Pets health

This category of dog food is by far the most popular choice amongst us dog owners. Commercial dog food is so convenient and reasonably priced - but what are the long term implications of feeding it to our dogs, and is it really value for money?

The sad truth is that most of these commercial dog food products (regardless of what fancy name is printed on the label) are rubbish - these big companies are taking us for a ride. It's bad enough that they are happy to deceive us and rip us off blind, but the thing that really gets to me is that they appear to have no regard whatsoever for the health or wellbeing of our dogs.

Not all commercial dog foods are killing our dogs - just most of them. Most of these products are woefully deficient in key nutrients and are chock full of toxic rubbish and fillers (like grain) that provide no nutritional benefit to our dogs. Some of the ingredients hiding behind the laughably inept labeling laws and fuzzy feel good marketing tactics are: Indigestible waste products, colors, dyes, toxins, pesticides, chemicals, harmful preservatives (BHA, BHT and Ethoxyquin) and antibiotics. It doesn't stop there, then you've got a wide range of dead, diseased, disabled or dying animals prior to their visit to the slaughter house added to the mix. You may even find some so called animal "by-products" and some recently euthanized pet cats or dogs. Basically all of the rubbish that other industries can't or won't use can end up in your dog's dinner bowl. To top it all off any nutrition that is present in this toxic cocktail is then ruined by the cooking processes used.

Just imagine if you or I were able to lay all of the contents of a typical commercial dog food product out on a table in front of us. I've got no doubt we would be at first surprised, then disgusted and angry - have you ever tried to read the label on a can of dog food?

Thankfully not all dog food companies take us for ignorant fools. Some have even realised that we are capable of looking beyond the hype and doing some research of our own - some may even care about our dogs. Andrew Lewis has recently conducted a detailed study into the merits of commercial dog foods. He has now identified 9 brands of commercial dog food that passed his strict criteria and are safe to feed to our dogs. I can't divulge his findings here for copyright reasons (which is fair enough considering that Andrew put in all the time, resources and money to discover the truth). What I can tell you is that I feed two brands of commercial dog food to my dogs - I still do even after reading Andrew's special report;). I feed Wellness (a couple of different varieties) and Canidae . You can access Andrew's special report here - Dog Food Secrets - Confidential Dog Food Report (Gold Package).