How to Select a Dog Food

Video Transcript

"How to select a good dog food. First of all, we may need to get rid of the mis-perception and that is that typical foods like chicken, and grains, and other meats that are fresh are considered to be people food and not dog food. Of course that's not, that doesn't make much sense. To have a natural diet is the optimum thing for the dog. It's much equivalent to whether we would be better off eating cereal, a processed cereal everyday for the rest of our lives versus having healthy meals with fresh salads and fresh meats and grains, you know, healthy breads. So, it's the same for them. Their requirements are different than ours are, they require more protein than we do but it's the same thing. One thing that you probably should avoid with your dog would be a lot of processed foods, a lot of salt and sugar, which they don't necessarily need unless they become used to it. And some of the cheaper kibbled foods use those things to make, make the food more palatable for the dog, so, make it taste better so that they want it more. So, just because your dog wants it doesn't mean it's the best thing for your dog, just because your dog's willing to gobble it up, just like the best thing for us isn't always to eat candy even though we want it and we like it. So there are, unfortunately, you know, preparing your dogs diet takes a lot of time, that's the ideal but it takes a lot of time because you have to take into account what vitamins and minerals they need in their diet as well. So a kibble diet is, and some wet foods are very good at providing a good life for your dog. They're a little bit more expensive but you'll have a healthier dog in the long run and fewer visits to the veterinarian for health problems and hopefully your dog will live longer. There's a publication called the "Whole Dog Journal", "Whole Dog Journal", and you can look that up on line. They actually have a magazine type publication that they put out and they publish a list every year of the top dog food manufacturers. They tend to be small companies that manufacture dog food, usually in the United States, and that's a good source for me, it always has been, of finding the dog foods that I would like to feed to my dog. What they recommend is that you choose three dog foods that your dog does really well on. In other words, you have a good healthy coat, you have normal stool, you have everything about your dog seems to be good, and then you rotate between those three foods, you don't always stick with the same food. So, in the case of every dog, the best possible food out there may not be the best food for your individual dog, so it's on a case by case basis. Another thing that's really important to do is learn how to read the labels. Learn what the preservatives are, "Whole Dog Journal" has a lot of information about that as well. The things that you want to avoid in your dogs diet, I would avoid any artificial coloring, and sugars, and flavorings as well. The best thing that I could recommend is to talk to somebody who's focus and interest is really in nutrition. Many cities have somebody who has a small dog type, or pet companion animal food or boutique shop where you can go and you can get some information from them. Find out if they're very interested in nutrition and then let them help guide you to find the optimum food for your dog."