Food

In recent years, the pet food industry has discovered the benefit of sharing more information about its products, manufacturing and research and development with consumers. In a highly competitive market, it's advantageous to project a confident image of full transparency - as long as the company is doing everything they say they are doing. In the wake of a substantial amount of bad PR from a nearly decade-old PETA campaign showing conditions of research animals, Whole Dog Journal had the opportunity to conduct extensive tours of two large pet food manufacturers' research facilities.

On March 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it had rejected a petition from environmentalists that would have banned bisphenol A (BPA) from all food and drink packaging. The scientific evidence at this time, said the FDA, does not suggest that the “very low levels of human exposure to BPA” afforded through our diets are unsafe. “The agency has performed extensive research on BPA, has reviewed hundreds of other studies, and is continuing to address questions and potential concerns raised by certain studies,” the news release continued. “The agency takes all concerns about BPA seriously and is evaluating them as part of the agency’s ongoing oversight of food safety.”

Making meals from scratch is the only way I know to have exactly what I want for my dogs – no ingredients from places with spotty records for quality assurance, no multi-syllabic additives making a label longer than I like. After I covered the pet-food recall in 2007, I changed the way I eat and the way I feed my pets. For my dogs, that meant commercial products from companies I trusted, along with raw-food meals from regional sources of meat, grains, and vegetables. It wasn't a huge shift from raw to cooked when my Flat-Coated Retriever, McKenzie, started chemotherapy for soft-tissue sarcoma a few days after her seventh birthday. At the suggestion of her veterinary oncologist, I dropped the carbs, rebalanced the diet with the help of some expert advice, and started feeding McKenzie Meatloaf" to all three of my dogs."

With your dog sitting at your side, hold her food bowl at chest level, and tell her to “wait.” Move the bowl (with food it in, topped with tasty treats) toward the floor 4 to 6 inches. If your dog stays sitting, click your clicker and feed her a treat from the bowl. If your dog gets up, say “Oops!” and ask her to sit again. If she remains sitting, lower the bowl 4 to 6 inches again, click and treat.

Bill and Marin Corby of Romeo, Michigan, feed a homemade dog food diet to their two rescued Cockapoos. Max, estimated to be anywhere from 6 to 9 years old, has been with them for three and a half years. Max weighed 32 pounds when first adopted, but his current weight is a healthy 20 pounds. Mickey was four months old and very sick when they first brought him home, as he had problems digesting his food. The Corbys switched Mickey to a raw dog food diet, and he’s now thriving at 20 months of age and 16½ pounds.

Many raw dog food diet proponents claim that the nutrients and/or chemical composition of a raw diet keeps dogs from developing gingivitis or periodontitis. We’re not aware of any studies that have proven these claims, but the persistence of the anecdotal evidence of this phenomenon (to say nothing of its evolutionary success) suggest that there are dental benefits to a diet that includes raw, meaty bones.

Dog food manufacturers are supposed to list specific names for each ingredient in their formulations. Each food, vitamin, mineral, or other chemical (preservative, color, flavor, binder, etc.) that has been approved for use in a dog food is supposed to be listed in a certain way on the product’s ingredient list. There are formal descriptions of each ingredient – and all of these are listed in the annual “Official Publication of the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO)”.

In every one of Whole Dog Journal’s canned and dry dog food reviews, we tell you how to identify the hallmarks of a top dry dog food as well as the attributes of a low-quality dog food. In “Whole Dog Journal's 2012 Dry Dog Food Review,” we tell you what specific parts of the dog food label you need to scrutinize to make sure the product is a high-quality, “complete and balanced” diet. We also list some 48 companies that make, between them, hundreds of foods that meet all of our selection criteria for a top dry dog food; those products are listed, each with a highlighted example, in the February issue.

Ingredients are listed by weight, so you want to see a lot of top quality animal protein at the top of the list; the first ingredient should be a named" animal protein source. "Meat" is an example of a low-quality protein source of dubious origin. Animal protein "meals" should also be from named species (look for "beef meal" but avoid "meat meal")."

Here is Whole Dog Journal's Approved Dry Dog Foods List for 2012. In addition to our list of this year's top dry dog foods we show you how to interpret the ingredient list on a dog food label, what ingredients are best, what the "best by" date really means, what to expect from a manufacturer's customer service department as well as ways to determine which of our top foods is best for your dog. Every year, new manufacturers enter the dog food market and established manufacturers come out with new formulations. Whole Dog Journal's Approved Dry Dog Food List analyzes each to determine which foods belong in the top tier of quality.

While researching this year’s dry dog food review (which starts on the facing page), I was struck by the overwhelming prevalence of two big trends in marketing and formulation. I’m not sure any pet food company is immune from these tactics – and I’m not yet convinced they will prove a benefit to dogs or dog owners. The first tactic is the “No!” approach. You know, “No Corn, wheat, or soy!” How tame those claims seem now. I’ve seen dog food bags and pet food company literature that proudly proclaims products free of beef, dairy products, eggs, pork, potatoes, and yeast.

When I compared a nutritional analysis of Preference plus turkey to the 2006 National Research Council (NRC) nutrient recommendations, the minerals zinc, copper, and selenium, vitamins D and E, and possibly some B vitamins were all low. This is because commercial dog foods are designed to meet nutrient profiles established by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAF CO), whichare based on older research published by the NRC in 1985.