Dog food: explained to the best of my ability

People frequently ask me about dog food, so here it is, my long- (and short-) winded explanation of everything I know. Please keep in mind that I am not a vet and that this is for the “normal” dog. If you have concerns about your dog’s nutrition, you should contact a Certified Veterinary Nutritionist. Also, I live in NorCal, so the stores I’ve listed are local. Sorry, folks.

The short version (in a different order than the long version).

Foods I can recommend:

Just Food For Dogs. They use fresh, human-grade, whole ingredients and are run by certified veterinary nutritionists. They take great pride in funding studies on nutrition and setting the standard for health. Anything from Pet Food Express or Pet People in Los Gatos (both have very high standards).

My dogs are currently on First Mate, grain-friendly. The Kirkland brand dog food (grain free and grain) are very highly rated, and I’ve used it, as well.

For raw/freeze-dried, Stella and Chewy’s and Primal have good reports, and S&C have been around a long time.

Choosing a pre-made food: When choosing a dog food, look at the ingredients list. If you see “by-product,” “corn,” or “soy,” avoid it. Unless it’s a limited ingredient dog food, the first two ingredients OR the first three out of five ingredients should be some type of meat or egg.

Doing research: Look for articles/studies by a Certified Veterinary Nutritionist, not Random Guy or even Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (our usual vets).

Grain free vs grain: From the research I’ve done, foods with grain seem to be better for most dogs. Rice is a less optimal grain. However, breed matters, and every dog is different.

Raw vs cooked: so many pros and cons, there isn’t a short answer.

Homemade vs store-bought: Homemade diets, even ones recommended by vets, leave out essential nutrients. If you want to make food at home, try working with either Just Food For Dogs (.com), or Balancelt through US Davis. Both are certified veterinary nutritionists and can give you balanced diets. Otherwise, use store-bought.

(I have done both, and can say: making 1 week’s worth of food for a 60-lbs dog took 6 hours, all the room in my freezer, and was more expensive than store-bought.)

Organic vs not: there are pros and cons, and no scientific data either way. (I still do it where possible.)

Other resources:

Just Food For Dogs (.com): they use fresh, human-grade, whole ingredients, and are cutting edge.

US Davis: definitely not of a holistic mindset, but still on the cutting edge and with a lot of resources.

Www.DogFoodAdvisor.com: I find it to be fairly in sync with my own ethics and research, including that done by JFFD and UCDavis.

The long version

Where you get your information:

According to the certified veterinary nutritionist at Davis (where I had to take Doc several years back), there’s a difference between a certified vet who works with nutrition and a certified veterinary nutritionist. One is a vet who is interested in the subject and has done work on their own time. The other went to school to learn what, exactly, dogs need to survive, down to vitamins, minerals and whatnot, as well as how foods react in certain cases, food disorders and diseases, how dogs digest, etc, etc. (Per my vet and a few others I’ve spoken to, the vet we take our animals to for their check ups or because they’re sick are like a general practitioner we see for our check ups or when we get sick. They can diagnose and weed out common ailments, but they’ll refer us to a specialist when needed. The certified veterinary nutritionist, CVN from now on, is the specialist.)

This means that any time you want to know something about feeding dogs, want to make sure the facts come from a CVN. On a personal judgment call, I MIGHT listen to a certified vet with an interest in nutrition, if there’s signs that they’ve been accepted as knowledgeable within the nutrition field and/or have studies, papers, etc published in dog medical journals.

Unless otherwise stated, the information I’m using came from the CVN at UC Davis, Just Food For Dogs, or a study published by one or more CVNs.

Grains vs grain-free:

According to most (read: every one I’ve read studies by or spoken to, but I’m sure there are exceptions) CVNs, dogs should eat approximately 30% fruits and veggies, 30% grains, and 30-40% meat in their diet.

Before COVID, young dogs (1-2 years old) began having heart failure and dying in such numbers that the FDA began an investigation. The only link between the dogs was that they’d been fed a grain-free diet. Initial suspects were a lack of taurine and then inclusion of lentils, but both were ruled out as causes. I don’t currently know the state of the investigation.

In anecdotal information, from listening to and in conversations with vets, there’s been quite a few who believe that liver and kidney failure is happening to dogs much earlier than expected when those dogs have been fed high protein or grain-free diets. Studies in rats show that a high-protein diet causes early liver and kidney failure.

Personally, I’ve noticed that if a client complains that their dog is always hungry, then adding a tablespoon of dry oats to their food or switching to a food with grain solves the problem 90% of the time. (Although labradors and sometimes golden retrievers are an exception to this, as they are bred to be hungry.)

However, I have also noticed (and have had other trainers and breeders confirm) that some breeds of dogs that, until VERY recent generations, were expected to hunt their own meals, are more likely to do well on a grain-free diet. Specifically, huskies, dingoes, and basenjiis. (All high energy, hard working, predatory breeds that were released to survive on their own either full time or, in the case of huskies, over the summer months.) German shepherds also seem to do well on grain-free diets, although they haven’t had to hunt for food for a VERY long time! Dogs with skin issues sometimes do better on grain-free diets, as well.

In the wild, dogs are trash scavengers if they live near humans, and hunters if they live in tribal areas with low human population. Canines (including wolves, coyotes, etc) graze, stripping grains off grasses, as well as eating the stomach and intestines of any killed animals first. Since they mostly eat herbivores, this means they’re eating per-digested grains before anything else. Dogs in the wild also eat their own feces (pre-digested food) for many reasons, including if they aren’t getting the correct nutrients. Several times now, but not enough for a pattern, I’ve suggested clients add oats to their dog’s food to stop poop-eating, and it’s worked. (Sources: books on different dog/human relationships worldwide, anthropological and ethnographic histories of dogs where published by reputable sources, The Genius of Dogs by Brian Hare and Vanessa Wood, histories of humans that mention dogs in passing, personal experience with wild packs in Greece. The last sentence is anecdotal.)

Other bits and pieces about grains: per CVNs, rice is the most difficult thing for our dogs to digest, and minute-oats, cooked quinoa, and similar cooked grains are generally recommended. Dogs struggle to digest grain that isn’t pre-digested/broken down.

The third most common allergen is wheat. Signs of a food allergy are itchy paws, bright pink skin under their chin, and frequent ear infections. (The most common food allergens are chicken and beef. Anything you feed your dog repeatedly is more likely to become an allergen, and CVNs recommend switching protein sources semi-regularly to avoid that.)

Given current trends and research in humans, it’s possible that CVNs are/might change 30% grains to 30% carbs, from such things like sweet potato. I haven’t looked into it at all.

Raw vs cooked:

Vitamins and enzymes break down and are useless at 160F. If you want the nutrients in your dog’s food to be useful, you should look for a food that is cooked at low temps under 160F, has the vitamins and enzymes added after the cooking process is over, is freeze-dried, or is raw. You can also supplement with vitamins and enzymes you add on your own. I would look at Just Food For Dogs or ask your vet.

The downside to raw is that it can carry the same bacteria that make us sick; salmonella, e. coli, and mad cow. Those diseases also make dogs sick. At the greatest risk are old, very young, and dogs with weakened immune systems. (Any bacteria that grows on raw meat left out can also make them sick, although they’re hardier than we are thanks to their shorter intestinal tract and colon. Which segues to…)

A dog’s intestinal tract and colon are shorter than ours, which means that more bacteria are alive in their poop when they defecate. Although we make pick the poop up, the bacteria stay behind and spread across the grass when the sprinklers go on. If you have children playing in the grass, it’s something to keep in mind.

Finding a pre-made food:

Except for limited ingredient foods (which are ideal for dogs with allergies), most dog foods are made up of the first five ingredients on the ingredients list. We tend to look at the “guaranteed analysis” that tells you how much protein, fat, etc is in the food, but it’s very misleading. If a food contains soy, for instance, that can be added to the protein total. But for the most part, dogs can’t use protein that comes from non-meat sources. (There’s some evidence that they can use it if it comes from grain, but let’s just assume meat is best.) Therefore, it’s better to look at the ingredients list than the guaranteed analysis column.

Since the first five ingredients make up the bulk of the food, we want to see that the first two ingredients OR three of the first five ingredients are meat or egg protein sources. Good protein sources will say things like, “chicken,” or, “chicken meal.” The first means there’s chicken in it. The second means there’s dehydrated chicken in it, and it’s protein-dense. (I don’t remember why.) Both mean the whole chicken, including organs and bones, which is exactly what we want.

Suspect proteins are anything labeled “by-product.” The by-products of an animal are things like feathers, beaks, hooves, etc. Hooves are fine in limited quantity, but certainly not as a main ingredient, and feathers and hide are neither digestible nor nutritious.

Other suspect ingredients are corn (a filler; dogs digest it about as well as we do, and there’s little nutritional value) and soy (a filler; useless nutritional value). If either appear in the first five ingredients, I would avoid that food.

Often people will say wheat is bad. Wheat is as good as any other grain, but became so prevalent that many dogs became allergic to it. In small doses it’s just fine.

Rice is another one I look at carefully, since it’s difficult for dogs to digest, and white rice has little nutritional value. Rice is still pretty common in food, since most people don’t know it’s difficult to digest. (I only know because of taking Doc to the CVN at Davis.)

Homemade vs store bought:

Until today, I thought homemade was better, as long as you used recipes from vets. However, I emailed my vet to get the name of a book she’d recommended to me a few years back, and she responded with: “There was a study that came out looking at homemade diets, even those recommended by vets, and found them lacking in many essential nutrients.” She does say that in addition to Just Food For Dogs (which she recommends), US Davis has a nutrition service called Balancelt.

Organic vs not:

This is really a personal choice. No studies have shown a difference in dogs, and even the health and longevity correlations have been thoroughly disproved. There have been multiple studies coming out showing that some organic pesticides are FAR more toxic and dangerous to animals (including dogs) and bees than many of the chemical pesticides.

All that said, I still prefer organic, but I try to be careful and look for things like, “only dog safe pesticides used!”

As an aside, foods from Canada and Europe have to follow much higher quality standards than in the US, both in what they label organic, and in the quality of meats and vegetables used. Generally foods made there are made with human grade ingredients, and many of the toxic organic pesticides have already been banned.

Foods I can recommend:

Freeze-dried and/or raw: Primal Instinct, Stella and Chewy’s (which has been around the longest, to my knowledge), and anything found at Pet Food Express (they have very high standards) or Pet People in Los Gatos (who have even higher standards. They are also very pro grain-free.)

Fresh, human-grade, whole foods: Just Food For Dogs. Created by CVNs, they use fresh, human-grade, whole ingredients and are run by certified veterinary nutritionists. They take great pride in funding studies on nutrition and setting the standard for dog health.

Kibble: Anything at Pet Food Express or Pet People in Los Gatos.

The Kirkland brand dog food (both grain and grain-free) is surprisingly highly rated, but only comes in 35lbs bags.

My dogs are currently on First Mate (available grain-friendly and grain-free), which comes from Canada, where the standards for acceptable dog meat are human-grade or nearly so.

Other resources:

Just Food For Dogs (.com). It is a business, but they’re leading in studies on dog nutrition.

US Davis

Articles by other certified veterinary nutritionists.

I really like www.DogFoodAdvisor.com. I don’t know who runs it, but I find when I compare its reviews to information about dog foods I’ve gotten from certified veterinary nutritionists and calling the dog food companies, it lines up with my ethics and research.

There. I think I gave myself carpal tunnel… XD

Jenna