What To Look For In High Quality Dog Food
Your dog is likely one of your best friend. Therefore, you should treat them like it. After all, you wouldn't give your best friend poor quality food and hope that they do not get sick. The fact is, a lot of the dog food on the market is terrible for dogs. It is full of bad ingredients that aren't meant to be ingested by dogs. Because of this, a lot of dogs have developed allergies to these ingredients and in certain cases, food has resulted in serious health complications including death. For this reason, it is incredibly important to focus on providing your dog with the highest quality dog food on the market. The bad news is that there are a ton of poor quality food sources on the market and a lot of them are being marketed as healthy alternatives and healthy overall dog foods. On the flip side, there are a bunch of good brands and healthy dog food options available on the market. You simply need to know what to look for and how to narrow down your options successfully. In this article, we will be going over some of the top things to look for in high quality dog food.
Top Things To Look For In High Quality Dog Food:
- Protein.
One of the most important ingredients to look for in food for a dog is the protein. The protein source and the amount of protein in dog food is literally the most important thing that you are going to want to look for and find. The reason is simple, dogs are carnivores and they need to get high quality protein sources in their food's or else their bodies will not operate as efficiently or effectively as they should. The protein source that is in the food plays a critical role in determining the healthiness of the actual food because the higher the quality of the source, the more easily digestible it is. Be sure to look for a high quality source such as fish, chicken, beef or something along those lines. You want the protein source to be the main star of the show. A good dog food would have the protein source make a large portion of the actual food. Instead of it being made up of beef with mostly grain and other fillers.
- Lack Of Grains.
While it may or may not be healthy for humans to consume grains (such as wheat, corn or soy), it is certainly not healthy for dogs to do so. Think about it, how many dogs/wolves were eating grains? As you can probably tell, it is not something that they naturally eat in the wild. For this reason, it is not something that we should be feeding them. Grains are used in a ton of pet foods and they provide a source of carbohydrates to these dogs. The problem is, dogs are not meant to eat grains and because of this, a lot of them develop certain allergies to grains and/or the grains provide a negative affect on the dog. For this reason, you want to try to avoid purchasing dog food that has grains listed in it as one of the main ingredients and preferably avoids grains all together.
- Vegetables.
While you want to avoid foods that have grains listed in them, you are going to want to find foods that have healthy portions of vegetables. This is because vegetables will be able to provide a good carbohydrate source for your dogs that can help energize them as they are complex carbohydrates. Also, they contain a ton of healthy vitamins and minerals that will optimize their bodily functions and allow them to maintain healthier coats and balance out their negative omega 3-6 to omega 9 ratios led on by eating grain and/or environmental factors such as pollution.
- Avoid.
What you don't want in your own food such as by-products, artificial colors, artificial flavors and preservatives.
As you can see, there are plenty of different things that you want to look for and find in your ideal dog food. Be sure to look for all of this. We have come up with a healthy list to choose from for your dog here: poochandise.com/dogfood.php.
Jonathan Leger is a small business owner and freelance writer. He also runs a popular question and answer site with a section dedicated to dogs and pet care.
1 lb to 10 lbs