Identifying a top quality dog food is not that difficult; I’m going to tell you how to do it in just a minute. But it may be difficult to find dog foods of this quality if you live far from an urban center or an independent pet supply store run by someone with more than a passing interest in canine nutrition. It may be even more difficult to afford some of the dog food brands listed; quality pet food ingredients cost more. But it shouldn’t be at all hard to see the improvements in your dog’s health if you’ve been feeding a low-quality food and make the switch to products of this quality.
Tip # 1: Whenever possible, shop at well-trafficked independent pet supply stores. The staff and/or management is usually far more helpful and knowledgeable about products that would be best for your dog at your budget. Next best: chain pet specialty stores.
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If you wear glasses to read fine print, bring ’em! You are going to study the label of each product in your price range for the following:
– Ingredients panel (where the ingredients are listed in descending order of weight in the product). More about this in a minute.
– Guaranteed analysis (which lists the minimum amounts of protein and fat and the maximum amounts of fiber and moisture, and sometimes, other nutrients). You need to know how much protein and fat your dog’s food at home contains, and whether he should get more or less. If you’ve been feeding a low-quality food with, say, 19% protein and 8% fat, you don’t want to switch overnight to a sled-dog fuel with 40% protein and 28% fat.
– “Best by” date/code (and sometimes, the date of production, too – it’s ideal to have both listed). Look for the freshest food possible, with the “best by” date at least 6 months away.
– AAFCO statement (which tells you whether the food has met the requirements of a “complete and balanced” diet, and if so, by which standard: by meeting the required nutrient levels, or by completing an AAFCO feeding trial). For more information about the difference, see “Whole Dog Journal’s 2007 Dry Dog Food Review,” WDJ February 2007.
Hallmarks of Quality
Now it’s time to scrutinize the ingredients list. The following are desired traits – things you want to see on the label.
– Lots of animal protein at the top of the ingredients list. 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 (see next bullet).
– A named animal protein – chicken, beef, lamb, and so on. “Meat” is an example of a low-quality protein source of dubious origin. Animal protein “meals” should also be from named species (look for “chicken meal” but avoid “meat meal” or “poultry meal”). I go into greater detail about this in “The Dog Food Industry Has Come a Long Way!, WDJ February 2013.
– When a fresh meat is first on the ingredient list, there should be an animal protein meal in a supporting role to augment the total animal protein in the diet. Fresh (or frozen) meat contains a lot of water, and water is heavy, so if a fresh meat is first on the list, another source of animal protein should be listed in the top three or so ingredients.
– Whole vegetables, fruits, and grains. Fresh, unprocessed food ingredients contain nutrients in all their natural, complex glory, with their fragile vitamins, enzymes, and antioxidants intact. Don’t be alarmed by one or two food “fractions” (a by-product or part of an ingredient, like tomato pomace or rice bran), especially if they are low on the ingredients list. But it’s less than ideal if there are several fractions present in the food, and/or they appear high on the ingredients list.
– A “best by” date that’s at least six months away. A best by date that’s 10 or 11 months away is ideal; it means the food was made very recently. Note: Foods made with synthetic preservatives (BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin) may have a “best by” date that is as much as two years past the date of manufacture.
Avoid These Traits
The following are things you don’t want to see in the ingredients.
– Meat by-products or poultry by-products. Higher-value ingredients are processed and stored more carefully (kept clean and cold) than lower-cost ingredients (such as by-products) by meat processors.
– A “generic” fat source such as “animal fat.” This can literally be any fat of animal origin, including used restaurant grease. “Poultry” fat is not quite as suspect as “animal fat,” but “chicken fat” or “duck fat” is better (and traceable).
– Added sweeteners. Dogs, like humans, enjoy the taste of sweet foods. Sweeteners effectively persuade many dogs to eat foods comprised mainly of grain fragments (and containing little healthy animal protein).
– Artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives(i.e., BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin). The color of the food doesn’t matter to your dog. And it should be flavored well enough to be enticing with healthy meats and fats. Natural preservatives, such as tocopherols (vitamin E), vitamin C, and rosemary extract, can be used instead. Note that natural preservatives do not preserve foods as long as artificial preservatives, so owners should always check the “best by” date on the label and look for relatively fresh products.
Good examples: WDJ’s “Approved Dry Foods” We’ve used the criteria above to assess the product lines of the following companies, representing hundreds of different dry dog foods. All of the products listed below meet our basic selection criteria for top-quality foods.
We’ve listed the first six ingredients and the minimum percentages of protein and fat from a representative product from each company.
Please note that the products are NOT rated or ranked; they are listed alphabetically by COMPANY. So, for example, if you are looking for Origen, look under its maker, Champion Pet Foods.
Adjust As Necessary
You may have been told that it’s bad to switch foods, or you may have had a bad experience when your dog ate something different and erupted in gas or diarrhea. With most dogs, the more you change foods, the more robust and capable their digestion becomes. We suggest switching foods every few months (or even more frequently; we switch our dogs’ food with every bag). Switching foods frequently also helps prevent the development of allergies, and helps provide nutritional “balance over time.” If your dog ate the same food for months and years, the nutrient levels – particularly the mineral levels – become literally entrenched in your dog’s body. This can be particularly harmful if the food you feed contains excessive or insufficient levels of certain vitamins or minerals.
Finally, watch your dog! Let her tell you how the new food works for her. Keep track of what foods you’ve tried (when the bag is empty, we cut out the ingredients panel and tape it to the calendar). This way, you can continue to make adjustments and improvements in your dog’s diet – and, we hope, huge improvements in her physical condition, skin and coat, and overall energy level.
Jennifer Mieuli Jameson, founder of Loup Garou, a San Francisco group that rescues black and dark-colored companion animals, went to law school, so she understands that there are always two (and usually more) sides to a story. Jameson respects the validity of the debate over early spay/neuter. And there have been rare cases when she has adopted out an unaltered animal who was too small or weak to undergo spay/neuter– though she retained legal ownership until proof of surgery was provided. But when it comes to the hard work she does day in and day out, driving all over northern California to pull at-risk animals out of shelters with little foot traffic and dim prospects of adoption, Jameson says there is no room for nuance.
“I’m a rescuer, so I’m not objective,” she says honestly. “The main thing in our lives is always going to be population control. A dog that’s spayed early may have a problem or two down the line, but that is a dog that’s not going to have puppies, and that is what we as rescuers are charged with. For good or bad, right or wrong, I’m okay with that.”
And so are many other people who work or volunteer in shelters or rescue groups, or who are committed to adopting only dogs from rescue; while there might be health risks associated with early spay/neuter, they are unlikely to abandon any helpful strategy in curbing overpopulation.
Kristen Head of Westville, New Jersey, adopted her collie/shepherd-mix from a shelter when he was three months old and already neutered. Delaying spay/neuter “is some-thing that I definitely have read and thought about, but with Kobe there was no option, because the shelter wouldn’t adopt any dog who wasn’t altered,” she says. “I would prefer the option of having the spay/neuter conversation with my vet before
I did it, but I definitely would always rescue” – even if it meant not having the option of delaying or foregoing sterilization surgery.
An article that discusses the health effects of spay/neuter surgery appears In the February issue of WDJ. It’s a topic that’s overdue for discussion in WDJ, but one that can get people upset, for different reasons.
From the perspective of those of us involved with shelters or rescue, any discussion of delaying or foregoing sterilization for all but the best individual dogs from impeccable bloodlines is practically verboten. Some of these people verbally attack anyone who questions the wisdom of pediatric spay/neuter, and insult anyone with an intact male dog who is not a conformational and behavioral paragon of his breed standard.
I understand the rancor. When you have years and years of first-person experience with trying to find homes for countless waves of unwanted dogs and puppies – or you’ve seen the barrels full of euthanized pets in a shelter freezer, waiting for pickup by the disposal truck – any dog-keeping practice that could possibly result in “accidental” litters of puppies seems obscene.
From the perspective of people who are dedicated to optimizing the health of their own dogs, though, it’s a compelling topic. There is no question that the sex-related hormones produced in the unaltered adolescent dog has multiple influences on his or her growing body, and some speculate, brain. What is an open question, however, is whether the benefits of allowing a dog to develop into young adulthood, and perhaps beyond, are worth the risks; there are a number of conditions that affect intact dogs but can be entirely prevented by early spay/neuter surgery.
But keeping an intact dog, even just through the first year, is not something that should be undertaken casually. In the article, author Denise Flaim, herself the breeder of multiple generations of holistically raised Rhodesian Ridgebacks, also discusses the challenges of the responsible management of intact males and females. It’s not easy – and people who have never done it before will be surprised at how different it is from living with altered animals.
The article discusses the benefits and risks of early alteration of male and female dogs, later alteration, and foregoing spay/neuter surgery altogether. We’ll be very interested in hearing your responses to the article.
Sixteen years ago, when Whole Dog Journal first assessed the “premium” segment of the dry dog food market, we didn’t find many products that met our selection criteria (click here for this year’s “Whole Dog Journal’s 2013 Dry Dog Food Review“). In 1998,the companies that made dog foods that we had considered to be the highest quality were small and not well known. The vast majority of dog foods on the market contained abominable ingredients (such as “meat and bone meal” and “animal fat”) and the companies that produced them were not very consumer-friendly. Even the top dog food manufacturers that offered the highest-quality products on the market were reticent about their ingredient sources and manufacturing locations.
That was then; this is now.
Today, the segment of the top quality dog food market commonly referred by the pet food industry as (variably) natural, holistic, or super premium (none of those being legal definitions) has experienced absolutely explosive growth. The entire pet food market has grown, but the performance of the type of products that meet our selection criteria has been remarkable.
“Consumer demand” gets the credit for these recent improvements in formulas at larger-scale pet food makers. After years of defending their ingredients, formulas, and products, the smart pet food companies have found ways to offer products with the kind of ingredients that discerning pet owners want to see on the label. It’s doubly smart, because these changes actually give them a leg up on their competition, even if they are new to the “super premium” niche; it helped them gain a spot on this year’s “Approved Dry Dog Foods” list.
Identifying a top-quality dog food is not that difficult; I’m going to tell you how to do that in this issue of Whole Dog Journal. But it may be difficult to find these top quality foods if you live far from an urban center or an independent pet supply store run by someone with more than a passing interest in canine nutrition. It may be even more difficult to afford some of these foods; quality costs more. But it shouldn’t be at all hard to see the improvements in your dog’s health if you’ve been feeding a low-quality dog food and make the switch to products of this quality. We have some suggestions if you are considering making a switch in your dog’s diet.
– Whenever possible, shop at well-trafficked independent pet supply stores. The staff and/or management is usually far more helpful and knowledgeable about products that would be best for your dog at your budget. Next best: chain pet specialty stores.
– If you wear glasses to read fine print, bring ’em! You are going to study the label of each product in your price range for the following:
– Ingredients panel (where the ingredients are listed in descending order of weight in the product).
– Guaranteed analysis (which lists the minimum amounts of protein and fat and the maximum amounts of fiber and moisture, and sometimes, other nutrients). You need to know how much protein and fat your dog’s food at home contains, and whether he should get more or less. If you’ve been feeding a low-quality dog food with, say, 19% protein and 8% fat, you don’t want to switch overnight to a sled-dog fuel with 40% protein and 28% fat.
– “Best by” date/code (and sometimes, the date of production, too – it’s ideal to have both listed). Look for the freshest food possible, with the “best by” date at least 6 months away.
The following are desired traits – things you want to see on the label.
Lots of animal protein at the top of the ingredients list. 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 (see next bullet).
A named animal protein – chicken, beef, lamb, and so on. “Meat” is an example of a low-quality protein source of dubious origin. Animal protein “meals” should also be from named species (look for “chicken meal” but avoid “meat meal” or “poultry meal”).
When a whole meat is first on the ingredient list, there should be an animal protein meal in a supporting role to augment the total animal protein in the diet. Fresh (or frozen) meat contains a lot of water, and water is heavy, so if a whole meat is first on the list, another source of animal protein should be listed in the top three or so ingredients.
Avoid These Traits
The following are things you don’t want to see in the ingredients.
Meat by-products or poultry by-products. Higher-value ingredients are processed and stored more carefully (kept clean and cold) than lower-cost ingredients (such as by-products) by meat processors.
A “generic” fat source such as “animal fat.” This can literally be any fat of animal origin, including used restaurant grease. “Poultry” fat is not quite as suspect as “animal fat,” but “chicken fat” or “duck fat” is better (and traceable).
Added sweeteners. Dogs, like humans, enjoy the taste of sweet foods. Sweeteners effectively persuade many dogs to eat foods comprised mainly of grain fragments (and containing little healthy animal protein).
Artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives (i.e., BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin). The color of the food doesn’t matter to your dog. And it should be flavored well enough to be enticing with healthy meats and fats. Natural preservatives, such as tocopherols (vitamin E), vitamin C, and rosemary extract, can be used instead. Note that natural preservatives do not preserve foods as long as artificial preservatives, so owners should always check the “best by” date on the label and look for relatively fresh products.
Adjust As Necessary
You may have been told that it’s bad to switch dog foods, or you may have had a bad experience when your dog ate something different and erupted in gas or diarrhea. With most dogs, the more you change foods, the more robust and capable their digestion becomes. We suggest switching foods every few months (or even more frequently; we switch our dogs’ food with every bag). Switching foods frequently also helps prevent the development of allergies, and helps provide nutritional “balance over time.” If your dog ate the same food for months and years, the nutrient levels – particularly the mineral levels – become literally entrenched in your dog’s body. This can be particularly harmful if the food you feed contains excessive or insufficient levels of certain vitamins or minerals.
Finally, watch your dog! Let her tell you how the new food works for her. Keep track of what foods you’ve tried (when the bag is empty, we cut out the ingredients panel and tape it to a calendar). This way, you can continue to make adjustments and improvements in your dog’s diet – and, we hope, huge improvements in her physical condition, skin and coat, and overall energy level.
To learn more about the “mass market” pet food makers that are now offering super-premium formulas, subscribe to Whole Dog Journal today. You will then have access to premium subscriber-only content and the full version of this article.
The subscriber-only version of this article also includes a discussion of the changes in the pet food industry that have made it possible for a mass market food manufacturer to offer these high-end and mainstream-quality products.
Like any old fight, it’s hard to recall all the details. Suffice to say that, many years ago, when we agreed to make it a convention to publish a review of dry dog foods every February, my boss (publisher of WDJ) and I argued for hours about whether or not I had to prepare a list of “approved foods” to accompany the article. It’s become the number one feature in WDJ that readers cite as their reason for subscribing, so it turns out that my boss wins the argument. But I hate the list. I really, really haaaaaate it. Why? Let me describe my top four reasons.
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1.Because I would rather teach people to fish than give them a fish. That is, I would rather people read the article accompanying the list so they understand exactly how we identify the foods we approve of – and can easily determine whether or not the food they buy would earn our approval, and why. My boss’s response: “Nance, I’m sorry to break it to you, but there are a certain number of subscribers who are never, ever going to read the article. They just want the list.”
This whole idea gives me heartburn, but after a few years, I realized he was right. For months after the publication of each article, in which I explain exactly why the products that are on “the list” are there, I receive letters that ask why foods A, B, and C are on the list, and foods X, Y, and Z are not. Since the answers to the questions are present in the article, I have to conclude that my boss is right: some people are readers; some people just want a list.
2.Because the presence of a food on WDJ’s “approved foods” list (or anyone’s list) does not mean it’s “best” for your dog. It’s a starting place, no more. It is one of many products that meet our selection criteria. But it doesn’t mean, and couldn’t possibly mean, that it’s going to suit every dog it’s fed to. If people read the article, they will understand how to identify the attributes of top-quality foods and traits of lesser-quality products, and how to determine whether a particular food is working well for their dog, and what to do if it is not. The latter is just as important as the former.
3.Because lists can never be complete. There are far more foods that meet our selection criteria and would qualify as an “approved food” than we will ever be able to discover and list. There are many more products that would qualify for a “DO NOT BUY” list (if we had one), but it would fill the entire issue. And singling out just a few (as examples) always seems unfair, because the fact is, the majority of foods on the market would meet our criteria for this. By understanding our selection criteria, a reader should be able to easily determine whether a product she sees in a store would qualify for our “approved food” list or a “DO NOT BUY” list.
4.Because stuff happens. The moment a list is published, events take place that render parts of the list incorrect. Companies fold, formulas are changed, manufacturers are switched, recalls occur. And there in print is a list saying WDJ approves of the product.
Here’s how I would love the list to be used – and, in fact, all joking aside, how it’s already used by many subscribers: As a starting place for an owner to find products she’s never seen before; as a comparison tool, to help pet food buyers identify the differences between products at different price points; and as a handy resource list, with contact numbers and manufacturing sites already listed, in case a recall happens and an owner wants to contact the maker of a certain product as quickly as possible.
This year’s list of “approved dry dog foods” can be found later in this months edition.
Sixteen years ago, when WDJ first assessed the “premium” segment of the dry dog food market, we didnt find many products that met our selection criteria. The companies that made foods that we would consider top quality were small and not well known. The vast majority of foods on the market contained abominable ingredients (such as meat and bone meal and animal fat) and the companies that produced them were not very consumer-friendly and downright contemptuous of a consumer-oriented newsletter with canine health activist readers! Even the companies that offered the highest-quality products on the market, the best of the best, were reticent about their ingredient sources and manufacturing locations.
That was then; this is now.
Today, the segment of the market commonly referred by the pet food industry as (variably) natural, holistic, or super premium (none of those being legal definitions) has experienced absolutely explosive growth. The entire pet food market has grown, but the performance of the type of products that meet our selection criteria has been remarkable.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that even the biggest players in the pet food industry have taken notice; some have been taking experimental steps in this direction for a number of years. And today, companies like Colgate-Palmolive’s Hill’s Pet Nutrition and Procter & Gamble’s Eukanuba offer products that meet WDJ’s selection criteria.
You may ask, Are those foods truly better than they used to be? Or does WDJ’s selection criteria need to become more stringent?
The answer is Yes to both questions.
What’s Going On Consumer demand gets the credit for the recent improvements in formulas at larger-scale pet food makers. After years of defending their ingredients, formulas, and products, the smart companies have found ways to offer products with the kind of ingredients that discerning pet owners want to see on the label. It’s doubly smart, because these changes actually give them a leg up on their competition, even if they are new to the super premium niche.
Large companies usually own and operate their own manufacturing plants, which invariably leads to more consistent production (and fewer quality control failures and recalls) than small companies, which almost always have to rely on third-party contract manufacturers to make their foods. (There are plenty of good co-packers out there, but when problems do occur, it’s always more difficult for a pet food company to determine the problem’s true cause and take steps to keep it from happening again if they are not the ones at the helm of the production facility.)
Also, gigantic companies have the financial backing needed to write big ingredient procurement contracts. In this way, they can effectively lock up the biggest, most consistent domestic sources of some ingredients.
Consumer demand also seems to be at least partially responsible for the change in attitudes by the pet food companies customer service and/or public relations people. The blanket excuse, Sorry, that’s proprietary information, is increasingly rejected as a legitimate response by consumers who are willing to pay top dollar for a reliable product from a communicative company. If you call a company and either can’t reach a live human being, or can’t get a straight answer to a few basic questions about the company’s ingredient sources or manufacturing location, well, now you have options. You can (and should) say, Well, thanks but no thanks; I guess I’ll buy my dog’s food elsewhere.
More Can Be Better Here’s another trend in the market, and one that enables large pet food companies to maintain and defend their historically best-selling products and offer newer products with formulations that fly in the face of the corporate history: the rapid proliferation of new lines and products.
Each size of each product is given a unique stock keeping unit (SKU, pronounced skew) identification number. A decade ago, it was typical for a small-sized company that sold natural/holistic dry dog foods to offer three to five formulas, with each product offered in perhaps three different bag sizes in this case, a maximum of 15 SKUs. Today, even small companies may have dozens of SKUs, and the larger pet food makers may have hundreds.
There are several reasons for the surge of SKUs. At some point, the pet food companies realized that the more pointedly their products seemed to be aimed at specific dogs, the better they sold. Why would you buy a food for adult dogs when you can buy one that’s just for Yorkshire Terriers? Or, alternatively, for small indoor dogs, or toy breed senior dogs? It’s very appealing to think that the food has unique attributes that make it just right for your dog. This sort of specificity may also relieve some anxiety on the part of the owner who’s not sure about which food they should buy.
Consumers are also funny about product sizes; they like having more options than just a very small and a very large bag.
Additionally, a large number of SKUs in any given store has a powerful affect on consumers in the store. Think about it: It makes a big impression if you are walking down a long pet food aisle and you come to a section that has nothing but Pup Crunchies Brand foods from floor to ceiling for about 12 linear feet, and the bags are all different colors and sizes. Hey! This Pup Crunchies company must really be something!
And finally, as mentioned earlier, it gives the gigantic pet food companies an opportunity to offer products of varying quality and corresponding price points. This way, they can participate in the natural/holistic/premium market and offer their more conventionally formulated, lower-priced foods, too.
The Next Step
Some of you may skeptical about the sincerity of some of the companies on our annual approved dry dog foods list (the 2013 list appears in this issue). Personally, I’m happy to see the industry shift toward the use of better ingredients in more products; the changes will result in a nationwide net gain in the number of dogs eating better foods. And if the pet food companies who are serious about competing in the super premium market are improving their transparency and consumer relations, we all win.
But with mainstream pet food makers now selling foods with ingredient lists that are comparable to products that have been on WDJ’s approved foods lists for years, what will the companies with the deepest commitment to super-premium, ne plus ultra foods do to stay ahead of the game?
I don’t know what they’ll do, but I know what revolutionary development I’d like to see! The problem is, it’s currently impossible not because it can’t be done, but because it’s sort of against the law.
Tastes Like Chicken
Long-time readers know that WDJ has always recommended choosing products that contain whole, named meats or meat meals for example, chicken or chicken meal. This sort of ingredient has always been described to me and I have in turn promoted it to you as the best source of animal protein you can find on a dog food label.
I’ve gradually become aware, though, that there is quite a range of products that are available to pet food companies that can all be legally described as, for example, chicken.
First, let me describe what goes on in a meat processing plant. The primary mission of these plants is to convert recently living animals into different cuts of meat for human consumption. The most valuable products that emerge from a meat plant are the big cuts (think roasts, steaks, chops, or in the case of poultry, whole bird bodies, breasts, and legs), but there are lots of smaller bits of meat that get used in things like hot dogs or soup.
Every bit of meat that is going to be used for human food is handled in a strictly prescribed way, in order to be kept clean as it moves down the production line; and as soon as each bit has been processed to its intended state, it is chilled, whether in a package for retail sale or in large wholesale containers.
Along the production lines, though, there are lots of places where certain bits of meat are separated from the products that are headed to human consumption. These include whole or parts of carcasses of animals that, for various possible reasons, did not pass inspection after slaughter; specific parts of the animal that failed inspection down the line; stuff that fell on the floor; tiny bits of trimmings; and, in the case of poultry, meaty bones (including necks, wings, and frames the main body of the bird after most of the meat has been stripped from it). There are locations all along the meat processing line where some of these materials are diverted to bins that are clearly marked inedible the legal word for meat that cannot be used for human consumption.
Unlike edible meats, inedible meats don’t have to be kept chilled once they have been diverted to an inedible bin (chilling keeps any bacteria that may be present from proliferating). Of course, they can be kept chilled, but once they have been diverted to inedible meat containers, they must be denatured (marked with a substance, usually powdered charcoal, to further identify them as inedible) and stored separately from any edible products in the plant.
Generally, though, inedible meats are not chilled, but are diverted for transportation, either directly to pet food companies or to a renderer, where they will be made into a meat meal. Bacterial contamination of the material doesn’t seem to bother anyone; it’s generally accepted that any bacteria present will be killed during production of the pet food (extrusion or baking) or rendering of the meat meal.
The legal definition of chicken used in pet food is the clean combination of flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, derived from the parts or whole carcasses of chicken or a combination thereof, exclusive of feathers, heads, feet and entrails. But in practice, this definition can be applied to anything from:
– A tanker truck full of chicken skin, bones, fat, bits of meat, and chicken meat that failed inspection for human consumption.
– Chicken frames (a frame is the skeleton of a chicken’s body after the feet and head have been cut off, and the guts and most of the meat has been stripped off).
– The flesh (muscle meat), with or without skin, with or without accompanying bone, removed from freshly slaughtered chickens.
– The same as above, but kept and transported in a chilled or frozen state to the manufacturing site.
– Any combination of the above.
All of the above items could legally appear on a product label as chicken. And there is no legal way for a pet food company to tell you (and no way for you to decisively confirm) that what the company uses in the food you feed your dog is human quality clean, inspected-and-passed, chilled chicken meat / skin / bone from freshly slaughtered birds and not the carcasses or parts of diseased chickens, and the bones and skin left over from human food production.
Why? Because, by law, NO ingredient that is used in pet food can be called human quality even if it is, really. Upon arrival at a pet food plant, even the most pristine, expensive, USDA-inspected-and-passed ingredient becomes inedible. (I’ve heard different accounts from various pet food company owners; some say it becomes inedible the moment the truck drives onto the pet food manufacturing site; others say it’s the moment the truck’s door are opened at a pet food facility.)
There are reasons galore for this random-seeming designation, but they all boil down to this: the government doesn’t want anyone to get confused and think that pet food is safe for humans to eat. If pet food companies are allowed to say that their products contain human grade or human quality ingredients, people might get confused and try to eat it! Or feed it to their kids!
Personally, I’d like to feed my dogs food that contains only clean, chilled, meat /skin/ bones/ and yes, even organs from freshly slaughtered, healthy animals. Some companies claim to be using ingredients of that quality already in fact, I’ve seen it with my own eyes! I’ve been to pet food plants where dry dog food was being made, right in front of me, with chilled or frozen chicken meat that was being taken right out of boxes or bins clearly stamped US Inspected and Passed by Department of Agriculture. But there currently isn’t any legal way for pet food makers to make this claim.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a legal definition that could identify ingredients of this quality, so that pet food companies who are genuinely using these ingredients could be conclusively identified? And wouldn’t it be amazing if those companies whose representatives who hint or say they use these ingredients but aren’t could also be identified (and enforcement action could be taken against them)?
The Holy Grail
The fact is, millions of American dogs are currently eating thousands of tons of food that is made with what sounds like the worst possible stuff that could emerge from a slaughterhouse and they are apparently doing just fine. There are no studies anywhere suggesting that there is a correlation between the illness of any dogs who are fed diets made of disgusting, bacteria-laden bits of diseased animals, and the health of dogs who eat only food made of inspected-and-passed muscle meat.
Studies or no studies, many of us are willing to pay fantastic prices to be assured that the food we feed our dogs contains only nice clean meat. Couldn’t the companies that are deeply dedicated to making those products find some way to push regulators for a definition that could help consumers know they are really getting what they are paying for?
There must be a way. The pet food companies know what they are paying their ingredient suppliers for; indeed, they can specify whatever they want from their meat suppliers. For example, they can specify that they will pay only for chicken meat containing only a certain amount of ash (which indicates the amount of bone that’s included), only a certain amount of fat (which indicates the amount of skin that’s included), and only a certain amount of lipid oxidation (oxidized fat; the beginning of rot). High-protein, low-ash, low peroxide chicken is expensive, so the products that contain it will be, too. But a high price is no guarantee of high-quality ingredients.
When the companies that actually do use ingredients like that find a way to legally and verifiably prove it, you’ll see a brand new, two-tiered list of approved foods in WDJ. The top tier will probably be quite short, and the food quite expensive. But I’d be willing to bet the farm that there will be owners who would pay whatever it costs.
Product Review
In the meantime, we still have our present standards, and they still identify products that are better than the majority of dry dog foods. These standards are described on the next page, and a partial list of some of the products that meet our standards a starting point, a list of some good examples is explained later in this months edition
Your best option for finding compatible playmates for your dog is to identify your dog’s play style and select dogs of similar size, energy level, and play style preference.
Size matters. No doubt there are dogs of significant size disparity who can play well together, but as a general rule, it’s wise to keep the difference in the realm of 25 pounds or less. A playful dog can easily injure a little dog, even without intent to do harm, simply by running over or jumping on the smaller dog. Of even greater concern is a phenomenon known as predatory drift in which something from a dog’s evolutionary past triggers the larger dog’s brain to perceive the smaller dog as a prey object – a bunny or squirrel – instead of the canine pal he’s played happily with for months or years. Often the trigger is the smaller dog running, yelping, or squealing. The bigger dog gives chase, and tragedy ensues.
For more ideas and advice on the best ways to play with your dog and the benefits to both you and your dog, purchase Pat Miller’s book, Play With Your Dog.
My sister-in-law and I were talking on the phone a day after our whole family had been together for a holiday event at my house. She said, “The funniest thing from my view in the living room was seeing you repeatedly scoop up your sister’s dogs and lock them in the big cage in the bedroom, and seeing your sister repeatedly come through and let them back out!”
My sister has three little dogs. One of those dogs, Mokie, lived with me for more than three years, and while I had him, he slept in a crate nightly, with the door open. He loved his crate, and made a habit of dragging any favored toys or treats or chews in there to hoard. The second dog is a 6- or 7-month-old rescue pup, a terrier mix. At her former foster home, she was crated regularly. The third is a 5-year-old terrier-mix they took in after a friend fell on hard times. Supposedly he was crated at various times, too, without any problems.
But my sister seems to regard crates as a cruel hardship for a dog. *She* can barely stand it when her dogs are contained. And her anxiety about whether they are comfortable and happy quickly cues the dogs to exhibit anxiety when she comes to “see how they are doing.” Despite the fact that I filled, corner to corner, the German Shepherd-sized cage-style crate with a super plush bed, and prepared canned-food-stuffed frozen Kongs for all the little dogs to enjoy while crated, when my sister ducked into the room and saw them lying in the crate together working on their Kongs, she’d trill, “Oh, my poor babies!” and they’d all jump up and start showing clear signs of oxygen deprivation and beatings (apparently). So she’d let them out, “just for a minute!”
But we had lots of other people in the house, including a three-year-old child who is CRAZY about dogs and who lives with a super-tolerant large dog; I didn’t want my niece to get bitten by a small dog who wasn’t expecting a toddler’s exuberant hug. And Mokie is a unrepentant urine-marker; he’ll lift his leg and mark anything if you’re not watching him closely. The dogs, my house, and the party were better off with the little dogs locked up. (My own dogs were also sequestered, relaxed and comfortable out in my husband’s office, an outbuilding in our yard.) So, yeah, we had a bit of a sister power struggle with the little dogs in the middle.
The day after the party, I lectured my sister some more. “You’re doing them a huge favor if you teach them to relax in a crate! Then they’d be comfortable if they ever had to be in a cage at the vet’s office, or if you ever had to board them. And when you have parties at your house, you wouldn’t have to be so worried about one of them slipping out the front door, or eating someone’s plate of appetizers off the ottoman!” (Those last two things have happened.)
I made a little progress with my sister that day, especially after I moved the giant crate into my dining area, so her dogs had a warm, comfy place to lie and chew the Kongs while my sister and I cooked in the kitchen. I left the crate door open, so she could see that they chose to go in the crate. The truth is, my floors are cold, and if they wanted to keep an eye on her and be warm, too, the crate was the best option. But this was about training my sister, not her dogs.
There are a few different types of tests available that purport to identify the allergens to which a dog is hyper sensitive; some of them are helpful and some are a waste of time and money. Since all of them are commonly referred to as “allergy tests,” few people know which ones are credible, and which ones are not. The following is a brief description of the types of tests available for allergy diagnosis.
– Blood (serologic) tests for antigen-induced antibodies — Two different methods (RAST and ELISA) are used for the most common commercial test products used by veterinarians. Historically, the tests have been unreliable with lots of false positive and false negative results, though the technology has improved over the years.
– Skin (intradermal) tests for environmental allergens — In an intradermal test, tiny amounts of a number of suspected or likely local allergens are injected just under a dog’s skin. Most veterinary dermatologists feel these tests are much more reliable than blood tests for antibodies. It should be noted that testing is more time-consuming and expensive, not to mention stressful for the dog, who must be observed very closely, several times, by a stranger!
– Tests for food allergies — Both blood and skin tests for food allergies exist, but it’s difficult to find anyone (besides the companies that produce the tests) who feel the results are worth the paper they are printed on. It would be exciting and useful if it worked, but so far, the tests are a work in progress, with only an estimated 30 percent accuracy rate. Why bother when you can conduct a food elimination trial that will deliver much more accurate information about your dog’s food allergies.
For more information on diagnosing and treating allergies in your dog, purchase Whole Dog Journal’s ebook Canine Allergies.
So, a couple of weeks ago I wrote about going to the grocery store late one Sunday evening and being completely bummed about a couple who was selling puppies (who looked too young, and not well cared for) in front of the market. I thought about all the things I should do and say at that time – though at the time, I did nothing. I was too tired and hungry and it was rainy and late . . . But the memory of those chilled puppies, numbed by the intake of too much stimulation, has stayed with me.
Last Saturday I had a redemption round. Every month I present an orientation to prospective volunteers at my local shelter. In the middle of my talk, an elderly woman knocked on the glass door of the shelter. I opened it to tell her that the shelter wasn’t actually open yet, and she said, “I just wanted to let you know that some fool is selling puppies in the parking lot of Tractor Supply.” I thanked her – and then had about two hours, while busy with the volunteers, to wonder if the guy would still be there in a couple of hours, and what (and how!) I would say to him it if he was still there.
On weekends in my small town, the animal control officer is called out only for life-threatening emergencies. It’s a two-hour minimum overtime call, and a costly part of the city’s animal control budget. No one considers an illegal puppy sale an emergency worthy of two hours of officer overtime, and the police don’t do this kind of call, either. On a weekday, they would notify the animal control officer instead. If the puppies’ lives were immediately endangered, it might constitute an emergency. As it was, though, it was just the kind of situation that called for an assertive citizen interaction. Which I both hoped to be capable of, given so much mental preparation, and hoped that I wouldn’t HAVE to do; I hoped he’d be gone if I went there when I was done at the shelter.
Well, dang, he was still there hours later when I pulled into the Tractor Supply parking lot, just half a mile from the shelter. Thanks to my preparation, as well as the comments from the blog a few weeks ago, this is what I did:
I pulled up the text of the California state law, 597.4, on my smart phone, while I was sitting in the car.
The seller was talking to a couple, showing them a puppy when I walked up. So, since he was busy, I took the opportunity to openly take a picture of his license plate, then the sign advertising the “German Shpard” pups, then the pups in the back of the truck (in a drizzling rain! with no cover!), and finally one of him, holding a pup. That seemed to get his attention.
I smiled, and said, “Hi! I just wanted to let you know that what you are doing is illegal. Selling, or giving puppies away in a parking lot or a roadside is against the law in California.”
To this, he replied, fairly calm, “I have the manager’s permission. I don’t see what the problem is.”
I said, trying to smile and appear friendly (but my hands were shaking – I am NOT a confrontational person!), “The big problem is that you have an accidental litter of puppies here – they are accidents, right?” (He nodded, yes. It was obvious!) “So the mom is neither fixed nor under proper supervision, and now all of these puppies are about to be sold to people who very probably won’t get them fixed, either. And I volunteer enough time at the local shelter to know that we have far too many unwanted dogs in this community as it is!”
He replied, getting annoyed now, “I don’t see how that’s my problem. I have permission.”
So I said, “The thing is, it’s not the manager’s permission to give. Let me read you the text of the law.” And I read the following lines (quickly and shakily, but I got through it): “It shall be unlawful for any person to willfully do either of the following: (1) Sell or give away as part of a commercial transaction, a live animal on any street, highway, public right-of-way, parking lot, carnival, or boardwalk. (2) Display or offer for sale, or display or offer to give away as part of a commercial transaction, a live animal, if the act of selling or giving away the live animal is to occur on any street, highway, public right-of-way, parking lot, carnival, or boardwalk. (b)(1) A person who violates this section for the first time shall be guilty of an infraction punishable by a fine not to exceed two hundred fifty dollars ($250). (2) A person who violates this section for the first time and by that violation either causes or permits any animal to suffer or be injured, or causes or permits any animal to be placed in a situation in which its life or health may be endangered, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
When I finished, without taking much of a breath, I said, “Let me give you a better plan. If you take all these puppies to the shelter right now, they will be taken care of, spayed/neutered, vaccinated, microchipped, and people who are screened will adopt them. Puppies all find homes at our shelter. And if you bring the mom in, we can enroll you in our grant program so that we can get her spayed for no charge. That would be the best thing you could do for all of these dogs. But it’s up to you. Now, I’m going into Tractor Supply. I have some shopping to do [ I kept smiling through all of this], and I’m going to read the law to the manger of the store, too. And when I come out, if you’re still here, I’m going to call the cops.” I smiled one last time, even though he was looking pretty unpleasant now, and walked into the store, fast.
I did, then, ask for the manager, and actually had a nice conversation with him and a couple of other store employees, who all agreed that they hadn’t liked the look of the guy and what he was doing (though no one did anything about it). The manager wrote down the California Penal Code number – 597.4, I have it memorized now! – and said, “So, if anyone tried this again, I can just tell them it’s illegal, and to take the pups over to the shelter.” YES! Thanks!
And then I went to buy my chicken scratch, and when I went out to the parking lot, thank goodness, the guy was gone! (Thank goodness because calling the police on a Saturday was a bluff; they wouldn’t have come.)
I’m sad that I had the opportunity to practice “what should I do” so soon, and sadder to learn that the guy did NOT take the pups to the shelter, but glad that I tried to get the guy to do the right thing.
Cowboys are typically laconic, but I never forgot the one-word summation of the well-known reined cowhorse trainer in reference to a colt I was working with many years ago. He watched closely as I put the colt through his paces: walk, trot, lope, reverse directions, and smoothly slide to a stop. I was pleased with the colt’s work that day; he was willing yet relaxed, engaged, and seemed appreciative of the strokes I gave his glistening coat as we walked over to the rail to talk to my trainer acquaintance. “What did you think of him?” I asked. The far more experienced horseman squinted and paused before he responded. “Useful,” he drawled. I must have looked disappointed, because after a moment, the trainer elaborated. “Yep, he looks useful . . . . That’s a damn fine colt.”
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After more exposure to the trainer (as a participant or spectator in an occasional training clinic) I gradually realized that “useful” was one of his highest compliments – and I embraced the word. What a good goal it is to strive to be useful! (And in contrast, can you imagine anything more insulting than to be deemed “useless”?)
Above all else with WDJ, being useful is our objective. We’re trying to present you with clear, accessible instruction and enough in-depth information about any given topic to enable you to make sound decisions about your dog’s health and training. And if I do say so myself, this issue hits the target.
– In “Gear of the Year,” a number of our regular contributors offer information about some of the training and dog-care tools they use the most and like the best.
– In “Positively Winning,” author/trainer Stephanie Colman discusses how owners and trainers keep their dogs enthusiastic and precise in the obedience ring – where no treats, toys, or praise is allowed. If you’ve ever wondered when and how you can reduce the number of treats you need to give your dog without losing his enthusiasm, read this!
– Infectious canine hepatitis made a comeback in the United States in 2012, necessitating a review of vaccination protocols. In “An Old Infectious Disease Is New Again,” on page 12, Denise Flaim tells you what you need to do to ensure that your dog is protected. WDJ’s Training Editor, Pat Miller, explains how training and managing large and giant breeds differs from training smaller dogs in “Going Big.” She also discusses the responsibilities that are unique to the owners of large dogs.
– Trainer Nannette Morgan found herself in need of specialized equipment and knowledge to help her care for her dogs while recovering from her own major surgery. In “Dog Care When You’re Down,” she shares her tips for making sure that she and her dogs didn’t just survive her convalescence, but thrived.
Useful? I hope so. Of course, I’m not wishing major surgery on any of you! But hang onto the issue; even if information about worthwhile products, show ring competition, puppy vaccines, giant breeds, or temporary disability is not useful to you right now, if you own dogs long enough, all of those articles should be useful to you at some point. At least, that’s our goal.
Researchers at Texas Tech University found that many popular “bumpers” (items used for training retrievers) and other plastic toys exude BPA and phthalates when subjected to conditions that simulate chewing by a dog.
We first alerted readers to the danger presented to dogs by these chemicals in an April 2008 article, “Why Vinyl Stinks: The Dangers of Vinyl Dog Toys.” Author Susan Weinstein explained that many “plastic” products contain additives that can be harmful to humans and animals in high-enough amounts. Bisphenol-A (usually abbreviated to BPA), an endocrine disrupter, is the best known of these plastic additives. But there are similar dangers posed by less-well-known chemicals called “phthalates.” These additives are used to make plastic materials flexible.
Philip N. Smith, PhD, a toxicologist at The Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech, is co-author of an as-yet unpublished study (“Factors affecting leaching rates of phthalates and bisphenol A from canine training devices”), which was presented in November 2012 at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry conference in Long Beach, California. Dr. Smith became interested in chemical exposures from bumpers after using them to train his own dogs. “I have two Labs and they’re often carrying a bumper around,” says Smith. “I became curious about what sort of chemical exposure dogs who chew them may be exposed to.”
The researchers, led by Kimberly Wooten, a graduate student in environmental toxicology at Texas Tech, looked at factors that affected the amounts of BPA and phthalates that could leach from plastic bumpers. They compared the amounts of BPA and a variety of phthalates that leached out of bumpers that were made by two different (unidentified) companies; bumpers of different colors (orange and white); and plastic products that were brand-new, some that had been “aged” by storage outdoors for a month, and some that were subjected to simulated chewing. The products were bathed in artificial saliva (similar to what is used in the testing of children’s products) and then the fluid was examined for BPA and phthalates.
BPA and at least five different phthalates – benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), and dimethyl phthalate (DMP) – were found to have leached into the artificial saliva in varying amounts.
“Some of the analytes were found in very low concentrations; others were found in the low parts per million range,” says Dr. Smith. However, he warned against any attempt to quantify a specific exposure risk from this study. “To determine how much of these substances were actually getting into a dog, you’d have to give them to dogs to chew and then test their blood. We plan to continue this line of research if we can get it funded, but finding funding for studies like this is difficult,” Dr. Smith said.
The study has not yet been published or peer-reviewed. But preliminary results indicate that many plastic pet toys and training tools can expose dogs to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and that certain storage conditions and usage can increase concentrations of these chemicals that leach into canine saliva. “Consumer education about potential risk from plastic chewing or retrieving products seems to be warranted,” he says.
Broad observations from the study included:
– There were color effects (the color of the products seemed to affect the amount of chemicals leached) but they were not consistent.
– Products that were aged outdoors (exposed to sunlight and increased temperatures) leached more phthalates than new products.
– Products that were physically manipulated in a manner similar to chewing leached greater concentrations of phthalates than the new products.
We asked Dr. Smith to explain why new vinyl products, which often have a strong “plastic” smell, leached lower concentrations of BPA and phthalates than older products. “We looked at only six phthalates and BPA,” he responded. “It’s possible that some of the lighter phthalates, the ones that are more likely to volatilize, are released in greater concentrations in new products.” The phthalates the researchers looked for, however, are among the ones commonly cited as hazardous to humans and other animals; each has been banned in the European Union for use in children’s toys and childcare products.
Plastic retrieve items can be found in every pet supply store and catalog; safe, nontoxic alternatives are harder to find but are available. Our favorites are made by Katie’s Bumpers, which makes a wide variety of bumpers and tug toys out of rugged firehose material. Katie’s Bumpers also offers a plastic bumper made of phthalate-free, recyclable #4 plastic. For more information about these bumpers, see katiesbumpers.com or call the company at (303) 642-0544.
Years ago, I had high hopes for participating in dock diving sport with my now-9-year-old dog, Woody. But it turned out that my high-jumping, strong-swimming dog absolutely hates getting water in his ears!
