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I‘ve recently done extensive research into commercial pet foods. I have been shocked and appalled by the results. The bottom line – the vast majority of commercially available pet foods are anything but wholesome. “Junk” would be a very polite, drastic understatement.
To summarize, the few good foods out there have the following qualities:
- Human grade ingredients
- No rendered proteins
- No meat “meals” or meat “by products”. The ingredient list should say “chicken”, not “chicken by products; or “lamb”, not “lamb meal”.
- No artificial or chemical preservatives or dyes
This information is rarely on the labels, and often requires research and contacting individual companies. Very few foods will meet all these requirements. The few that we’ve found locally available:
- Wellness® and Old Mother Hubbard®, available at:
- Happy Dog, Fat Cat Kennels, Dawsonville, 706-265-1002
- Canidae® & Felidae®, available at:
- Pups R Us, Dawsonville, 706-265-4224
- God’s Little Creatures, Cumming, 678-947-0704
- Natural Balance®, available at:
- Ruckers Horse & Pet, Cumming, 770-844-7275 (just around the corner from Pet Vet)
- Merrick®, available at:
- Ruckers Horse & Pet, Cumming, 770-844-7275 (just around the corner from Pet Vet)
- Bath & Bones Boutique, Cumming, 770-205-1158
- Solid Gold®, available at:
- Country Home Kennels, Dawsonville, 706-265-3142
- Herb Garden, Cumming, 770-887-0875
- The Pet Basket, Cumming, 678-648-6952
- Petco, Roswell, Buford, Atlanta
- Blue Buffalo®, available at PetsMart
Be aware that these quality foods are going to be at the high end of the price range, as they use much better and more expensive ingredients. Also, the lack of chemical preservatives shortens their shelf life, making them more expensive for manufacturers and retailers to carry. Confession – we cannot afford to stock a food that I now feel is of sufficient quality to recommend. Ruckers Feeds, just around the corner, carries Merrick® and Natural Balance®, which I use & recommend.
Interesting Point: The following terms have no official definition, are unregulated, and may appear on pet food labels with no guarantee of quality or lack of potentially harmful chemicals what-so-ever!
- Premium or Super Premium
- Gourmet
- Natural
- Holistic
- Organic
For more detailed explanations, read on – but be prepared to be disturbed.
- Preservatives: Commonly used preservatives in dry dog food include propylene glycol, ethoxyquin, BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole), and BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene. Propylene glycol is closely related to ethylene glycol, the toxic component of antifreeze that causes kidney failure, seizures, and death. Ethoxyquin has been linked to cancer of the stomach, kidneys, bladder, and colon. The Department of Agriculture lists ethoxyquin as a pesticide. BHA & BHT have been linked to cancers of the stomach, bladder, and thyroid gland.
- Natural preservatives, such as tocopherols (a source of Vitamin E) can be used in place of the artificial, chemical preservatives above. They are not as efficient, and lead to a shorter shelf life, and contribute to the higher costs associated with high quality foods.
- Canned foods are preserved by the canning process.
- Splitting: This is a marketing ploy that alloys pet food manufacturers to distort the ingredients listed on pet foods. The most prevalent ingredient must be listed first on the labels. But – the rules allow for “splitting”. This means that a food that lists meat as the first ingredient may also contain corn, ground yellow corn, and corn meal, all in equal parts, so that in reality, there may be three times more corn than meat. Sounds like cheating to me!
- Meat By-Products & Meat Meal: May contain chicken feet, heads, beaks and feathers; animal hooves, horns, hides, and fur; stomach & intestinal contents; manure; blood; carcasses or portions of carcasses removed from the human food chain for suspicion of disease or spoilage; essentially any animal part discarded or scraped from the slaughter house floor and considered unfit for human consumption. And most are rendered (see#4).
- Rendered Proteins: The source of most meat by-products and almost all meal. This process may involve chemicals not allowed in human foods. May also include the bodies of dogs and cats euthanized by pounds and animal shelters, including fur, flea collars, plastic bags, and most disturbing – the barbiturates used to euthanize those animals. Low levels of these drugs have been found in many major name brand commercial pet foods. Law requires that food animals, (cows, pigs, chickens), not be slaughtered for food for a long enough period of time that such drugs are cleared from the animals system before it enters the food chain. Because dogs and cats are not normally considered food animals, a loop hole exists that allows the drugs used to intentionally kill dogs and cats back into their food.
- Research: Most companies that produce major name brand pet foods engage in research involving dogs and cats that any decent human being would find cruel and inhumane.
Further Reading - “Foods Pets Die For”, by Martin & Messonier, available at www.amazon.com; Also has many good recipes for home made pet diets.
Note: Please never feed raw meat or bones - a current fad diet prevalent on the internet. We regularly treat pets who are seriously ill from this dangerous practice, and numerous deaths have been reported.
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