As the dog owners, you are always presented with an overwhelming array of options, all claiming to be the best dog food on the market. Approaching these choices to seek a dog food brand that is healthy, affordable, and attracting to your pet is often disappointing. Have you been lost in the huge fog? Please don’t worry, PAWZ Road has several suggestions to help you narrow down your options.
How To Read The Dog Food Label
One way to distinguish between good and bad dog food is to read the label. However, a dog food label is not only hard to read, because of the small print, but also can be misleading due to the ambiguous instruction. There are ten points of information are required to be explained by label.
- Dog food name
- Net weight of the dog food
- Name and address of the manufacturer
- Expiration date
- Target groups (i.e. age or breed of dog)
- List of ingredients
- Nutritional adequacy statement
- Main effect analysis
- Guarantee analysis
- Feeding guidelines
Dog Food Name
A dog food name tells you a lot concerning this dog food. The term “chicken” means that chicken certainly owns 70 percent of the proportion in the whole dog food. Otherwise, the terms “chicken dinner”, “chicken entrée” or “chicken platter” demand that 10 percent of the whole dog food is composed of chicken at least. The term “With chicken” only requires that chicken makes up 3 percent of the entire product. Besides, “chicken flavor” just requires that less than 3 percent of the total dog food is enough to flavor it.
Ingredients
The ingredients listed on the label won’t tell the quality of the ingredients or where they came from. Some manufacturers use the ingredients separately to make the distribution more balanced. For example, corn can be listed separately to different types, such as flaked corn, ground corn, or kibbled corn. This seems to decrease the corn content, even though actually the corn ingredient in the food is high. Another key ingredient is meat. Total meats include large amount of water. This implies that overall proportion of meat after processing is lower than the actual content. In the other way, meat meal, feeling that less attracting to us, but the fact is that meat meal contains more meat than “total meats”, due to there is no water weight to be added into calculation.
“Complete And Balanced” of Guarantee
The “complete and balanced ” statement is one of the first things you should read. As the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) required strictly, the minimum amount of all of the nutrients necessary for dogs must be contained in the complete and balanced diets, which is indicated in the “guaranteed analysis”, as well as the exact amount of those components.
You can contact with the dog food company to obtain more information about this dog food. The company conscientious representative is surly willing to help you eliminate confusions about their products.
Best Dog Food For Each Stage of Life
The nutritional demands of dogs change with their age. Many dog food manufactures make specially formulated foods for each of age group, narrowing down your choices. If you are concerned about what’s the right dog food for your dog’s life stage, consulting veterinarian for your dog’s appropriate food. The professional puppies food and professional breed food will be the better choices for your puppy, as well as the adult dogs and senior dogs. For larger breed puppies, their growth needs to be focused on preventing bone and joint disease. Especially for senior dogs, they should be monitored carefully to prevent cardiovascular disease and improve metabolism and body function. The best dog foods depend on your dog’s age, size and breed.
Feeding Dogs With Special Dietary Demands
The same as people, allergies, sensitive stomachs, and dietary restrictions affect dogs. Feeding dogs with special demands is exigent. The best choice for you is to seek vet for advice about selecting the best food for your dog.
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