Outragous claims from pet food companies

Don't you get tired of all those crazy claims that some pet food manufacturers claim? I know I do. Dog food and horse feed seem to be the most notorious of nutritional claims. I remember one dog food company that made an expensive dry dog food that claimed to alleviate all kinds of skin allergies. Did it work? Heck no…………..and I bought 2, 40 pound bags just to test it out. The "secret" ingredient was suppose to be avocados. I bought it for my female Chow Chow that was having skin lesions. The little bumps were at first thought to be flea bites but was something else. It turned out she had a food allergy to soy.

Soy beans are often added to dog and cat foods to hike up the protein percentage of the food. It is a cheap way for the manufacturer to make the claims of "more protein" than another brand. What us pet owners need to keep in mind is that soy is a plant. Being that it is a plant, it has cell walls and cell walls are harder to digest for carnivores than cells that have no walls (animal based foods).

Then there are the pet foods that have all those added vitamins – why? If the food was made from actual food rather than "by products" such as hair, bone and hoof then there would be no need to shop for which food contained the best multivitamins but the best top ingredients.

Here is how I shop for dry pet foods. I look at the ingredients and the first one had better be meat and not grains. Some of the best dog foods are often the store brands. The ones that I have found to have the highest amount of actual meat are the lamb and rice foods.

Happy pet food shopping.