Home-made dog treats V the best man made dog food

If you look at the two tables at the end of this article you will see a stark contrast in the number of ingredients and quality of ingredients.

The main raw ingredients I use are human grade, not leftovers, or things that need to be disguised in a biscuit with oil and salt to make it attractive to a dog.

If you feed your dog on a dry or wet man made dog food this is what you should know, and why you need quality MEAT or Meat based dog treats WITH your pellets.

1              Firstly you won’t see any PERCENTAGES on a dog food label. This is because they use splitting of terms to make it look like you are getting more meat.

Under the MAN MADE column you will see Chicken meal is the first ingredient meaning it is the highest percentage. IF the next seven carbs (ie grain) are the same percentage that would mean that the meat could be as low as  95% / 8 =  12%. This is unlikely as they usually need about 20 – 30% just to reach the affco table requirements for protein (which can almost only be achieved by the addition of meat protein). But dehydrated chicken meat can be a big range in quality.

2              The meat I use is human grade meat from a butcher. Not cut offs, not dog food meat in a super market – REAL meat.

3              I use DRY PELLETS in my RAW meal mostly to please my vet AND provide FIBRE to my dog as a skin allergy means he needs a fibre boost for a healthy intestine.

Fibre in my dogs diet is provided by HIGH FIBER pellets, and bones/ cartilage.

You will notice the man made diet uses Powdered Cellulose IE WOOD (9th highest ingredient). PEA FIBRE and DRIED BEET PULP.  That plus the fibre in the ‘whole grain’ grains.  NO MEAT based product for fibre!

4              I use RAW KIDNEY and  DRIED BEEF LIVER.  They use ‘Chicken Liver Flavor“

5              We both use Omega 6 (reqd by law in dog food) and Omega 3.  However I use Salmon Oil (a meat based Omega that is bio available to the dog). They use Flaxseed, because its cheap, doesn’t spoil – but doesn’t convert very well in the dogs body.

6  They have to add Pork Fat and Salt (potassium chloride and Iodised salt) to make the grain appear like food to a dog.

7  I use 1 human vitamin tablet, they add all of the BLUE vitamins and minerals (at a high mark up) to meet the affco table requirements.  Ideally these should all be present in the meat and grains they put in their food, but it goes to show how over stated the affco requirements are to keep out a raw diet as being legal. NO combination of meat and carbs can achieve the min vitamins and mineral requirements of the affco table. That is why no raw diet is considered nutritious enough – perhaps the standards were created with this specifically in mind.

8  They have to add  L-carnitine to their food to achieve the minimum amino acide requirements of aafco (my raw meal needs NO additional Proteins).   ” L-carnitine is synthesized in the dogs body from the amino acids lysine and methionine  ”

9  Apart from grains (the bulk of the dog food) and added flavours, oils, salt and fibre at the very end of the label they put in fruit ” Apples, Broccoli, Carrots, Cranberries, Green Peas.”  NOTE this is after ALL of the vitamin and mineral supplements, so the amounts of these fruits and veggies must be TINY !  BUT it means that they can advertise big pictures of FRUIT AND VEGETABLES on the packaging. 

10  People think because a vet is paid money to say how good any given dog food is, that it is actually good for their dog.  They are convinced that a very long list of ingredients (like shampoo) means they are getting great value.

Actually the more ingredients you have to add, the less natural it ends up and more it is trying to make up for the lack of meat protein and meat flavour.

If you feed your dog something like the list on the right of the table, perhaps balancing it up with an 80% meat dog treat, or 100% meat jerky that we sell would provide the real nutrition they need.

Ingredient Comparison RAW + supplement V Manufactured dog pellets