The lists are a useful reference, but I think it's more important to familiarize yourself with the basics of reading the labels.
Because you might pick out a bunch of foods from the lists and then the pet store you go to doesn't have most of them.
I did some research on this last week and this is what I learned:
- Avoid anything with any kind of corn, wheat, or soybeans in it. In terms of digestibility, meat is obviously the best, then fruits and vegetables, then barley/brown rice/oats, then corn, wheat and soy.
- Common technique used by pet food makers is called "ingredient splitting." Instead of listing corn as the first ingredient, they'll split it into "corn meal" and "corn flour." That way, the percentage by weight of those ingredients is less, allowing them to be placed further down the ingredients list. They can claim meat is the first ingredient even if there's less meat than there is corn.
Link
- Avoid non-specified animal products like "animal fat." They don't say WHICH animals the fat comes from. Could be anything. Similarly, by-products should be avoided even if they do say which animal the by-products come from.
- One more consideration is the distinction between regular meat and meal. Chicken meal is actually better since it is more concentrated. If just "chicken" is listed as an ingredient, that's including its water weight, which pushes it way up the ingredients list and makes it seem more significant than it really is. It's not bad to have chicken as the first ingredient, just check to see if meal is also on there because it provides something like 3 or 4 times the nutrition per weight.
Oh and I ended up getting Blue Buffalo, it's relatively inexpensive for a premium food and hits all the right points. My dog loves it too.
EDIT: I should also point out that I noticed Kirkland dog food on the list of either 4- or 5-star foods. If you have a Costco membership it might be the best way to go since it's just as cheap as doggy junk food like Purina, and cheaper than junky "premium" foods like Pro Plan, Iams, and Science Diet.
