Buying the right food is essential to keep your dog fit and full of energy. The food they need depends on the dog's state of life, health and special needs. This means that your dogs nutritional needs can change from time to time. Knowing what foods are the best for your dog can improve your dog's quality of life.
Dry foods are the most convenient type of food. It's easy to store as it isn't as sensitive to warm or moist conditions as wet food does. If your pet is making a mess when eating wet food, dry foods won't have a problem with that. Moreover, you can leave the food in the bowl for the entire day and it won't get spoiled. This is perfect if you're going out for some time and would like to keep your pet well fed before you arrive. Dry foods are also excellent for travels as one small bag is enough for a day trip while wet foods will require you two to three cans of it.
With many dog food brands in the market, are you sure you are getting the right one for them? With thousands of dog food brands available in the market, these are the things to look out for in a dry dog food. The list could go on and on but here are some of the most important things to look for:
1. All organic - no chemical preservatives
2. Has 75% fat to protein ratio or lower
3. Ample carbohydrate content
4. No artificial coloring agents
5. Contains no unknown meat ingredients
After reviewing a few dog food brands, here are the ones that meet that criteria:
Wellness Core
The Wellness Core product has seven types - six of which meets the AAFCO nutrient profiles for adult maintenance. This dry dog food has a dry matter protein reading of 38%, a fat level of 13% and carbohydrate content around 41%. This means that it has more protein content, but less carbohydrates compared to other dry dog foods.
Wellness Core is a grain-free meat-based dog food that uses a significant amount of named meats as its main source of animal protein. Wellness core contains flax seed, one of the best plant sources that contains healthy omega-3 fatty acids which is rich in soluble fiber.
Solid Gold Barking at the Moon
Solid Gold Barking at the Moon is a dry dog food that has been designed for performance dogs, but that doesn't mean that your dog should be in any kind of doggie sports to consume it. In fact, it is even more beneficial to your pet as it has more nutrients than most dog foods have. Like the Wellness Core, Solid Gold Barking at the Moon also meets AAFCO nutrient profiles for adult maintenance.
This dog meal contains beef, pea protein, potato, canola oil, dried egg, peas, tomato pomace and fish meal. Fish meal contains about 300% of protein than fresh fish.
The ingredients itself make will tell you that this is not your average dog food. The proteins and fats are more than enough for an average dog food, but carbohydrates content is significantly low.
Fromm Gold Dog Food
Fromm has received quite a lot of reviews for online customers. It's not that much of a surprise since most of Fromm's dog food meets AAFCO nutrient profiles for all life stages.
Fromm contains duck, chicken, chicken meal, chicken fat, brown rice, barley, oatmeal, fish meal, lamb, tomato pomace, flax seed, brewers yeast to name a few. Chicken and fish meal contains around 300% of protein compared to their fresh counterparts.
At first glance, Fromm appears to be a high quality dog food. However, upon digging deeper it only contains a near average protein, fat and carbohydrates compared to your typical dog food. What makes it better is the amount of chicken meal as it's main source of animal protein.
Honest Kitchen Embark
In this 10 pound box, Honest Kitchen Embark contains cage-free turkey, eggs, coconut, spinach, carrots,, apples, celery and more. The 10 pound box will actually make around 40 pounds worth of dog food - a great value for the money!
What is unusual (or great depending on your perspective) about this product is that it is FDA approved. This means that you can actually eat it as the company uses only human-edible ingredients and actually made in a human food manufacturing facility.
Honest Kitchen Embark also contains a number of organic ingredients which makes it one of the best food for the price.
These are just the few of the many dry dog foods that are our favorites. And now over to you. What is your favorite and why? Leave us a comment below.