(A warning: some parts of this article may be upsetting.)

You love your dog and consider him as part of your family. You naturally want to feed him the best diet you possibly can, but there are so many choices available. Your best friend’s dog seems happy and healthy, so you ask your friend what brand he feeds his dog. Then you perhaps ask other friends or relatives what they feed THEIR dogs.

Then, one evening when you’re relaxing and watching television (perhaps with your canine buddy curled up next to you on the couch), a commercial for a well-known pet food captures your attention. The dog in the ad is a beautiful Golden Retriever, enthusiastically playing with a laughing little boy. The dog is smiling, energetic, and just glowing with health and vitality. The voice in the background is describing the amazing virtues of this dog food as cute little cartoon drawings of various healthy ingredients, such as a turkey leg, a bunch of carrots, and a bushel of apples appear over the dog’s head. The voice assures you that this food contains complete and balanced nutrition and will help your dog live a long and happy life.

Okay…you’re hooked by the beautiful dog and the compelling narrative of this fantastic pet food. Maybe THIS is the perfect brand for your dog, so you decide you’re going to the supermarket tomorrow to buy a big bag of this wonderful stuff. NOT SO FAST, SPARKY! It’s time to get an education on understanding the real ingredients in commercial dog foods. (As I stated before, this may be upsetting. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

First of all, ingredients are always listed in order of their quantity contained within the food–in other words, there is more of the first ingredient listed than the tenth. While dogs are essentially omnivorous–meaning that they can eat a variety of foods–they need meat in greater proportions than other foods. So…if this is true, the first ingredient you should see listed on the dog-food bag is meat, right?

Right–except that some dog foods list a number of other ingredients BEFORE the meat. And the definition of ‘meat’ is pretty loose. You may see ‘chicken meal’, ‘lamb meal’ meat meal’, etc. rather than ‘chicken’, lamb’, or ‘beef’. Meat ‘meal’ is what’s is left after the actual meat (beef, lamb, chicken, etc.) is rendered and reduced to a powder. And there are different grades of meat meal as well. If you see something like ‘chicken by-product meal’, By-products are the waste left over from the slaughterhouses which are then converted into meal. And it gets worse…’blood meal’, anyone?

But what is TRULY disgusting (and absolutely horrifying) is that some ‘meat by-products’ come from animals that are unfit for human consumption, such as downed cows–or worse. Believe it or not–and this is where I repeat that I did warn you–meat by-products can include dead zoo animals, roadkill, or pets that have been used in laboratories or have been euthanized. These animals are added to the ‘stew’ still wearing their flea collars and microchips. You need to remember this statement: ‘No meal product can ever be better than the materials used to make it.’ (DogFoodAdvisor.com)

For a real eye-opener–and if you are a true animal lover, this may make you cry–some time ago, yours truly was a donor to D.E.L.T.A. Rescue (a no-kill animal sanctuary) and received a copy of some heartbreaking photos taken at a rendering plant in the Los Angeles area. The photos showed huge piles of dead dogs and cats lying outside in the dirt and being scooped up by a front-loader to dump into huge vats for rendering. There was also a photo of a metal drum with part of a dog sticking out of the top. (See, I told you this was upsetting.) This is part of what goes into the cheaper dry dog foods sold in certain big-box stores.

In other words–if you’re buying Old Yeller or Ol’ Roy for your dog, you are actually FEEDING him Old Yeller or Ol’ Roy. If you see any fats listed, they may be restaurant grease that’s been stored for months in drums and likely went rancid. ‘Animal digest’? This is what your dog left in the back yard after breakfast this morning. All this ‘gunk’ is cooked into a ‘stew’ that is then extruded to produce the cheap (and not so cheap) dry dog food found in most supermarkets and big-box stores. Want more grossness? Since this ‘food’ (if you can even call it that) is made up of waste products, the finished product smells and tastes so bad that a dog won’t touch it. So…the dry food is sprayed with artificial flavors to make it more palatable.

So what SHOULD you feed your dog? Look for whole meats (beef, de-boned chicken) rather than meat meals. Vegetables and fruits, such as sweet potatoes, carrots, apples, blueberries, etc. all contain essential nutrients. One vegetable you DON’T want to find is corn. Many dogs are sensitive to grains (especially wheat, corn, and soy), and corn and corn gluten are often used as cheap fillers in low-quality dog foods. Dogs do not digest corn very well–if you want proof of this, feed your dog some corn kernels (which he will likely love, since corn is sweet) and then see what you find in the yard the next morning.

Also, meats should be among the first few ingredients in the food. Wet food is generally a little better than dry food, but if it’s more convenient to feed dry food, try mixing a little canned food in with the dry food. Your dog will love it. Yours truly leans toward the more natural, unprocessed end of the dog-food spectrum, so my dogs (a nine-year-old male Golden Retriever and an eighteen-month-old female Border Collie mix) eat a mixture of items. Breakfast for both dogs consists of a quarter-cup of a high-quality dry food, a quarter-cup of a dehydrated raw food (re-hydrated with warm water and ingredients are all human-grade), a tablespoon of organic plain yogurt, a tablespoon of organic unrefined virgin coconut oil, and an organic raw egg. Dinner consists of all of the same ingredients (minus the egg) with the addition of raw organic vegetables and meat.

Admittedly, this method of feeding does take time in preparation and is on the expensive side–but it’s worth it. Nine-year-old Cosmo the Golden Retriever weighs in at 63.8 lbs–a bit lean, but lean is better than fat–and has a beautiful thick coat, bright eyes, healthy teeth, and none of the joint problems that usually plague older large-breed dogs. Eighteen-month-old Tara the Border Collie mix was rescued as an eight-month-old stray puppy at the end of last October. She was emaciated, filthy, and terrified, with a sparse, dry coat and worms. She had also already had puppies and was still lactating when she was found dodging rush-hour traffic on a very busy road. (Shame on her original owner for not spaying her. She got pregnant with her first heat.) Now Tara is a very happy, healthy little girl who has a beautiful, soft coat, bright eyes, and a very loving disposition. She has gained over twelve pounds and has grown about three inches since we found her. Both dogs have very healthy appetites and love their meals.

Oh–and their treats are equally healthy. In addition to homemade organic grain-free treats, they enjoy apples, carrots, and blueberries. Many veterinarians believe that feeding a raw or semi-raw diet is dangerous due to food-borne bacteria, but if you do your homework, you shouldn’t have any issues. Think about this: Dogs are basically descended from wolves. When a wolf kills a deer for dinner, there’s no grill fired up and waiting for deer barbecue.

There are two more things worth mentioning when listing the advantages of feeding your dog the highest-quality foods. Improved health means fewer visits to the vet. And more efficient utilization of healthy foods equals less waste to pick up.

BACK AWAY FROM THE ALPO!!!!