I'm a small animal vet with a background in animal science nutrition and I continue a lot of study in the nutrition field (I don't do the actual research).
Some pet food companies like Blue Buffalo (being the prime example) spend a lot of money on marketing and no money on quality research.
Don't bother with a pet food label. It is based on 1950s law and contains nothing useful. As implied by an earlier poster, ingredients are listed in order of weight. If someone wants to impress you with their "first ingredient" they add it in moistened form whereas the primary protein source might actually be going in a powder form and be farther down the list. Some companies do give more information on their website, but others just have "testimonials" or spend time telling you why the other guy is bad. I would also ignore the user "reviews". One guy can only tell you anecdoctal information about their pet and their food. It's worth about as much as the label itself.
4 companies do regular feeding trials and research: Hills, Royal Canin, Purina, and Iams (who also makes Eukanuba).
In recent years, I strongly prefer Royal Canin. They produce their own foods in the US, source all of their products from North America only, and run the most quality tests on everything that comes in. They also perform new feeding trials with each formula change, which no one else does. I also think they put quality over marketing, and refuse to jump on the latest bandwagon (a few years ago, most other companies made new formulas just so they could call them "natural" and put pictures of vegetables on the bag).
AFAIK, only Hills and Royal Canin have pledged "no commodity shift". The law says that a pet food company has 6 mo to change its label when they change ingredients somewhat. So most companies "shift" the recipe often due to commodity prices.
I don't know where the rumors come from that Hills pays veterinarians to market their food. Like all vendors, they send us literature, sponsor meetings, and entice us to their products. But there is very little to be made on pet food. I carry only prescription diets and the Royal Canin veterinary line. It takes careful inventory management of those just to make sure we aren't losing money. I used to carry only prescription foods, but I got tired of seeing people overpay for crap at the pet store. (Blue Buffalo's training of their salespeople and their ignorant statements costs me a lot of time to undo). Everyone still has their own opinions but at least for those who say "just tell me what you feed your own dog" I have the same thing available for them.
Some dogs have special needs or specific allergies, so there is no one single formula that works for everyone. My general recommendation is Royal Canin. Other good alternatives are Purina's ProPlan line and Hills Science Diet. Iams has IMO went downhill by devoting less to research since they were purchased by Procter and Gamble. However, Iams was just recently purchased by Mars (privately owned, and the current owner of Royal Canin), so I don't know whether it will be improved, kept as a lower-cost alternative, or whether some lines will be replaced.
I do feel Iams represents a good value food: if you have a healthy dog, limited budget, or you simply need to pick up some dog food at 2 am. In those cases, I think Iams is a good option.
I'm a fan of Costco in general (well except for there "no firearms" sign
) and many of their Kirkland brands. However, their dog food is made by Diamond. Diamond has had a lot of problems with contamination. While I don't think they make a horrible food, I think Kirkland's attempt to compare it to better brands is not legitimate. Nor do I have much use for the "premium" lines Diamond markets.
Note that words like premium, natural, etc have no legal meaning in most cases. One company was allowed to continue to use a meaningless phrase "human grade" simply because they won on free speech laws. I'm not in favor of regulating pet food more, BTW, just pointing out how distorted the marketing can be.
I'd like to be able to apply more of a "whole food" concept and recommend feeding your dog yourself. The reality is though that homemade diets constitute the highest occurrence of nutritional disease. Dogs aren't exactly like any of their ancestors and it's taken some time to dial in their nutrition. You have products available that are formulated by decades of research so you probably aren't going to beat it in your kitchen.
Finally, I'd recommend caution on the online purchases if not from an authorized dealer (the food companies can tell you if the dealer is authorized). We return food that has even the slightest defect (torn bag, short dated etc). The aforementioned companies are very good about financial assistance, medical treatment, etc if there is a problem with their food but won't stand behind a food you bought from a non-authorized dealer. What /how some companies sell below wholesale I don't know, but I'm suspicious of the source. Sometimes good prices can be found on petfoods at the farm co-op stores; it might be worth a trip there occasionally to beat the pet store prices and be a more reliable source than various Ebay or Amazon sellers.
Some pet food companies like Blue Buffalo (being the prime example) spend a lot of money on marketing and no money on quality research.
Don't bother with a pet food label. It is based on 1950s law and contains nothing useful. As implied by an earlier poster, ingredients are listed in order of weight. If someone wants to impress you with their "first ingredient" they add it in moistened form whereas the primary protein source might actually be going in a powder form and be farther down the list. Some companies do give more information on their website, but others just have "testimonials" or spend time telling you why the other guy is bad. I would also ignore the user "reviews". One guy can only tell you anecdoctal information about their pet and their food. It's worth about as much as the label itself.
4 companies do regular feeding trials and research: Hills, Royal Canin, Purina, and Iams (who also makes Eukanuba).
In recent years, I strongly prefer Royal Canin. They produce their own foods in the US, source all of their products from North America only, and run the most quality tests on everything that comes in. They also perform new feeding trials with each formula change, which no one else does. I also think they put quality over marketing, and refuse to jump on the latest bandwagon (a few years ago, most other companies made new formulas just so they could call them "natural" and put pictures of vegetables on the bag).
AFAIK, only Hills and Royal Canin have pledged "no commodity shift". The law says that a pet food company has 6 mo to change its label when they change ingredients somewhat. So most companies "shift" the recipe often due to commodity prices.
I don't know where the rumors come from that Hills pays veterinarians to market their food. Like all vendors, they send us literature, sponsor meetings, and entice us to their products. But there is very little to be made on pet food. I carry only prescription diets and the Royal Canin veterinary line. It takes careful inventory management of those just to make sure we aren't losing money. I used to carry only prescription foods, but I got tired of seeing people overpay for crap at the pet store. (Blue Buffalo's training of their salespeople and their ignorant statements costs me a lot of time to undo). Everyone still has their own opinions but at least for those who say "just tell me what you feed your own dog" I have the same thing available for them.
Some dogs have special needs or specific allergies, so there is no one single formula that works for everyone. My general recommendation is Royal Canin. Other good alternatives are Purina's ProPlan line and Hills Science Diet. Iams has IMO went downhill by devoting less to research since they were purchased by Procter and Gamble. However, Iams was just recently purchased by Mars (privately owned, and the current owner of Royal Canin), so I don't know whether it will be improved, kept as a lower-cost alternative, or whether some lines will be replaced.
I do feel Iams represents a good value food: if you have a healthy dog, limited budget, or you simply need to pick up some dog food at 2 am. In those cases, I think Iams is a good option.
I'm a fan of Costco in general (well except for there "no firearms" sign
) and many of their Kirkland brands. However, their dog food is made by Diamond. Diamond has had a lot of problems with contamination. While I don't think they make a horrible food, I think Kirkland's attempt to compare it to better brands is not legitimate. Nor do I have much use for the "premium" lines Diamond markets.Note that words like premium, natural, etc have no legal meaning in most cases. One company was allowed to continue to use a meaningless phrase "human grade" simply because they won on free speech laws. I'm not in favor of regulating pet food more, BTW, just pointing out how distorted the marketing can be.
I'd like to be able to apply more of a "whole food" concept and recommend feeding your dog yourself. The reality is though that homemade diets constitute the highest occurrence of nutritional disease. Dogs aren't exactly like any of their ancestors and it's taken some time to dial in their nutrition. You have products available that are formulated by decades of research so you probably aren't going to beat it in your kitchen.
Finally, I'd recommend caution on the online purchases if not from an authorized dealer (the food companies can tell you if the dealer is authorized). We return food that has even the slightest defect (torn bag, short dated etc). The aforementioned companies are very good about financial assistance, medical treatment, etc if there is a problem with their food but won't stand behind a food you bought from a non-authorized dealer. What /how some companies sell below wholesale I don't know, but I'm suspicious of the source. Sometimes good prices can be found on petfoods at the farm co-op stores; it might be worth a trip there occasionally to beat the pet store prices and be a more reliable source than various Ebay or Amazon sellers.
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