….. read food labels carefully?

One of the first decisions we had to make after bringing A home was what to feed her. There many brands of dog food and the advice that can be found on the internet can be rather overwhelming. Should we feed kibbles or wet food, or perhaps, whip up a delicious home-cooked meal?

A was only 12 weeks old when we brought her home, so we continued her regular brand of kibbles before we tried mixing in our own choice. We started off with a brand she was already on, then we decided to switch her over to another as Vets supposedly recommended it.

Quickly, we learnt to read food labels more carefully and found out more about what those ingredients meant. We were shocked to learn that out of the top 5 ingredients, there was only one “pseudo-meat” – chicken by-product meal, which is basically the ground up whole carcass of chicken, including the neck, feet and innards! Two of the other ingredients were different iterations of corn, which is an extremely poor source of proteins for dogs due to its indigestibility. Dried beet pulp and artificial liver flavoring rounded up the top five. Hardly stuff to whet the appetite of a born carnivore!

The more we learnt, the more questions we had – how much protein content was good, how about glucosamine and omega oils, should we pick chicken or lamb or fish. One thing’s for sure, our quest to find the best food that we can buy to feed A is still a work in progress. Now after 4 different brands, it’s time to try to change her kibbles again because of a possible skin allergy to chicken. Perhaps we’ll try a fish-based kibble, so do we pick a single fish or allow a few different fish types? Choices choice choices…