Understanding the ingredients of your dog’s food items is a must for the dog lovers or dog owners. Whenever you feed the dog with different kinds of food items, you should always read the label and understand the contents about the dog feed types that are being used in such commercial preparations. You should understand the ingredients while buying food for your dog and also know what to look for.

Feed items include dry and fresh food. The fresh dog food that is prepared in homes generally consists of ingredients like freshly cut chicken pieces in addition to the cranberry juices, blue-green algae, etc.

Read the rest of this entry »

As the dog food companies exist to make profit they will try to cut down costs and to increase revenues. This can’t be a big surprise to you as this is true for most, if not all, commercial companies.

Dog food comes in different price ranges and hence in different qualities. Consumer behavior, so YOUR behavior, dictates to large extent what is being produced. As we see that pet owners care deeply for their furry friends we see an increase of the premium and super premium dog food range. As a consequence more niche products are developed that compete on quality statements and not price reductions.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the many commercially prepared dog foods available on today’s market, it is often quite difficult to tell which ones are better than others and why.

First of all, you can’t judge by advertising which are the good and bad dog foods. Many advertisers spend millions of dollars per year advertising inferior foods. Unfortunately, a good indicator on quality of food is price. Low priced foods are not always, but most often, the lowest quality foods on the market.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dog food labels show you the company and product name, net weight, list of ingredients, feeding guidelines etc. but not all ingredients are usually listed and also the country of origin of those ingredients is missing.

Foods are shipped all over the world because of huge differences in market price and decreasing shipping costs. But as the world gets smaller by globalization, the food safety issue gets bigger. Morals, ethics and standards for food safety differ.

Read the rest of this entry »

An overview of the European Commission shows that in the last week of July, multiple alerts of melamine contaminated feed have been reported. The Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) found contaminated rice protein in France, Greece, Spain and the UK - all imported from China.

The Commission publishes a weekly overview of alert and information notifications:

Company names and trade names are not mentioned so as to keep a balance between openness and the protection of commercial information.Country names are mentioned as origin of the product. However, this is by no means proof that the identified hazard originated in the specified country.

Read the rest of this entry »