As you already know, you don't want to feed your dog anything that contains corn (dogs cannot digest corn well at all), by-products, animal digest (animal feces), artificial colors and/ or flavors, etc. Any dog food that you see on a commercial or that you can buy from the grocery store is going to be a poor quality food.
IMHO, Canidae is the best for our dog. We have also fed him Natural Balance and he did well on that as well. I would highly recommend both foods.
Here's a kibble rating chart and some foods and what they scored. This is what we used to find a good quality food for our pups.
You will need your kibble's list of ingredients, as found on the bag (or oftentimes their website).
Please note, however, this is for ingredients ONLY.... so before feeding a pup be sure to look at
the protein and fat and calcium and calories in the Guaranteed Analysis.
Start with a grade of 100:
-For every listing of "by-product", subtract 15 points
-For every non-specific animal source ("meat" or "poultry", meat, meal or fat) reference, subtract
10 points
-If there are no specific meats or meat meals, subtract 25 points
-For every grain "mill run" or non-specific grain source, or grain "middlings", subtract 10 points
-If the food contains BHA, BHT, or ethoxyquin, subtract 15 points
-If the same grain ingredient is used 2 or more times in the first five ingredients (i.e. "ground
brown rice", "brewer’s rice", "rice flour" are all the same grain), subtract 5 points for each
occurrence
-If the protein sources are not (specific) meat meal and there are less than 2 meats in the top 3
ingredients, subtract 3 points
-If it contains any artificial colorants, subtract 5 points
-If it contains ground corn or whole grain corn, subtract 3 points (subtract 5 if corn is listed in the
top 5 ingredients)
-If the food contains any animal fat other than fish oil, subtract 3 points
-If lamb is the only animal protein source (unless your dog is allergic to other protein sources),
subtract 2 points
-If it contains soy or soybeans, subtract 5 points
-If it contains wheat (unless you know that your dog isn’t allergic to wheat), subtract 2 points
-If it contains beef (unless you know that your dog isn’t allergic to beef), subtract 1 point
-If it contains salt, subtract 3 points
-If it contains corn syrup, molasses, or other added sweetener, subtract 10 points
Extra Credit:
-For every different specific animal protein source (other than the first one; count "chicken" and
"chicken meal" as only one protein source, but "chicken" and "turkey" as 2 different sources - do
not count egg, cheese, or other similar ingredients), add 1 point
-If the food contains 3 or less different mentions of grains (or other high-carb plant-based foods
like potatoes), add 5 points
-If any of the meat sources are organic, add 5 points (if the number 1 ingredient is organic meat,
add 10 points)
-If the animal sources are hormone-free and antibiotic-free, add 3 points
-If the food is baked not extruded, add 5 points
-If the food contains probiotics, add 3 points
-If the food contains fruit or vegetables (NOT corn or other grains), add 3 points
-If the vegetables have been tested for pesticides and are pesticide-free, add 1 point
-If the food contains barley or oats or oatmeal, add 1 point
-If it contains sunflower, hemp, flaxseed, or other polyunsaturated vegetable oils, add 3 points
(add 5 if it is the #1 fat)
-If the vitamin and mineral sources are chelated, add 5 points
94-100+ = A
86-93 = B
78-85 = C
70-77 = D
<70 = F
Food Grade Results
A's Score
A+ Chicken Soup for the pet lovers soul 113
A+ Eagle Pack Holistic chicken 114
A+ Eagle Pack Holistic LG and Giant Breed Adlt 113
A+ Eagle Pack Natural 104
A+ Timberwolf Organics Lamb and Venison 136
A+ Solid Gold Bison 123
A+ Solid Gold Wolf King 109
A+ Solid Gold Hund N flocken 105
A+ Solid Gold Mmillennia 111
A+ Innova 117
A+ Natural Balance Duck and Potato 114
A+ Canidae 119
A+ Foundations Chicken and Vegetable 109
A+ Flint River Ranch Fish and Chips 109
A+ Wysong Synorgon 110
A+ Flint River Ranch Lamb, Millet and Rice 117
A+ Back to Basics 107
B's
B Eukanuba Natural Lamb and Rice 87
C's
C Nutro Lamb and Rice 85
D's
D Iams Lamb and Rice 74
F's
F Pedigree Adult Complete 14
F Ol'Roy 9
F Science Diet Chicken Adult Maintainance 45
F Purina Beniful original 23
All Purina and Pro Plan foods rate as a F
F Pro Plan Giant Breed Adult 41
F Pro Plan Performance 53
F Pro Plan Chicken and Rice
F Purina Dog chow
F Purina Large Breed 40
F Diamond Lamb and Rice 61
F Diamond Performance (formerly professional)
F Diamond Large Breed 55
Here's the Canidae website.. http://www.canidae.com/dogs/all_life_sta (broken link)...
And the the Natural Balance website..
Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance® Pet Foods :1
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I totally agree w/ this. We too switched from Canidae when they changed their processing. Our dog's main dry diet is Taste of the Wild too. I mix the Pacific Stream w/ the Bison. Even the little chihuahuas love it. They also get Embark from Honest Kitchen and Wysong.
