The first place you need to look when trying to decide on a food for your furry friend is the label on the bag, box, or can. Reading a dog food label isn’t very different from reading the one on your cereal box. A certain amount of nutritional information must be included on the label, but a certain amount of leeway exists in how the dog food company presents it.
Divide the label into two parts: the product display panel (on the front of the package) and the information panel (usually on the back).
The product display panel
The product display panel is the place where the dog food company hopes to catch your eye. So it makes sense that it appears on the front of the package. You’ll typically find a few key pieces of information on the product display panel, primarily the dog food company name, the product identity, the product use (whether it’s dog food or cat food, for example), and the net weight of the package. You may also find a banner statement, which is where the dog food company makes claims about the quality of the food.
Product identity
The product identity section states the name of the product, such as Big Bart’s Beefy Dinner.
Any terminology regarding the meat or meat flavor used in the product identity statement has to comply with a list of specific definitions. Consider some examples of common phrases and the standards that need to be met before the dog food company can use the phrase:
• Beef for dogs: The food must contain 95 percent beef by weight.
• Beef dog food: The food must contain 70 percent beef by weight.
• Beef dinner, beef entree, or beef platter: The food must contain 25 percent beef by weight.
• Dog food with beef: The food needs to contain only 3 percent beef.
• Beef-flavored: The food doesn’t need to contain any beef; it just needs to taste like beef (using artificial flavors).
The same rules for terminology apply to any meat source in dog food, such as chicken, lamb, and so on.
Product use
The product use statement just indicates which animal the food is formulated for (dogs or cats, for example).
Net Weight
The product display panel includes the net weight of the package contents.
Just as with human foods, dog food manufacturers frequently change the size of containers without changing the price. For example, a can that looks to be a standard 6-ounce size may actually contain 5.5 ounces, but at the same price. Be sure to read the label carefully.
Banner statement
The front of the package may also have a banner statement, which is where the manufacturer makes specific claims about the dog food. The AAFCO regulates the content of banner statements. For example, if a label says that dogs prefer the taste of that food, it must also tell you what other dog foods were tested to arrive at that conclusion. An example of a correctly worded statement regarding preferred taste would be, “Preferred by dogs over the leading premium brand.”
Rules also govern what defines a light/lite, low-calorie, or less fat dog food. If a manufacturer states that its food is light or low-calorie, that food must have 15 percent fewer calories than the average of other dog foods in the same category. If the manufacturer claims that a certain dog food has less of a component, the claim must state how much less and tell the consumer less than what. For example, a dog food claiming to have less fat must state the percentage reduction in fat (on the basis of weight, not volume) and must state that this is less fat than other dog foods in the same category (dry, semi-moist, or canned, for example).
Dog foods using the terms lean or low-fat must meet yet another set of standards. They must have a maximum fat content that is 30 percent less than the industry average for dog foods. In addition to the required statement listing the minimum amount of fat in the food (see the “Guaranteed analysis”), these foods must state the maximum amount of fat, because these diets are used for weight loss.
The information panel
The information panel is where the manufacturer tells you the nitty-gritty details of what’s in the food. You’ll usually find it on the back of the package. The information panel should provide a guaranteed analysis of what’s in the food, an ingredients list, a nutritional adequacy statement, feeding guidelines, and the manufacturer’s contact information.
Guaranteed analysis
Legally, dog food labels are required to state only the minimum levels of protein and fat and the maximum levels of moisture and fiber in the food. These are only minimums and maximums, so keep in mind that the dog food may have more than the minimum amounts or less than the maximum amounts of components stated on the label.
If your dog is ill, small differences in the amount of these important nutrients may make a difference in her health. If you have any questions about your dog’s food and whether you’re giving her what she needs, talk with your vet.
The AAFCO nutrient profiles for dog foods let you know the minimum requirements for protein and fat for both adult dogs and puppies. But the AAFCO protein and fat levels are listed on a dry-weight basis, whereas the proteins and fats on a dog food label are listed on an as-is basis, which includes water. This difference can lead to some confusion when you try to determine whether a given dog food has the levels of nutrients your dog needs. It can also be confusing when you compare one dog food to another, because each dog food may have a different level of moisture (which affects how much of the nutrient is actually there on a dry-weight basis).
To make accurate comparisons between two foods, you need to do some math, so get out your calculator and follow these steps (protein is the example, but you can do the same equation for other nutrients as well):
1. Find the percentage of protein in the dog food.
2. Find the percentage of moisture in the dog food.
3. Subtract the percentage of moisture from 100 to get the percentage of dry.
4. Divide the number from Step 1 by the number in Step 3 and multiply by 100.
This gives you the percentage of protein on a dry-weight basis.
For example, if you’re looking at the label of a dry dog food and it says that the food contains 26 percent protein and 10 percent moisture, subtract that 10 percent moisture from 100, which gives you 90 percent dry. Then divide the 26 percent protein by 90 percent dry and multiply by 100; you get 29 percent protein on a dry-weight basis.
If you’re looking at the label of a canned dog food, the formula is exactly the same, but you’ll find significantly different results. If the label says that the food contains 9 percent protein and 80 percent moisture, subtract that 80 percent moisture from 100, to get 20 percent dry. Then divide the 9 percent protein by 20 percent dry and multiply by 100; you get 45 percent protein on a dry-weight basis.
So what does all this math tell you? If you just compared the labels of the food, you would have thought that the dry food had more protein (because the dry food label said the food contained 26 percent protein and the canned food contained only 9 percent). But when you do the math, you discover that the canned food actually has 45 percent protein (on a dry-weight basis), compared to 29 percent in the dry food.
If all this math seems to be more trouble than it’s worth, here’s a quick rule of thumb to help you compare dry and canned foods. For a dry food, to determine the level of protein, fat, or fiber on a dry-weight basis, add 10 percent to the level that is listed on the label. For a canned food, multiply the amount of protein, fat, or fiber by four. This timesaving tip makes it easier to compare while you’re standing in the store aisle.
As this exercise shows, canned foods typically have much more protein than dry foods. A major reason for this is that grains are needed in dry foods to help them hold their shape after extrusion. Canned and dry foods made by the same manufacturer usually have very different percentages of protein.
Ingredients list
Dog food manufacturers are required to list the ingredients in each dog food in descending order by amount, on a dry-weight basis. The label must list every ingredient. A dog food company can actually have a grain as the most abundant ingredient in its food while making it look like the most abundant ingredient is a meat. Take a look at how they do it: Say that the Chow Hound dog food company is making dog food using wheat as the main ingredient and poultry byproduct meal as its second-most-common ingredient. Instead of just listing wheat, the company can break down wheat so that it’s listed on the label as wheat flour, wheat germ meal, wheat bran, and wheat middlings. This allows the company to list poultry byproduct meal first, because the food has more poultry by-product than it does wheat flour, wheat germ meal, wheat bran, or wheat middlings. The four wheat ingredients can be put lower on the list, making the wheat seem like a less important and less abundant ingredient. Scan down the list of ingredients, and if the second, third, fourth, and fifth ingredients on the list are all something other than meat, your dog may be getting more of that than meat.
In general, a good-quality dog food has two quality animal protein sources listed in the first few ingredients. Look for a food that also has two different sources of fat in the ingredients list, for adequate energy and to provide all essential fatty acids.
Dog food companies frequently change the composition of their dog foods, so the label on the food you purchased yesterday may not be the same today. Keep the ingredients list from your current dog food label in your wallet and periodically check it against the labels on the dog foods you’re buying, just to make sure that you’re buying what you thought you were.
Vocabulary 101
If you’re confused by some of the lingo on dog food bags, you’re not alone. Some of the definitions for the food terms you’ll see in the ingredients list include the following:
• Animal byproduct meal: Rendered animal tissues that don’t fit any of the other ingredient definitions. It still can’t contain hair, horns, hoofs, hide trimmings, manure, or intestinal contents or extraneous materials.
• Byproducts: Non-human-grade proteins obtained from animal carcasses. They can vary greatly in their digestibility, and the consumer has no way to determine their digestibility.
• Meat: The clean flesh of slaughtered cattle, swine, sheep, or goats. It must come from muscle, tongue, diaphragm, heart, or esophagus.
• Meat and bone meal: Rendered mammal tissues, including bone. Other than that, it issimilarto meat meal.
• Meat byproducts: Fresh, nonrendered, clean parts of slaughtered mammals. It does not include meat but does include lungs, spleens, kidneys, brains, livers, blood, bones, fat, stomachs, and intestines. It cannot include hair, horns, teeth, or hoofs.
• Meat meal: A rendered meal made from animal tissues. It cannot contain blood, hair, hoofs, horns, hide trimmings, manure, or intestinal contents or extraneous materials. It may not contain more than 14percent indigestible materials. Lamb meal is made from lamb parts. Meat meal is made from cattle, swine, sheep, or goats.
• Poultry (or chicken or turkey) byproduct meal: Ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered poultry, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines. It cannot contain beaks or feathers.
• Poultry (or chicken or turkey) byproducts: Nonrendered clean parts of slaughtered poultry, such as heads, feet, and guts. It must not contain feces or foreign matter.
Nutritional adequacy statement
Dog food manufacturers can determine the nutritional adequacy of dog foods in two ways. The best way is for the dog food manufacturer to conduct feeding trials, in which it feeds its foods to real, live dogs and sees whether they like to eat it, whether they gain weight at the proper rate, and whether their blood and bodies have the right composition of proteins and fats. AAFCO requirements state that dogs in feeding trials must be fed the dog food for at least six months. If a dog food has been tested in feeding trials, the label will say so, usually in a statement like, “Animal feeding tests using Association of American Feed Control Officials’ procedures substantiate that this food provides complete and balanced nutrition for maintenance.” Try to choose a food that makes this kind of claim on its package.
Dog food manufacturers can also sell dog foods that have been formulated according to the AAFCO nutritional profiles for dogs but have not been tested on dogs in feeding trials. To make a formulated food, the manufacturer adds an amount of protein that is at least 18 percent for adult dogs, an amount of fat that is at least 5 percent for adult dogs, and the required amounts of all the other required nutrients. If you feed your dog a food that has been formulated but not tested on dogs, your dog essentially becomes the test subject. Examples abound of formulated dog foods that looked good on paper but, when fed to dogs, resulted in nutritional deficiencies. Stay away from foods that have not been tested in dogs.
However, the regulations regarding feeding trials for dogs have a loophole. After a dog food manufacturer has proven by feeding trials that a given food is nutritionally adequate, the manufacturer may state that formulated foods have been tested by feeding trials, as long as the formulated foods are in the same family. Unfortunately, no guidelines spell out the definition of a family of dog foods. We are left to trust the manufacturer’s word.
Preservatives and antioxidants in your dog’s food
Antioxidants are preservatives that are added to foods to help protect the fats, oils, and fat-soluble compounds such as vitamins from breaking down. Unsaturated fats readily mix with oxygen in the air and become rancid. Rancid fats are not just a problem because they smell bad; they also cause the food to lose its flavor and texture. More important, rancid fats can affect a dog’s health. When a dog eats rancid fats, he may end up suffering from a relative deficiency of vitamin E, a natural antioxidant that the body uses to combat rancid fat.
Because all dog foods contain some unsaturated fats, they all require some sort of antioxidant preservative. Many foods are preserved with preservatives, including BHA, BHT, and ethoxyquin. Ethoxyquin has been especially controversial, because concerns arose that it caused cancer. However, studies in dogs and puppies have not shown an increase in cancer from ethoxyquin. Still, due to consumer preferences for natural ingredients, most dog foods are now preserved with vitamin E and vitamin C. Ironically, the vitamin E and vitamin C that are used in dog food are man made, too — so they’re not exactly “natural.”
If you’re feeding a dog food that has been preserved with vitamins E and C, be sure that the food is less than six months old when you give it to your dog. Most manufacturers use a production code that indicates the date and even time when the food was made, along with the plant that manufactured it. Others use a best used by code, which indicates the time by which the food should be consumed. To determine how fresh your dog’s food is, call the manufacturer and ask them to explain their code. They will tell you what each number and letter means.
Finally, a food’s antioxidant powers are depleted more rapidly during hot, humid weather, so in the warm summer months, use food that is less than six months old. Always store your dog’s food in a cool, dry place, and don’t buy more than a month’s supply at a time.
Feeding guidelines
Every dog food label must have recommendations regarding how much to feed dogs of different sizes. However, the feeding guidelines on the label usually overestimate the amount of food a typical dog needs to eat every day. Cynics say that this is a ploy the dog food manufacturers use to sell more food. The dog food manufacturers indicate that these guidelines are based on calculations of what typical dogs in their feeding trials needed to satisfy their energy requirements. The dogs in these feeding trials are unaltered (not spayed or neutered) and get a great deal of exercise, and few dogs fit the same mold; most need much less food than the amount listed on the bag. (For more information, see the section “Figuring Out How Much to Feed Your Dog”)
Manufacturer’s contact information
Manufacturers are required to list the address and telephone number of their customer service departments on every dog food label. In addition, many dog foods now also provide Web site addresses.
The customer service departments of dog food manufacturers are usually very helpful. If they don’t know the answer to a question, they will hunt it down and call you back. If you call a company and they can’t or won’t provide the information that you need, don’t feed that food to your dog.