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What’s the best dog food

What’s the best dog food?

Every once in a while we check the search engines to see what dog owners are asking the most questions about. With our decades of experience as pet-supply retailers, dog trainers, and, most important, dog owners, we want to address your biggest concerns.

An overwhelming percentage of dog owners are interested in finding the best dog food at the best value for their dogs. Many people became concerned when a rare heart issue in dogs had a possible link to grain-free foods.

Building awareness

best dog food can be homemade like this picture of batches in the oven — Four dog food batches ready to bake

We have seen more people interested in making their dog’s food. It’s certainly a way of controlling what your dog eats, although making sure they get complete nutrition can be a bit tricky. Dogs don’t have quite the same nutritional needs as people, and their “food pyramid” looks different from ours.

Our own five dogs eat a mixture of commercially-prepared and homemade food. Because at least one of our dogs can’t tolerate all-commercial. And we want to keep all of them accustomed to it, just in case we run out of the homemade. It’s a compromise that works for us. Our dogs are thriving.

Do what works

Dog food is such a controversial subject that we even hesitate to talk about it with our “dog friends.” Everyone seems to have such strong opinions: raw vs. cooked, homemade vs. commercial, grain vs. grain free, wet vs. dry, etc. If there are two options, people will disagree over them.

The best advice we’ve ever gotten was to go slow and see what works for you and your family, including the dog. There is no “right” answer for every dog. Every dog owner has to balance nutrition, budget, convenience, and, perhaps most importantly, what the dog likes and will eat.

Catering to Phydeaux

No dog will deliberately starve. Truly. If they get hungry enough, they’ll eat what you put in their bowl. But few people have the patience to wait them out. Seeing your dog refusing to eat for a couple of days makes devoted dog owners crazy.

Whether we’ve been lucky, or disciplined, we’re not quite sure. But we’ve never had to deal with a finicky dog. We thought we had one once, but we were mistaken. We’ve always followed the practice of leaving the food bowl down for ten minutes. After that, it gets picked up. Didn’t finish? There’ll be another meal in a few hours. Or tomorrow.

Free feeding

The one food subject that all dog professionals agree on is that “free feeding” isn’t a good idea. That’s when you leave a bowl of kibble down all the time and the dog eats what they want when they want.

While it may be convenient for some circumstances, it’s not ideal for several reasons. It makes potty training more difficult since the dog isn’t on a set consumption schedule. If there’s more than one animal in the house, it’s impossible to know who’s eating what and how much. Not to mention the food’s accessibility to pests and contaminants. And, if someone stops eating, their condition has to visibly change before you notice something’s wrong.

With scheduled feeding times, you know immediately if someone’s not eating. And you know after a couple of missed meals it may be time to visit the vet.

What to feed your dog

So what’s the best dog food? It’s the food your dog will eat. That you can afford to feed them. And that provides the nutrition they need to thrive. Dog food shouldn’t be a source of worry or guilt. Do the best you know how to do. Give dogs healthy snacks. Avoid the foods that are toxic for them (chocolate, grapes, onions).

And share your popcorn. We’ve never met a dog who didn’t love movie night.

Is your pup a picky eater?

Rewards have many forms

One of the prime directives of dealing with dogs is that they always do what’s most rewarding. Dogs are pretty simple souls – they don’t have long-term agendas. If they get attention and better-tasting food by turning up their noses at their food bowls, they learn very quickly to turn up their noses. If the attention and tasty treats are rewards for joining the “clean plate club,” chances are that’s what they’ll do.

So we thought about our friends and their picky-eater dogs. And came to the conclusion that, on some level, they were encouraging their dogs’ behavior. Either by hovering over them for each bite, constantly offering alternatives, even yelling at them when they don’t eat.

You may wonder why a dog would like getting yelled at. Dogs don’t really understand the difference between “good” attention and “bad” attention. They just know the person they adore is paying attention. They have their person’s undivided attention for as long as they’re being a pain in the butt.

Picky eater routine

If you have a finicky dog, try to think of the routine that surrounds daily feeding. Do you obsess over every bite your dog takes? Are you catering to your dog by offering choices? Have you ever lost patience with his behavior?

picky eater dogs leave their food untouched in the bowl

Change, if you want it, takes some determination, patience, and an ability to resist those puppy-dog eyes. If you know you can’t, it’s probably smarter to admit things aren’t going to change and adjust your thinking instead.

The first step is to decide when, what, and where your dog will eat. You get to choose, not your dog. Pick a schedule and stick to it. The dog gets a limited time to eat. 10 minutes is plenty. After that, the bowl comes up, goes in the fridge, and is presented at the next meal. And every meal until eaten or goes bad.

This is a test of your will, but not your dog’s. No dog will voluntarily starve. If food is presented, and he’s hungry, he’ll eat. Unless he thinks “something better” is coming.

Figuring it out

After about three days, he may figure out that nothing else is on offer. It may be the hardest three days of your life, but it could be worth it. Won’t it be great when you don’t have the stress of worrying about whether or not your dog will eat? When you have a way of knowing when your dog doesn’t feel well because he doesn’t eat? Rather than a “mood” he’s in?

If you do want to convert your dog into an eager eater, use a brand and flavor of food that he liked for a period of time. We know some people choose to mix a couple of different brands so that if one company changes formulas, there will be some consistency in their dog’s diet.

Think it through

Of course you do need to take into account any medical condition your dog has and any regular medication he takes. If there is a medical reason your dog is “off his food,” that’s a different story entirely.

Our dogs do have preferences – Torque doesn’t care for fish. Booker can’t eat anything with pork. So we’ve found a food that has no fish or pork. Ours get special “treats” in their bowls on occasion. If we’re making scrambled eggs, we’ll put an extra one in for the dogs. Sprinkled on top of their regular food, at the regular time. If we’re making tuna salad, they get an extra celery stalk. Diced onto their regular food, at the regular time.

We know it’s weird that our dogs love celery. But they do, so we treat them to it. When we choose.

Our friends with the pick-eater dogs know all this stuff. They’ve chosen not to “fix” it, because, on some level, the current situation works for them. And that’s perfectly okay. As long as we don’t have to listen to them complain.

Your dog’s eating habits – change isn’t good

Cause for concern

It’s an old joke that “habit is the most powerful force in the universe.” But there’s also a lot of truth to it. And dogs are even more entrenched in habits and rules than people! Dogs love schedules. They love rules. And habits make them happy.

Changes in eating habits are significant. The reason may not be serious – but it’s always worth checking out.

Seasons & reasons

The cause for the change could be anything:

Normal appetite suppression in hot weather
A bitch coming into heat
Food recipe has changed and isn’t as palatable
Toothache
Tummy ache
Feeling ill
Stress
Parasites
Age
Disease
Schedule change
Travel

How do you know?

One of the reasons we’re not fans of “free feeding” (leaving food out all the time) is because it’s hard to judge exactly how much the dog is eating and whether there’s a change. If the household has more than one person feeding the dog, it may be impossible to judge. Same situation if there’s more than one dog – how do you know which one’s eating what? Other than seeing one get fat?

If a free-feeding situation is the one that works for your family, try to put some controls in place so you know if there are changes. Have only one person in charge of feeding the dog. Use a measuring cup to judge exactly how much is offered each day. And take notes on a calendar to chart any changes.

Up or down matters

We’re lucky that most of our dogs have been good eaters. There have been a couple of exceptions, and they both fall into the category of “when you know better, you do better.”

As young people, we had a Boston Terrier named Daemon. He needed to be coaxed to eat, and we got pretty creative (and desperate) to make it happen. Because we were convinced that he “had to” eat kibble, we actually wound up resorting to adding people-food toppings. His favorites were Chunky Steak and Potato Soup and Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Neither is something we’d recommend for dogs now, but we didn’t know anything about dog nutrition at the time. It turned out that Daemon had liver cancer. We tempted his appetite enough to keep him strong as long as he was comfortable. It may not have been an ideal solution, but it worked for the time and circumstances.

Picky puppy

The other dog who didn’t want to eat was Fran’s Booker. When she picked him up as a puppy from his breeder’s home in Virginia, he didn’t eat much of anything for the first two days. As a new mom – it drove Fran crazy. Booker’s eating issues were resolved when we switched to a different food. He just didn’t like the first one. At home or on the road, he’s been a champion eater ever since.

Do not pass “Go!”

For the rest of our dogs – we have a house rule. If the dog doesn’t eat, go directly to the veterinarian. Do not pass “Go!” Do not collect $200. And step on it.

If your dog’s eating habits change – pay attention. It may be nothing. One of our dogs had a bad case of gas. Another had a tooth ache. That started us on brushing our dogs’ teeth and it hasn’t been an issue since.

But if it is “something” – your diligence may help save your dog!

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