Choosing the Best Diet for Your Dog
A Comparison of various feeding styles...
The perfect dog food (at least the perfect commercially produced dog food) probably doesn't exist. But that hasn't stopped anyone from trying. Dog food is a $14-billion industry, with millions of tons of dog food and treats sold every year. With all the new choices, new information, and new trends in dog food, many of us have been left wondering if we're feeding our dogs correctly.In any analysis of the ideal dog diet, we inevitably look to wolves. Dogs split from wolves perhaps as far back as 50,000 years ago, but their dietary needs have not changed much. Although the modern dog has evolved to survive on human table scraps, they still require a diet heavy in animal protein. Of course, that doesn't mean Fido can live on hamburger alone. Dogs need a fairly complex balance of animal muscle meat, fats, organ tissue, bone, and live factors to replicate the nutrition their wolf cousins get in the wild.
Commercial dog foods are still consumed by the vast majority of dogs in the United States. These products are designed by pet food company veterinary scientists to provide a complete and balanced dog diet, regulated by government standards. However, many dog owners have sought alternatives to conventional commercial dog food options, due to their concerns about ingredient quality, questionable additives, safety recalls, unethical suppliers, and over-processing of these products. A market has been created not only for high-end commercial wet and dry formulations, but also wholly new dog feeding styles, such as raw food products and home cooking, where dog owners create their own canine culinary concoctions.
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