Grain Free Quality Dog food

Kajsa_B. wrote: »

I am a new dog owner (have a precious rottie rescue!) and I'm really struggling with this as well. I've used allaboutdogfood to help me better understand the quality of the foods I am researching and seems to be a good starting point but I feel it is a bit out of date...

I find it really hard to understand the labels. Tey talk about composition and breakdown in a language I can't quite grasp. Some brands claim to have a high meat content (between 50-95%) but when I check the fine print, the "meat" content can be anything from feathers to bone. This doesn't feel right!

Has anyone found any other websites that give a good overview of the pet market here in the UK?

I'm not sure if this helps but there are a couple that give some good information about the ingredients in dog food.
US based Dog Food Analysis - see 'How do we assess the foods')
'Dog Food Ingredients @ wagthedoguk.com'

Basically, look for food with a reasonable meat content (it will be this first or second ingredient in the ingredients list). If its not grain free food, look for good quality and/or whole grains (oats, rice, peas) and avoid grains like corn/maize, wheat and the generic 'cereals'.

More specifically:

Meat content - it should be a named species (chicken, lamb, beef, turkey, duck etc). Avoid those that use general terms like 'meat and animal derivatives', ' animal by-products', 'meat and bone meal', as these could be from any animal and are basically just the leftover bits of an animal after slaughter, so while it will contain some protein, it can include stuff like the feathers and bone you mention.

Meat meal or whole/fresh meat - Whole meat has a high water content (70% approx) whereas meat meal is just meat that's been treated to remove excess moisture, so its basically a more concentrated version. Both are fine, and many dry foods will contain both (so a dog food claiming a high meat content of say 70% will probably be made up of 40% fresh/whole meat, 25% meal and the other 5% gravy/fat).

I use Purizon single meat for my two. One a GSD and the other a Kelpie. Suits both of them. Only sold by Zooplus and Bitiba (German). I’ve just order 2 bags from Bitiba - £83.99 (salmon). They do have offers on, so worth checking regularly.

My dog has been on some really expensive brands and hasn't seemed to enjoy them at all.

At long last we have found food that he really loves and chases the bowl around the kitchen! It is Butchers grain free wet food which we combine with some Lukullus cold pressed food. It works out far cheaper than we have paid for other brands and it is wonderful to see him enjoying his food so much.

I did check out the Butchers grain free on the All About Dog Food site and it gets 4.3 out of 5, so a very good rating.