Going on a search for the best quality dog foods has been a much bigger project than I initially imagined. I decided to start trying different dog foods after the ongoing concerns with the quality of dog foods and because our male Border Collie, Rodeo struggles with stomach problems and has joint issues. I wanted to make my own determinations on safety and quality on any dog food I choose to feed my loving pups Rodeo and Maddie and of course they were pretty sure they should have a say too.

It’s probably worth mentioning that I have been in the dog business for over twenty years so I did have a pretty good idea of what I was looking for in a dog food. However, I was shocked at the lax regulations within the dog food industry. It is so easy for a food company to manipulate the information they put on the outside of their food package and then call it nutritious.

I was even more surprised to find that some of the so called quality foods that you would pay a hefty price for in the discount kaneles stores are actually not what they make themselves out to be! That’s what those advertising dollars are paying for. Which leads me to my first big tip, throwing money at a high priced dog food does not make it a best quality dog food.

I started by properly learning how to read a dog food label. There are many tricks and frankly deceptive practices that make it a priority to learn how to read a label. Here is a shortened version of that process to help you get started. The first set of labeling rules comes from the and must list the following information:

1. The product must be identified as a dog food
2. The weight, volume or count of the dog food
3. Name and location of the manufacturer
4. Listing of all ingredients by their common name
5. Listing of all ingredients in descending order by weight

The next agency that may be policing your dog food is the AAFCO or the Association of American Feed Control Officials. AAFCO is not a government agency like the FDA, instead its members are made up of state and federal employees from various agencies and employees from pet food companies. They have additional rules and label regulations on top of the FDA regulations for pet foods. However, dog food regulations vary from state to state and not all states agree to AAFCO regulations.