It never fails to surprise me how people regularly admit that they have never looked at the ingredients labels on their pet's food.

The ingredients in the human food chain are fairly tightly regulated and we often hear about health issues arising from some of the processed ingredients on the TV or in the press but the same comments are few and far between for the pet foods.

All foodstuffs, including animal food, must legally include an ingredients list and there is so much valuable information that can be gleaned from this but you must interpret the contents with the full knowledge that the manufacturers engage consultants to help them meet their legal obligations as far as listing ingredients in a way that makes the food appear better quality than it probably is whilst keeping the manufacturing costs to a minimum. The order of ingredients in the list is intended to show the ingredients in reducing order of weight.

For example - take a very expensive big name food on general sale that lists the following as the ingredients:
Maize Flour, Rice, Maize, Dehydrated Poultry Meat, Wheat Gluten, Wheat, Maize Gluten, Dehydrated Pork Protein, Animal Fats, Hydrolised Animal Proteins - and a few more which are so far down the list as to be basically invisible
Of course you might well have taken the point already and checked the ingredients label on your own pet food but you might need to read a bit further to be convinced

Remember

1. We are looking for the lack of cereals that are known to cause a large number of allergic reactions
2. We are looking for named meats to be high up the order because we are actually feeding a dog - not a ruminant
   We want named animal source because we don't really want rats, seagulls, roadkill and euthanised leftovers
3. We are looking for named animal fats for the same reasons
4. We want to make sure that we do not have any chemically processed ingredients or excessive chemicals added

What do we find

1. So much cereal in the bag of which the worst offender for allergies is Wheat but there is so much cereal that surely this is not a food for dogs
2. We have Poultry Meat - well at least it has the word "Meat" in the ingredients list but who knows what it comes from
3. Gluten and even more gluten - Check This first and then do some Internet searching for more information - kidney damage
4. Hydrolyzed Animal Proteins - (See here too) used as flavour enhancer, possible byproduct of production is MSG and carcinogen 3-MCPD also a possible source of excess dietary sodium and prevention of the intestinal absorbtion of calcium and magnesium by the production of insoluable phosphates.

You then have similar issues looking at the Typical Analysis of the foods. Don't be fooled by the quoted protein levels - this includes both meat and cereal proteins and a high figure could actually be due to the high cereal content! Meat sourced protein is expensive and they are not going to give you more than they have to.

Of course, most people are aware that dogs are carnivores and therefore their digestive systems are geared towards the processing of meats to extract the required amino acids from the proteins. Cereal proteins do not contain all the amino acids required by dogs and therefore it is unlikely that a diet based mainly on cereals will actually have a balanced level of the proteins which will lead to excesses of some and then you will see various problems such as dry itchy skin.

People are also very much geared up to expecting "value for money" and they think that a big bag is better value than a smaller bag - therefore many brands of dog food bulk out their bags with cheap cereal fillers such as Wheat to give the impression that they are better value for money.
The only real check on this is the Feeding Guide.
The foods that we sell all have a feeding quantity of around 10g / Kg / day - compare this to the amount you have to feed of your current product and that will give you a good indication of quality, nutrition and, of course, relative cost per meal!

Ozone can be used in production facilities to kill bacteria, disinfect equipment and kill insects. It also has uses in the removal of the husks from wheat kernels amongst many other processes associated with pet food production. One thing that has come to our attention recently is that Calcium Chloride can, in the presence of Ozone, create the carcinogen Bromate. The recalls of bottled water by Coca Cola in 2004 and Wegmans in 2006 were due to this. Calcium Chloride is used in some pet foods to provide a source of dietary calcium - generally where the other ingredients are deficient - and whilst I have not identified a documented link between pet cancer and the inclusion of Calcium Chloride in the food I would personally avoid any food that specifically added this ingredient.

The book "Food Pets Die For" is a bit of an eye opener, and here is another list of ingredients often found in pet food.