Healthiest Dog Food

Is your pet dog’s food actually healthy?

Your pet relies on you to make the best choice for them!
To give you a helping paw in the process, here is a visual guide to evaluate your dry food choice and pick the healthiest brand within your budget.

Let’s pick a healthy food for your pet dog!

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Let’s start by understanding what choices are available for dry dog food in the market!

An average Indian Pet Shop commonly offers
16+ dry dog food brands, with each brand offering a range of over 48+ products in variety of sizes and price-ranges.

With an overwhelming array of options, all claiming to be the best dog food on the market, all dog dry food pellets looking alike, and misguiding labels, it becomes difficult to navigate confusing labels and make informed choices about the healthiest pet food options within budget.

So how does one evaluate what makes one brand healthier than the other and a better choice for our pet?

Where does your pet’s food brand fit?

To aid your decision making process, see how different brands compare in their overall quality index, calculated based on certain parameters, with it’s price. As products of different brands come in a variety of pack sizes by weight, the value for money offered by each brand has been calculated in terms of price per gram.

Now you can make an informed choice for your fur baby!

Learn how we ranked brands by quality!

Quality Index was calculated by scoring each brand & it’s product range on the following
4 metrics, and was used to rank brands on a scale of 1 (lowest quality) to 4 (highest quality):

AAFCO Compliance

Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) has laid out standard guidelines for pet foods to meet their daily nutritional requirements.

Protein Quality

Along with quantity of protein, the quality of protein sources used are equally important, including whether they are plant or animal-based.

Presence of Allergens

Presence of ingredients like Wheat, Corn, Maize, Dairy Products etc. contain potential allergens for pets dogs which can cause gastric issues.

Presence of Preservatives

Presence of artificial preservatives, colourings or flavourings can be harmful to your pet’s health in the long term.

READ ABOUT EACH QUALITY METRIC IN-DEPTH & WHAT IT MEANS

Understanding AAFCO compliance

As per Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO’s) guidelines for pet foods, a complete and balanced diet includes the following. Out of these constituents, the key factor that sets up apart different brands is the Quantity and Quality of Protein used.

Proteins

Carbohydrates

Fats

Fibres

Vitamins & Minerals

Moisture

AAFCO Guideline: Daily Protein Requirements

As per AAFCO’s guidelines, a dog’s daily protein requirements follow:

All brands studied are AAFCO compliant, but it is not enough!

AAFCO sets nutritional requirement guidelines to ensure pet foods contain minimum required quantities of necessary constituents for complete, balanced meals. However, there are no regulations to ensure quality of protein used, which is essential for good health & avoiding long-term diseases.

Brands are not required to state the source of the ingredients that have gone into making products, and often use the umbrella term “By-products” to hide actual constituents which can range from scrap meats to hide, hair, bones, digestive systems, udders, beaks, road kill, expired packs of meat etc.

So we looked beyond AAFCO’s guidelines!

Understanding Ingredient Quality

Looking at Primary Protein Sources (Animal-based vs Plant-based)

Animal Proteins (Mostly Preferred)

They have the highest amounts of amino acids, essential to create energy for dogs and sustain life.

Plant Proteins

They have a lower digestibility since dogs cannot digest plant fiber as easily as other sources.

Comparing brands’ products by Protein Quantity & Source

For Example, Acana has 1 product with 29% protein & 2 products with 31%, all with animal-leading protein sources.

Studying jargon on ingredient labels in-depth

Due to limited regulations on labelling, the pet food industry often uses jargon to avoid revealing the actual constituents. To navigate through misguiding labels, we study how brands perform in 3 factors:

Comparing brands by ingredient labels

To see how brands compare across the above-mentioned metrics of ingredients quality as judged by the labels, click on the desired metric!

Ranking brands by overall quality index

Yet to make a choice? Let’s head up to select the right fit!