Because of the huge number of dog foods available these days, it can make a decision on what to buy very difficult. Most people make their decision based on three factors:
- Price. We tend to assume that the higher the price the better the quality. But is this always true? Very often it isn’t, for reasons below.
- Description on the label. Does the label suggest this is a food that is healthy and tasty for my dog? The problem here is: all labels do! The ALL say their food is “complete nutrition” with “healthy ingredients”.
- Recommendation from a vet, friend or another dog owner. However, does the person you are talking to know much about dog food? Unfortunately, even most vets and pet professionals are very uneducated when it comes to food and nutrition. They generally only know what they have been told by the companies whose foods they sell.
So what do you do to make the right decision for your dog’s best health and well-being?
It starts by realizing that at the end of the day you are paying for only two things when you buy a bag of dog food: ingredients and marketing.
Ask yourself: “Which would I rather pay more for, the ingredients in the food or the marketing (promotion and advertising)?”
Obviously it’s the ingredients that are going to make the difference. You want the best quality of food for your budget.
Here is a checklist of questions to ask when considering a brand of food:
- Does this food contain mainly meat or cereals/grains (meat should be the first named ingredient on the label).
- Is the meat a “named” or “generic” meat? The best “named” meats are chicken, lamb and fish. The worst “generic” ones are “meat” and "by-products”, both of which can mean literally anything (and none of it good). Also avoid beef, which is not generally good for dogs.
- Are the other ingredients ones that will help my dog or are they cheap and even harmful “fillers” of no nutritional value? (fillers include wheat, cereals, glutens, animal fat).
- Does the food contain quality natural supplements such as amino acids, Omegas 3 and 6 from natural sources and vitamins and minerals?
- How widely marketed is this brand? Are there tv ads, signs on vet clinics and shops, newspaper and magazine advertising, etc? This all has to be built into the cost of the product.
With Pro Pac Ultimates and Earthborn Holistic a higher proportion of the cost is for the ingredients (rather than marketing) than virtually every other brand you will find. These are not the cheapest brands on the market, but for the quality of ingredients to price they represent fantastic value.
Apply the above checklist to Pro Pac Ultimates or Earthborn Holistic and to any other brand and you will see Pro Pac and Earthborn are both winners.
For more information and to purchase Pro Pac Ultimates or Earthborn Holistic for your dog contact the sole distributor in New Zealand, Petfood Direct at www.petfooddirect.co.nz