Hi there,
When I first brought my first little Maltese doggie into our home I decided that I needed to know everything
about nutrition. So I began my reaserch and believe it or not 2 1/2 years later I still research foods. Soooooo I may get slammed for this but I also have an opinion so here goes:
Yes the other members are correct in that the Science Diet and Eukanuba are commercial brands recognized by most vets. One reason being, especially with Science Diet, is the hugh amount of dollars SD puts into the Vet Schools for research. Bottom line...SD basically funds a lot of schooling. However, this is not all bad. Although many think that there are no guidelines in producing dog food that is not 100% accurate. SD for one has guidelines in their quality process. Ex: monthly their products in the production area are tested at random to make sure the "quality" is what is required by their company and the AAFCO. Other companies on the other hand do not randomly check and consequently food produced during certain times of the month many very greatly from foods produced on other days. And yes there is a corn filler as mentioned, but that is not all bad either. There is nothing wrong with a doggie ingesting corn. The by-products are human grade it is just that most humans choose not to eat them.
The dog food guidelines state that companies can NOT use stomach renderings, hoofs, beeks, feathers, hair, etc. Basically waste products. Now I am not saying that a stray hair or two does not get into the mixings, but that happens in canned foods that humans comsume. The FDA approves X amount weight by volumn of get this.......maggots in canned mushrooms. Now I realize that may be TMI (too much information) but these products are considered to be human grade. YUK! I always wondered if the M&M brand of canned mushrooms meant...Maggots & Mushrooms.
Back to the subject of dog food please......When one examines the label on the dog food there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Yes it is good to have meat as the first products; however, these should actually be meat meals or dehydrated meats. This is because natural meat as we think of it is mostly water. Remembering that the nutrition label is based on a serving size, ie 1/2 cup, 3/4 cup, etc. Therefore, if you have a 1/2 cup of solid meat you have more water than protein. Whereas, if you have 1/2 cup of meat meal you have far too much protein than the doggie needs or can digest. Too much protein can actually be a bad thing for dogs. Meat meals are created by cooking the meats until they turn to a powder, basically dehydrating the meat and grinding the remains into meal. Also, with the grains like corn they are ground and they do not necessarily have the glutens and such left in tact. We also have to keep in mind when we see some ingredients that although they are good for humans, the doggie digestive tract is very different and therefore the doggie may not even benefit from the ingredient. So what you have here is something like this, ex: beets, kelp, sweet potato, etc. If in the processing of the food these ingredients are not balanced accordingly, then these ingredients actually become......fillers. So what was their purpose? A filler is a filler whether it be corn or whatever else. We have a habit as humans and mommies, to try to provide the best possible nutrition, however; many nutritious human foods are not as nutritionally sound for the doggie digestive tract. Dogs digest tract is very straight and foods are not in there long enough for some nutrients to be absorbs. With all this said I think that choosing a good dog food ha to be based not only on research but what your doggie will eat. When Sassy was smaller/younger I tried many so called quality foods. This is the short list: Innova, Solid Gold, NutraMax, Nutro. I also tried a couple of foods which I found that were not as good as I originally thought, Royal Canine and Chicken Soup for the Puppers Lovers Soul. I tried the Puppey lovers because Sassy would never eat the Dog one. Sassy hated ALL of the about foods and flatly refused to eat more than a couple of kibbles at the time. While in the vets office about 6 months ago there were some sample of, get this.......Science Diet SENIOR in a basket. So just for kicks and grins I picked up a sample. Heavens knows I had tried everything else that I thought had any nutrition at all. The results are......Sassy loves the SD SENIOR variety. So I went back to the vet and sat down and had a conversaton on nutrition. I had decided on my own that what good is it to waste good money on what we as mommies deem, quality food, if the little BRAT was not going to eat it. She was getting NO balanced diet. I was basically feeding her like a small toddler. What I knew to do as a human baby mother. Dr. Bennett (vet) said that the senior variety would be fine as long as I supplement her vitamins. Therefore he gave me some pet vitamins. (Sassy and I call them her Flintstones
Now, I am going to sum up my thoughts and get off of my little soap box. There are many major brand name dog food companies who spend a gazillion dollars annually on animal nutrition research. So I have decided that I probably do not know as much as their scientist about proper nutrition. Therefore, as much as I would have liked it as a mommy to have Sassy eat what I considered a more quality doggie food, she just will not buy (eat) into that. So as of today, she eats SD Senior and takes her vitamins.
I am sorry this is so long, but I hope it is helpful.