This article is approximately 4000 words and should take about 7 minutes to read. OPEN article table of contents: Foreword – What is dog food? Why is dog food the most consumed pet food? Is it good to feed dogs with dog food for every meal? What are AAFCO and WDJ, and do they have credibility? How to determine if a dog food is suitable for your dog? What is the difference between Meat and MeatMeal? What are by-products? The recommended method for selecting dog food from the editor-in-chief. Summary. Foreword: As guardians of our dogs’ diet, we often search online for ‘dog food selection recommendations.’ The editor-in-chief was once confused about which kind of dog food or dietary strategy is best for dogs. After accumulating experience over time, the editor-in-chief would like to share the following suggestions for purchasing dog food with all dog parents. The first part of choosing dog food, many dog parents must be curious about why most people choose dog food for their pets’ diet. Is it unhealthy to eat too much dog food? Dogs cannot choose what they eat, so as dog parents, we must understand their food well! Here begins the article. What is dog food? Why is dog food the most consumed pet food? Most dog parents must have many doubts about pet nutrition. Should my furry friend eat fresh food, raw food, dog food, or canned food? The editor-in-chief will now tell you that dog food is actually a processed product, not whole food. It is the most used dietary type by dog parents, simply because it is the most convenient. Regardless of preservation, acquisition, or feeding, dog food is undoubtedly the most convenient choice. However, what hidden mysteries lie within, and what should be paid attention to when purchasing? As mentioned earlier, dog food is a processed product, and as such, many nutritional components in food may be insufficient, which is why many dog foods are fortified with various nutrients. Is it good to feed dogs with dog food for every meal? If the ingredients of the dog food are good enough, it is actually fine to have 80-90% of the dog’s daily food provided by dog food! After all, dog food is designed to perfectly balance the nutrients needed by dogs. However, it is necessary to periodically change the brand or flavor of the dog food to prevent the same elements from continuously accumulating in the body. The editor-in-chief’s suggestion is to choose high-quality dog food. If you have time to mix in raw food feeding or occasionally give your dog some snacks, instead of living a life that revolves only around dog food, this is the most convenient dietary policy. If dog parents have enough leisure time, and every meal is prepared fresh or raw for the furry friend, it is also necessary to pay attention to whether the provided nutrients are overly biased, including the healthiness of the oils, the source of fats, etc. A dog’s digestive system requires more careful attention than humans, and一不小心 can easily burden the dog’s kidneys. Extended reading: The causes of acute pancreatitis in dogs? See if your furry baby is at high risk. The editor-in-chief would like to provide a concept for dog parents to consider: whether the diet is healthy or not does not immediately reflect on the physical condition. Many times, it slowly harms the dog’s internal system. And even if the furry friend can eat dog food and maintain vitality and health, it does not mean that this is the correct feeding method, which the editor-in-chief will explain in detail later. Just like humans, if humans want to lose weight, they will examine the nutrients they consume daily, and if dogs want to be healthy, they must also have their owners examine the nutritional components of the dog food one by one! This is very important because furry friends cannot choose what they eat. Next, let’s introduce two organizations that dog parents often hear about, which can be understood when choosing dog food. What are AAFCO and WDJ? Do they have credibility? Speaking of dog food, there are two organizations that the editor-in-chief thinks dog parents should at least understand. Now, the editor-in-chief will introduce AAFCO and WDJ. AAFCO, the Association of American Feed Control Officials, is a non-governmental organization in the United States. It does not have regulatory power over dog food manufacturers. Its three main goals are to ensure the safety of animals and humans, to assist in setting standards and ensuring the safety of pet food consumption, and to provide a transparent competitive environment for the pet food market. In short, AAFCO’s goal is to ensure that pet food sold in the U.S. market has a set of standards to ensure sufficient nutrition. At this point, dog parents must be curious: is AAFCO a very credible indicator of dog food nutritional components? First, AAFCO is a non-governmental organization, and the members of the advisory and representative committees come from pet food manufacturers and raw material suppliers. Smart dog parents should understand that AAFCO has a bit of a player and referee role. The editor-in-chief suggests that dog parents can regard AAFCO as the minimum standard for dog food because the standards it sets are ultimately adopted by most states in the United States, so it still has a certain reference function and is not completely useless. Next, let’s introduce WDJ (Whole Dog Journal), an American media magazine organization, and take a look at the following information to judge its credibility. WDJ is an American media magazine called Whole Dog Journal, which does not accept any commercial advertisements and relies solely on monthly income to support this magazine unit, showing its neutral nature. The reasons for WDJ’s authority are several: it has no commercial advertisements, only accepts subscriptions, and recommends high-quality products based on the ingredients of pet food on the market every year. How does WDJ rank pet food brands on the market every year? What are the criteria? WDJ selects dog food with a large amount of high-quality animal protein. WDJ believes that animal protein is a relatively ideal protein source for furry friends. The first item in the ingredient list is usually the ingredient with the highest proportion in the dog food. Usually, the dog food recommended by WDJ will have animal protein in the first place on the ingredient list. Rejecting unapproved oils or protein oils and the source of protein is also one of the criteria that WDJ considers very important. Many dog food manufacturers use low-cost, low-quality animal fats without detailing the source of the oil. Recommending whole grains and whole vegetables in dog food, not processed vegetable residues (by-products), is one of the standards that WDJ values. To save costs, many dog food manufacturers add vegetable residues to the dog food, claiming to add vegetables for better nutritional intake, which is also one of the standards that WDJ pays attention to. Refusing dog food containing meat by-products or poultry by-products, whole meat is much more expensive in raw material cost compared to by-products, so many dog food manufacturers use cheap by-products, which are made from bones and meat residues. Actively search for dog food containing organic ingredients, reward green factory manufacturing, and reduce waste. Like humans, organic ingredients are definitely more suitable as dog food than by-products. Do not choose artificial colors, artificial flavors, artificial preservatives, and sweeteners. Undoubtedly, these four materials are all for improving the palatability of dog food, with low nutritional value and even harmful to the internal digestive system of furry friends. Good dog food should use natural preservatives, such as vitamins A or C, instead of chemical artificial preservatives. Having mentioned so many evaluation criteria of WDJ for pet food, dog parents should have a certain understanding of the WDJ pet food brand recommendation ranking. If you want to see their recommended ranking of dog food, you need to pay to watch or search for data organized by others on the browser! After understanding the standard certification marks, the editor-in-chief will talk about how to see if my furry friend is suitable for which dog food? How to determine if a dog is suitable for this dog food? The following are several simple points provided by the editor-in-chief for dog parents to judge whether the current dog food is suitable for their furry friends: Observe the immediate reaction of the dog after eating the dog food. If there are symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, increased eye and nasal discharge, abnormal activity, low spirits… and so on, immediately stop feeding this dog food and observe the cause. Pay attention to changes in the dog’s physical appearance, such as skin and hair condition. If there is hair loss or color deviation, be aware that it may be caused by changing the dog food. Hair is a very intuitive basis for judging the current nutritional condition of the dog. Smooth / rough / color difference / uneven hair color are all external signs of internal nutritional imbalance. Whether a dog is suitable for this dog food is not determined by whether the dog likes to eat it. If there is no correct teaching and guidance, dogs are prone to be picky eaters. After all, dogs with a sense of taste, like humans, prefer food with flavoring. In addition to the above situations, how to choose the right dog food is the most important. First, choose dog food with sufficient nutrition, and the raw materials are prototype raw materials, not by-products. Never be cheap and let dogs eat inappropriate dog food. After eating for a while, only to find problems with hair, skin, or long-term damage to internal organs and so on. Extended reading tells you why dogs can’t eat chocolate and the dietary taboos for dogs! Review to see how many items you remember, and then the editor-in-chief will tell you the secrets that can’t be seen from the ingredient list. What is the difference between Meat and MeatMeal? What are by-products? The amount of meat is a part that dog parents care about very much. When buying dog food, the first thing many dog parents look at is whether the meat component is in the first place. However, what kind of meat does the meat content contain? The following is the secret of the meat component. There are pure (whole) meat, dried meat, meat meal, and meat residue (meat by-products) in the ingredient list, which means that the meat contained in the dog food you buy is not necessarily made from whole meat. It is possible for manufacturers to add meat meal, meat bones, and other by-products to the dog food. What’s the problem? By-products are processed products, simply put, they are made from the by-products of animal slaughterhouses, removing edible parts, and using bones, offal, and minced meat as raw materials. Although the products are also standardized and cannot be mixed with hair, horns, excreta, etc., the quality of by-products is naturally lower than that of whole meat. Chicken and chicken meal are the most common examples. By-product meat meal is not bad, but the editor-in-chief suggests that dog parents should understand the secrets behind the ingredient list, the meaning behind each ingredient, and must know what kind of dog food the furry friends are eating. Imagine that dog food made from non-whole meat raw materials must be less palatable for dogs, and at this time, chemical additives will be added to improve the taste and increase palatability. Therefore, when purchasing dog food, it is also very important to understand the dog’s health status, age, and body condition, as well as the meaning behind the ingredients! Next, the editor-in-chief will tell you how to choose dog food, and not follow the trend to buy dog food that lets dogs eat unknown processed raw materials. The editor-in-chief’s recommended method for selecting dog food? Every furry friend’s breed, age, living conditions, exercise habits, living environment, and physique are different. There are often dog parents asking the editor-in-chief how to choose dog food? The editor-in-chief can only tell dog parents that they still have to judge based on the furry friend’s feces, hair, and skin after eating, or the reaction after eating. The following six points are the first things the editor-in-chief pays attention to when selecting dog food: First, look at the manufacturing date. Undoubtedly, the fresher the manufacturing date, the better. Look at what organizations have certified the product packaging, whether the manufacturing is subject to standardized norms. If the dog has special conditions, dog food can also be chosen symptomatically, such as: bone problems can choose dog food with added calcium, gastrointestinal sensitivity can choose dog food with low allergen meat or added probiotics. Choose high-quality meat raw materials, as the editor-in-chief has introduced before, the difference between Meat (whole meat) and MeatMeal (meat meal), it is best to choose animal protein, and also pay more attention to the source of oils. The simpler the ingredients of the dog food, the less likely it is to cause dog allergies. Regardless of cat or dog food, pay attention to the ingredients, which are usually ordered from high to low. After understanding the editor-in-chief’s recommended method for selecting pet food, the editor-in-chief will give dog parents several reminders about dog food in the final summary. In summary, the selection of pet food is still the concept of pet nutrition. It is not difficult to have a preliminary understanding, but if you want to delve into it, it is not so simple. The editor-in-chief has integrated many questions from dog parents in this article about dog food selection, helping dog parents to walk into pet stores, not in the vast sea of dog food, and not be able to choose the right dog food product for their dogs in a hurry. Finally, the editor-in-chief gives dog parents a few reminders about dog food selection: There is no dog food suitable for every dog, and it takes time to find the best dog food for your furry baby. Dog food needs to be changed with age, and eating the same kind of dog food for too long can easily lead to element accumulation and expansion of large deviations. When changing dog food, it can be mixed with the previous dog food and gradually replaced, not changing the dog food all at once. When changing dog food, pay attention to the excretion after eating to determine whether the dog food is suitable for the dog. I hope that after reading the article, dog parents can make their dogs’ diet healthy, rich, and safe. Come and see, is the way you understand the dog’s age calculation correct? How to see the aging of old dogs? In fact, the dog’s age is calculated this way! Dog parents must have the knowledge of furry baby health care, and quickly open the latest article of the editor-in-chief below! [Cat posture meaning] 3 seconds to understand 18 kinds of cat body language 2023-02-03 [What to do if cats fight] Prevent cat fights + multi-cat family must-read emergency persuasion guide 2023-01-26 New dog owners must know: 7 indispensable items for raising dogs, care knowledge, and essential knowledge 2023-01-23 If you have any questions about dog food or other conditions of furry friends, and want to give feedback or discuss, you can send an email to contact or leave a message below to discuss with the editor-in-chief one-on-one! 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