Dog Food: Commercial or Premium?

Should you buy premium or commercial dog food, and what is the difference between them?

There is actually quite a lot of difference between the two types of dog food. Dog owners want to give their pets the best possible diet, and there are some simple steps you can take to ensure this.

Commercial Dog Food

Commercial and wholesale stores owe their success in large part to the sales of commercial dog food.

These products are manufactured using lower quality ingredients, including animal by-products rather than pure meat. These by-products do not have much nutritional value, and are therefore really little more than just fillers, which are also used to add taste.

Using these ingredients, the manufacturers are able to keep production costs low and profits high, because many people will choose to buy the commercial product rather than the premium one as a result of the price difference. Many of the consumers do not read the label on the pack, and are happy enough to feed their pet whatever is marketed as pet food, if the price suits.

Premium Dog Food

Premium foods, on the other hand, are safe to feed your pet, and are based on good quality, nutritious ingredients. Premium dog foods are well named, because they:-

consist of good quality ingredients

are properly balanced nutritionally

are made with the dog in mind, rather than profit

have been designed over time, allowing for and making use of the results of research

extensively tested, for example for taste

It is our lack of knowledge and understanding which adds to the profit making of commercial dog food companies. As a good parent, you would not feed your baby commercial baby food made from poor quality ingredients, but would choose the brand with better quality content, even though more expensive. A good pet owner should do the same for their pet. If you feed your dog a healthy, nutritional diet, you will contribute to his longevity, a point very much in favor of premium dog food.

Consider the following points when you are shopping for dog food:-

Many commercial dog foods have whole meat listed as the first ingredient; this can be misleading owing to the measurement being taken before cooking; the cooking process reduces the meat content greatly, owing to the proportion of water.

Premium dog foods do not list whole meat as the main ingredient.

Commercial dog foods are available through grocery stores.

Premium dog foods are not sold in grocery stores.

Premium foods are often designed for specific breeds of dog, taking that particular dog's requirements into consideration.

The extra expense in premium foods is worth it, because it pays for the research an testing behind it as well as the superior ingredients.

The overall message is this: you pay for what you get, and premium dog food is well worth the expense.