Pet Food Label Basics - Ingredient List

Do you know how to read pet food label? We realize that many of our customers are pet food savvy and already know this, but I went to a very interesting seminar on dog nutrition and pet obesity yesterday, and decided to share some basics on how to read pet food label.

What Is Your Dog Really Eating?

All pet food products, including our organic dog biscuits, must list ingredients on the back label. It's the law! If you grab a food or treat or any food items for your dogs and cats and the ingredients are not listed, not good news! Manufactures must list them in the order of descending weight (in most states). So the first ingredient on the label is what your dog is eating the most out of that food. Then, second is the second most thing in that food, third, and so on. This is true to any types of pet food, whether canned food, kibbles, treats, biscuits, etc.

Now we know that the first few items on the ingredients is what you'd like your dog to eat, because most likely that's the most food your dog is eating on daily basis. In case of dry food, it should be some sort of high quality protein.

High Quality Protein

What is high quality protein? Well, it should be protein source that you recognize from your grocery store. Beef, chicken, lamb, venison, rabbit, salmon, whatever it may be but make sure it's specific and make sure it's not "by-products" of animal source. Not all "by-products" are bad because it can be nutritional parts like liver. However, if a high quality food is using liver, it's probably listed as "beef liver" or "chicken liver" rather than "by-products". In general, "by-products" are probably mixed with not so appetizing body parts like chicken feet, beaks, etc.

It's probably a very good idea to avoid food that lists "meat meal" or "meat and bone meal." You may ask, "what meat is in the meat meal"? Exactly! In "meat" meal, we don't know what sort of meat it is because they don't have to specify it as far as it's some sort of "meat." It can be road-kills, diseased animals, talk about scary! Same is true with "animal fat." What "animal" are they talking about? Well, we don't know... So remember, animal source in "meat meal" and "animal fat" are MYSTERY CREATURES! FYI, here at Organic Doggy Kitchen, we do not use any mystery meats. In fact, most of our dog biscuits are strictly vegetarian!

Additives & Preservatives

Sugar and salt are not necessary, either. Another thing you may want to avoid is food coloring. Why does dog food have to look bright red and yellow? Does your dog care? No! It's there to please your human eyes.

When you bake cookies, you know it's done because the dough turns brown-ish in color. As dog bakery, we know how much coloring you need to put in a dough to keep that bright color in order to overcome baking (browning) effects. Occasional food coloring will probably not do harm to your dog, but if you are feeding bright colors to your dog every single day for a long-period of time, you may want to be careful...

You'd probably want to avoid certain chemical preservatives, too. Some of the infamous ones are BHA and BHT which are added to preserve fats. These chemicals are proven to be harmful to lab animals. But it's probably a good idea to avoid them to be on the safe side. It's also notable that the amount of BHA/BHT allowed for pet food is much higher than the amount allowed for humans, so we may want to be careful!

Another preservatives to be careful of is Ethoxyquin. There are more than a few reports identifying this chemical preservative as possible cause of illness/health problems in many dogs. You can do a quick Google search on Ethoxyquin and dogs, and you'll be surprised. Organic Doggy Kitchen does not use any of these additives in our organic dog biscuits.

In Short...

It is kind of scary, but we don't mean to scare you. It is our sincere wish that your dogs eat healthy quality food to live a happy long life with you! Here's good news! You don't have to worry about these ingredients or memorize them if you shop at natural pet supply stores. All of our customer stores care so much about your pets' health that their shelves are stocked with only high quality pet food. You can select any of the items from their shelves without any worries. And if you have any questions, staff members at these stores are very knowledgeable and they can answer your questions and help you choose the right food for your dogs.

If you find this helpful, please tell your doggy friends. The same is true with cat food, so please feel free to let your kitty friends know how to read pet food labels!

Shop & Support Homeless Animals!

Did you have a fun Halloween? Organic Doggy Kitchen had an honor of making a Halloween Doggy Cake for one of our customer stores, PetMAC in Arlington. PetMAC is a very special store because they work together with Homeward Trails Rescue Group, and every single time you purchase pet food and supplies at PetMAC, you are in fact helping homeless animals! Needless to say, all the food they sell is of course all natural and very high-quality.

Kiki and Koby and I couldn't make it to the party because we had a lot of biscuits to bake at the Doggy Kitchen, but Cindy, the owner of PetMAC just told me today that everyone loved the cake, and "nary a crumb was left to bring home!" Cindy even tried it and said it was tasty!

Howl-O-Ween Ice Cream Social

South Run Dogs, a small group of carind dog owners, are hosting a Howl-o-Ween Ice Cream social event on Sunday, October 28! They are having a Halloween costume contest, and Organic Doggy Kitchen is going to offer an assortment of organic dog biscuits to the winner!

South Run Dogs kindly invited me to do this big job, to be the judge of the contest, what a big job!! If you live close to the area, you should join this group because they seem to have lots of fun doggy activities throughout the year.

So dress up your dog and come join the fun next Sunday!

Doggy Birthday at Dogs by Day & Nite

This weekend, we made a special birthday cake for a dog named Katrina. She is having a birthday party at this awesome doggy daycare called "Dogs by Day & Nite." Miss Kiki has been there a few times for sleep-overs, and it's great because they care about dogs so much that they have a staff member who sleeps with doggies at night! It's like a doggy pajama party!! Another reason we love Dogs by Day is because they have a 24-hour lobby service, and you can drop off and pick up your dog as soon as you come back from your trip!

Anyways, back to Katrina's doggy cake. Katrina is a white Akita. What a coincidence, we happened to have an "Akita cookie cutter"!! And another coincidence, I happen to be Japanese, where Akitas are from, so I wrote Akita in Japanese on the cookie!!

Katrina likes peanut butter so we made the frosting with peanut butter, and put an extra layer of peanut butter, yum yum!

Dog Food 101 - The World's First Dog Food

Did you know that the first dog food was literally "dog biscuits"? Mr. James Spratt, an electrician from Ohio, first invented dog food.

In the 1860s, Mr. Spratt traveled to London on business. There were no airplanes back then, so he traveled by boat. He saw dogs in the shipyard eating leftover biscuits that sailors took for their long journeys.

Until then, companion dogs fed on leftover human food, including meats, grains, and veggies. But biscuits are easy to feed, have longer shelf lives, and best of all, easy to carry. And voila, dog biscuits were born! Mr. Spratt started creating dog biscuits made of wheat, veggies and meat. These first generation dog biscuits came in rather stylish looking tins. They are really cute!