What You Should Never Feed Your Dog

If you are trying to find something decent to feed your dog there is hope. The first step will be to learning to read the labels on the cans, bags, and event the doggie treats and find out the good ingredients from the bad ones. That will help to make it safer and more nutritious for your dog while at the same time extending the years you get to spend with your pet.

Now learning to read the labels isn’t real difficult, there are some things that you can quickly spot to help you make a more informed decision about what to feed your dog. These ingredients should send up a red flag and tell you right away that this is not a good product for your dog.

The first on the list is “By-Product”. The dictionary has an interesting definition for this: Something produced in the making of something else. So this basically means the “CRAP” left over from making the good quality food. These can include intestines, duck bills, chicken and fish heads, chicken and turkey feet, hides, feathers, bones and others. All of these products are very hard for your dog to digest.

The next on the list is grain type products. You should never feed your dog these because like the by-products they are highly non-digestible and can cause kidney problems. These can include: whole grain wheat, whole wheat flour, ground whole wheat, ground whole grain sorghum, wheat gluten or wheat protein, wheat bran, rice bran, rice flour, soy, ground yellow corn, corn gluten meal, whole grain corn and others. Corn is considered to be the number three allergen in dogs and cats.

This one will make you sick, “meat and bone meal”. Sounds harmless enough right? Use of this term means your dog food can legally contain dead animals. This can be from road kill or from your local veterinary’s office. These animals may have been put to sleep, so that chemical would be in the food, may have been using medications, died from diseases or other causes. This is definitely not what you what to feed your dog. Absolutely disgusting!!

The last thing on the list is preservatives. These are chemicals used to make dog food last up to two years on the shelves. Something else that is not well known is that before you even buy the food it can sit in trucks or in a warehouse for well over a year. The first two are “BHA” and “BHT”. These chemicals which are known carcinogens, are responsible for problems with you dogs liver and kidneys. The next one is “ETHOXYQUIN”. This chemical is used to prevent the fats in dog food from becoming rancid. You might also be interested in the fact that it has been used as a herbicide and a rubber stabilizer.

So now you have an idea of what to avoid on dog food labels. I’m sure there are many other things as well but this is a good start. Being informed about how to feed your dog or in this case what not to feed your dog is the best way to help ensure that it will lead a long and happy life.