Dog

Some facts about complete dog foods
1. What’s in it.
Manufacturers are obliged to list ingredients in decreasing order of the quantity contained in the food. This means that the first ingredient in the list is the largest component and so on. By the time you get past the first 4 or 5 ingredients you’ve probably got 80-90% of the food covered.
2. Feed Guidelines.
Manufacturers must put these on the bag, but please be aware that they are only a guide, every dog is different.
3. Digestable Proteins
Quite simply this means how much of what your dog eats is actually used by the dog and therefore how much is wasted through his or her system. Good quality foods are higher in digestable ingredients and you will need, therefore, to feed less.
4. Ingredients
The more specific an ingredient then, generally, the better quality the ingredient; for example ‘Meat & Animal Derivatives’ means any part of any animal, whilst ‘Poultry Meat Meal’ or ‘Lamb Meal’ means a meal made from that particular meat. The ingredient called ‘Chicken’ will often be from any part of a chicken, including beaks, heads and feet, whereas ‘Chicken Meat Meal’ is only meat. This applies to all foods, including tins/pouches etc. where the main ingredient at around 80% is ‘moisture’, that is water. If you pay 50p for a tin of food, 40p is for the water.
4. Cost of Feeding.
The more digestable the food then the less is required to feed your dog. For example, most mid priced foods (say £15-£25 per 15kg bag) will be 60-65% digestable, but the more expensive, super-premium foods are 90% or better. So, if you do a quick calculation:- a 15 kg bag of food at £25 that is 60% digestable will equate to a 15kg bag of food that is 90% digestable costing over £37.
6. Low/High Protein.
You are very often told ‘don’t feed a high protein food’. In order to calculate what is high protein or low protein you need to compare digestability (there’s that word again). A food that is 65% digestable may only be 20% protein whereas a super-premium food can be, say, 25%. (The higher protein is generally because of a higher meat as opposed to cereal content, this is also why it is more digestable). If you feed 250gms of food that is 20% protein this gives your dog 50gms of protein, for the same dog you will only need to feed 180gms of a 90% digestable food and that means only 45gms of protein! So. a ‘higher protein’ food actually gives LESS protein to your dog
7. Additives.
Check the ingredients list, avoid sugars & e-numbers if possible. Go for a food that starts with meat rather than cereal. Don’t be misled by the name, e.g. Beef & Veg,  check the ingredients list, it may be only 4% beef.
8. Working Dog Foods.
Foods are frequently described as Working Dog, Sporting Dog, Active or Greyhound Foods, this is often more to do with the product not attracting VAT than to the food itself. If a food costing £15 attracted VAT at 20% then the cost would increase to £18, a big difference.
9. Choice.
We are happy to help you choose a food from the vast selection available (around 200) in stock but, at the end of the day it’s your dog and your choice.