Food

We haven't reviewed dehydrated diets for quite some time – long enough that there have been quite a few additions to the pool of companies who make and sell this type of dog food. It's increasingly popular, for a lot of reasons.

When buying food for their dogs, owners depend on the product manufacturers to deliver a “complete and balanced” diet in those bags, cans, and frozen packages. Perhaps without even being aware of it, owners also understand that there are government agencies responsible for setting standards as to what constitutes a “complete and balanced diet” for dogs, and for making sure that pet food makers meet those standards.

No good deed goes unpunished. That’s what Pam Rowley of Upper Brookville, New York, discovered last November, when the hospital administrator who always greeted her and 8-year-old Vizsla Gunner at the start of their monthly therapy-dog visits quietly took her aside to deliver some bad news.

Three companies have reported that we made errors concerning their products in the Approved Dry Foods List" in the February issue of WDJ. We also received (and are still receiving) mail from our subscribers regarding the dry food review. We received many inquiries about foods that readers thought should be on our "approved foods" list but weren't. Here are a number of potential reasons for this."

Identifying a top quality dog food is not that difficult; I’m going to tell you how to do it in just a minute. But it may be difficult to find dog foods of this quality if you live far from an urban center or an independent pet supply store run by someone with more than a passing interest in canine nutrition. It may be even more difficult to afford some of the dog food brands listed; quality pet food ingredients cost more. But it shouldn’t be at all hard to see the improvements in your dog’s health if you’ve been feeding a low-quality food and make the switch to products of this quality.

premium / natural / holistic pet food makers.üToo many choices? Never! It's good to have options

the smart companies have found ways to offer products with the kind of ingredients that discerning pet owners want to see on the label. It's doubly smart

Have you ever wondered whether the label information on your dog's food packaging is accurate? If so, welcome to the club! We fret about this sort of thing, too – and sometimes, our worries turn out to be well-founded.

As soon as a food is manufactured, it begins to undergo a variety of chemical and physical changes. It's a basic law of the universe (the second law of thermodynamics) that everything degrades over time. This includes the proteins and vitamins in dog foods, but it's the fats I worry about the most.

Thanksgiving is a time when families gather together to enjoy good food and to remember all the things we have to be grateful for. Unfortunately, one part of our family often gets left out – our dogs! It must be frustrating for them to smell all the wonderful aromas coming from the kitchen, but not be able to share in the feast. We're here to relieve that vexing situation with recipes for some healthy Thanksgiving dishes just for them.

Fungus is more than a nuisance when it comes to corn; it can be deadly to dogs (and humans). Actually, it’s not fungus itself that’s a problem; the peril is a secondary chemical product created by the metabolic process of certain fungal species, in particular, Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus. Aflatoxin, the chemical produced by these fungi is not just toxic, it’s one of the most carcinogenic substances known to science.

Recently, a neighbor asked me for advice about her dog, who was vomiting and subdued. As part of our discussion about the dog's upset stomach, I asked what kind of dog food she fed to the dog. She responded that she fed him high-quality wet food, not the cheap stuff."

While the price of a pet product shouldn't ever be considered the sole indicator of a top quality dog food