There is no dog food in existence that suits every single dog.

Reading Ingredient Labels

The bulk of a dry dog food is going to be made up of the first 4-6 ingredients.

Grains are an unnatural foodstuff for dogs, and dog food products should be based largely on meat rather than grain.

Ingredients are listed in order of weight before the water is removed to turn it into a dry food product. Therefore, once the water is removed from meat, this ingredient will really weigh around 20% of its wet weight. A pound of beef will only be a few ounces once the water is removed, but a pound of grain will still be close to a pound.

Do a little math. If the first ingredient is meat or meat meal, but then the next three ingredients are grains/grain products, the combined amount of grain will most likely outweigh the meat.

DO NOTchoose a food by brand name alone. Different formulas can be on opposite extremes.

DO look around at sites like Dog Food Analysis (dogfoodanalysis.com) to compare ingredients and Amazon to compare prices. (Click on links at the bottom).

Top Tier

These foods are generally grain free. Higher protein levels may be a problem for some dogs, so check the labels.

Blue: Wilderness

Innova EVO: Red Meat and Reduced Fat formulas

Horizon Legacy

Instinct: Chicken, Duck & Turkey or Rabbit formulas

Orijen: Adult, Regional Red, Senior and Six Fish

Taste of the Wild: High Prairie and Wetlands

Wellness: Core, Ocean and Reduced Fat formulas

Upper Tier

Many of these will include some grains, but usually in the form of rice, barley and oatmeal, all of which are good quality, low-allergenic grains that provide additional carbohydrates and protein to the food. What separates the Upper from Mid Tier is the total amount of grains compared to meat protein in the food. (Upper Tier foods have fewer grains whereas Mid Tier foods will have more)

For Grain Free formulas in these two tiers, the difference is the amount of non-grain carbs/proteins (like potato) in relation to the meat.

Acana: Grasslands, Pacifica, Prairie Harvest

Artemis: Fresh Mix, Small Breed, Weight Management

Before Grain: All formulas

Canidae: All Life Stages, Beef & Fish, Grain Free

Fromm: Four Star formulas

Innova: Not the EVO line, or the large breed formulas

Merrick: Turducken, Wilderness Blend

Nature's Variety: Beef, Chicken, Lamb, Venison, Salmon

Solid Gold: Barking at the Moon

Taste of the Wild: Pacific Stream

Timberwolf Organics: All formulas

Wellness: Super5Mix formulas

Mid Tier

Acana: those not listed above

Avoderm Natural: Chicken, Lamb

Blue Buffalo: Blue formulas

Castor & Pollux (C&P): Ultramix and Organix formulas

California Natural: All formulas.(These are limited ingredient foods, and would be suitable for individual dogs that suffer from allergies or sensitive stomachs)

Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul

Eagle Pack: Holistic Select formulas

Fromm: Gold Nutritionals formulas

Merrick: Senior, Pot Pie, Cowboy or Campfire formulas

Natural Balance: Potato & Duck, AMP, Organic, Fish, Venison,Ultra(Some formulas are limited ingredient foods, and would be suitable for individual dogs that suffer from allergies or sensitive stomachs)

Solid Gold

Halo: Spots Stew formulas

Low Tier

The list gets far too large to start listing them.

Check the labels carefully!

Just about all grocery store dog foods will be in this tier. Most found at the big box pet stores will also be here. These are the foods containing some of the least desirable ingredients: corn, wheat, by-products, digest, and others.

Even some formulas from better brand names could fall into this tier. Some low tier foods might avoid ingredients like corn or wheat, but may include the following items:

Soy: Is a very common cause of food allergy problems, and although it boosts the protein content of a food, it is very low quality protein compared to that sourced from meat.

Beet pulp: A by-product; dried residue from sugar beets which have been cleaned and extracted in the process of manufacturing sugar. Some say it is a good source of fiber, but may cause stress to the kidney and liver in the breakdown process. It is an ingredient that can commonly causes allergies and ear infections.

Chicken by-products: The AAFCO definition of Chicken by-product meal is “a meal consisting of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidable in good processing practice.”

Specifically stated by-products: A by-product is a by-product. Just because it states something like ‘organ only’, won’t make it any more nutritional, just easier sounding to the human ear.

Meat by-products: Something not even identified by species. Possibly from more than one source, like beef and lamb or chicken and duck. Also possibly from non-traditional sources like horse or goat.

Brewer’s rice: A low quality by-product.

Cane molasses: Adds unnecessary sugar to the food, and can contribute to yeast ear infections in dogs prone to them.

Vegetable fiber/Vegetable protein: The byproducts of vegetables - peelings, end cuts and other rejects of human food production. Vegetable protein is used to boost the protein content of the food, but this is very low quality protein compared to meat.

Corn gluten meal: This is defined as the part of the commercially shelled corn that remains after the extraction of the larger portion of the starch, gluten, and term by the processes employed in the wet milling manufacturing of corn starch or syrup.

Corn/Corn meal: Is a difficult to digest grain of very limited or no value in dog food, and which is also commonly associated with food allergies.