Do you always get anxious when shopping for food for your paw friend? Even the most experienced dog parent can cringe at the thought of dog food shopping with more than 600 brands in the dog food market. Your pet trusts you to make the best decisions, including choosing the best dog food. So, which are some of the worst dog food brands and why?
Dog Food Ingredients to Watch Out
Before listing our top 11 worst dog food brands, let us discuss the ingredients to watch out for. This will help you understand how we arrived at our 11 worst dog food brands.
The best way to shop for your dog’s food is to get recommendations from your vet. Your vet understands your dog best. They can assess your dog’s age, sex, health, weight, and other factors. However, you can also shop alone by paying close attention to the ingredients in the dog food. Watch out for:
Fillers and Artificial Products
Like any other business, a dog food manufacturer is out to make a profit. Understandably so. However, adding filler products to dog food is not the best way to do this. Filler products are added to dog food to supplement the food.
For example, most dog food brands contain corn, soy, and wheat. Filler products increase the calories in the food but do not necessarily offer your dog nutritional benefits. Some sensitive dogs might also get sick from filler ingredients, as some may be hard to digest. Therefore, watch out for filler ingredients, and see if they suit your dog.
Cereals and Cereal By-Products
Unfortunately, most companies use human food waste to process dog food. Some dog food brands are notorious for using cereals and cereal by-products in their foods. While grains are not bad for your pup, they should not consume in excess.
A common ingredient in most dog food brands is wheat. Unfortunately, wheat is problematic for humans and dogs too. Wheat comes with many allergies, especially from wheat mites, which can lead to your dog bloating. Over time, it might cause poor health, and your dog might become skinny. Has your dog become skinny or underweight? Here is how to help your dog gain weight.
4D Meat and Meat By-Products
Always aim to buy brands that do not contain 4D Meat. 4D meat refers to meat that is down, disabled, diseased, and dead. They are leftover meat from slaughterhouses; thus, they are not processed or inspected as standard meat.
Therefore, buying food with 4D meat means your fur friend might be eating any type of meat, including dead road kills, zoo animals, or even dead pets. Since the manufacturer is not obliged to report where they acquired their meat, most will simply label the 4D meat as a meat by-product. Thus, making it hard to determine the meat’s origin.
Since dog food standards are not set similarly to human food standards, sometimes, meat by-products are questionable. Meat by-products can mean organs and limbs or other animal parts. It is best to ensure your dog enjoys a balanced diet with an adequate supply of protein. The only way to be sure your dog gets the right amount of protein is by feeding them quality cuts of meat. Questionable meats could be infected with diseases and bacteria that could be harmful to your pup.
Preservatives and food color
Most dog food manufacturers will use preservatives to extend the shelf life of their products. Dry dog foods will need preservatives to keep them from spoiling. However, it would be best to choose food with natural preservatives instead of artificial ingredients.
For example, the best dog food brands use mixed tocopherols, which is safer than the chemicals worst dog food brands use. Artificial preservatives can cause different health issues for your dog, especially if they are sensitive. Only the worst brands will use food coloring to sell their product. Dogs do not care about the color of their food, so food dye and color are only added to make it appealing to you.
11 Worst Dog Food Brands
After discussing what to watch out for, we have come up with a list of the 11 worst dog food brands. These brands offer filler and low-quality ingredients that barely meet your puppy’s or dog’s nutritional needs.
Kal Kan Complete Adult
Our main issue with this dog food brand is that it contains many filler products, especially corn, which is a main ingredient. Unfortunately, corn does not offer nutritional value to your dog. Instead, it feeds them empty calories. Additionally, since corn is treated using harsh chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides, it can cause your dog to become ill. Dog food brands should always have meat as the primary ingredient, so corn being the primary ingredient is a red flag.
Kal Kan has also been known to use wheat and soybean as fillers. They also list bone meal, ground-up bones, and animal cartilage as their primary ingredient. While these are not harmful to your pet, depending on your dog, they are not the best substitute for protein and vegetables. Thus, relying on this brand may fall short of providing essential nutrients to your dog.
Cesar Filets
The high salt content in the Cesar Filets is the main reason this brand makes it to our list of the ten worst dog foods. Similar to how high salt content is bad for you, it is also bad for your dog and can adversely affect their health.
Cesar Filets contains a higher level of protein than average, an average level of fat, and very minimal carbs, lower than the average. Furthermore, it has a lot of artificial coloring, which, although not harmful, is unnecessary.
Twin pet
Your dog may enjoy vegetables and plant-based food, but an entirely plant-based diet is not good for your dog. Dogs will always need meat. Twin Pet lists corn as their first ingredient, including wheat middling and meat by-products.
As we covered earlier, there is no assurance of quality by-products as we do not know the source. Wheat middling, on the other hand, is the leftover dust from milled wheat. Thus, it is a filler.
IAMS Dry Dog Food
When it comes to the worst dry dog food brands, be cautious of IAMS. If you go through the ingredients list, everything seems okay. The first ingredient is chicken, a great source of protein. However, it has corn meal, a filler, and uses chicken by-product meal.
There is no information on the by-product, which means we do not know if the by-product is beneficial from waste. The brand also uses beet pulp and sorghum. Sorghum, like corn meal, is a filler, while beet pulp contains high fiber. The high fiber in beet pulp can result in your dog gaining weight and becoming obese.
Purina Dog Chow
A famous dog food manufacturer, Purina Dog Chow, has a considerable share of the market. Their products can be found in almost every store, but that does not translate to quality.
Purina Dog Chow contains an unsavory ingredient that uses unhealthy fillers like corn, soy, and wheat. There are also some artificial ingredients, flavors, artificial colors, and preservatives, which should be avoided.
Diamond Dog Food
Unfortunately, the name does not match the ingredients. Diamond dog food mentions chicken in its by-product. It does not contain real meat to meet your dog’s protein requirements. While its price is on the higher side since it does not have fillers or artificial ingredients, it contains fillers- wheat, corn, and soy meal.
Kibbles’ N Bits
You might trust Kibbles’ N Bits after being in the dog food industry for more than three decades. Their uniqueness lies in their ability to mix regular food with soft-chew bits, making the food heterogeneous. However, they use low-quality ingredients during this mix.
Kibbles’ N Bits use bone meal and soy in excess to achieve the protein requirement in dogs. Sadly, high quantities of these are not suitable for your dog. They also add food dye and preservatives to their food. Meat is the fifth ingredient on the list, which is quite worrisome as it should be at the top. It gets worse. A while back in 2018, Kibbles’ N Bits were found to add pentobarbital, a chemical that euthanizes dogs, bringing their credibility into question. So, to be on the safer side, avoid using the brand.
Gravy Train
This popular canned dog food brand contains fillers that are quite high compared to the best dog food brands. Gravy Train foods contain cornstarch and soy, which offer limited nutritional value to your pup. They also add artificial colors and use preservatives to increase the shelf life of their dog food.
While their recipe contains real meat, it is a very small proportion and barely meets your dog’s needs. It also contains meat by-products, which we mentioned earlier are from undisclosed sources, which we find a cause of concern,
Ol’Roy
A suitable alternative for most dog parents because of its affordability, Ol’ Roy is among the worst dog food brands for your dog. Ol’Roy comes in different flavors, meaning there are additives in the food. It mainly contains fillers that offer little to no nutritional value.
Some mystery ingredients in this brand are labeled as animal digest and animal fat. With no information on where these ingredients were sourced, we can never be sure. They have had six recalls, and the fact that the brand is reputable for notable shelf life makes you wonder just how many preservatives there are. Their foods contain citric acid, a preservative linked to digestive and dental issues in dogs.
Pedigree
While it is a recognizable dog food brand due to its inconvenience, it is among the worst dog food brands. Most of its ingredients are fillers, which only satisfy your dog without offering nutrients. Their fillers include soy, wheat, and bone meal, which will only increase the carbohydrates. Pedigree lists whole-grain corn as its primary ingredient, which dogs find hard to digest, and that causes allergic reactions.
Unfortunately, Pedigree does not disclose these ingredients on the food label, which makes us question the brand’s ethics. They also have a long history of recalls which sheds light on why it is in our ten worst dog food brands.
Alpo
This brand is owned by Purina, a manufacturer still on our list. While you are familiar with the ingredients from the company, Alpo has received numerous complaints from dog owners, most of whom complain about their pets getting sick after consuming their products.
Alpo contains bone meal and meat as protein sources but does not include any natural source of protein. Thus, they are of low biological value. It also contains wheat gluten linked to allergies and digestive problems in dogs.
How to Tell the Best Dog Food Brands
After discussing the worst food brands, it is only fair we mention the best dog food brands. We will detail this later, but numerous good and quality brands are out there. The best dog food brands contain:
- Meat as their first named ingredient with the meat source
- The daily minimum nutrient requirements for dogs
- More meat than fillers and meat by-products
- Specified sources of meat, fat, bones, etc.
- A statement from AAFCO– The Association of American Feed Control Officials
It is important to ensure your dog eats a balanced diet. Understand your dog’s nutritional needs, and find a food that meets them. Dog food needs special consideration as it affects your dog’s health, mood, and appearance.
Your dog looks up to you for high-quality foods, so dog food is among the things you shouldn’t skimp on. While price is a factor to consider, and sometimes you may be constrained by a budget, you will always go for cheaper worst brands of dog food if the price is all you consider.
Bottom line
Dog foods are not created equal. That is why we have covered the worst dog food brands to ensure your paw friend gets the nutrition they deserve. The worst dog food brands we discussed above may not be extremely harmful to your dog, but they may cause deficiencies and other issues in the long run.
