Dog Food Rating Tool – Explained
July 28th, 2010
First of all, I’m happy to report that after getting a big, fat F from the K9Cuisine.com Dog Food Rating Tool for the food I’ve been feeding my dogs for years … I found a new food, made by the same company, that earns an A+. I even had Anthony Holloway (CEO of K9Cuisine.com) double-check my Dog Food Rating Tool test and results, just to be sure.
I ended up going with a grain-free salmon & sweet potato formula that includes vegetables, probiotics, and all kinds of other nifty things. My big dog Ginko (a lab + greyhound mix) LOVES sweet potatoes, as noted in this recent video taste test of a frozen dessert for dogs.
Choosing a Dog Food
The process of picking a new dog food raised some questions for me and for local dog food advisers I asked. For example, the lovely man who runs the feed store in the nearest town to my rural community gave me a big lecture about bias in the pet food marketplace.
He talked about meeting the people behind certain foods, including the PhD nutritionist types. He balked profusely when I told him one reason I wanted to switch was because of the corn gluten in the food I’d been feeding. To him, that’s not a big deal. He pointed out that he has something like 600 families who feed their dogs what I’d been feeding, and that all the dogs do great. (Still … he was really happy to hear the new food he helped me pick scored an A+.)
It is really hard to know up from down sometimes, when everyone has such different opinions on the matter of what to feed our canine pals.
So, if I have questions about how the Dog Food Rating Tool works, I figured you probably do too.
I asked Anthony to answer a few questions about how the Dog Food Rating Tool was developed and what rules underlie the programming that generates our dog food grades. Here are his answers.
Dog Food Rating Tool Q&A
Q: Within the rating tool algorithm, how are key ingredients ranked or weighted? Do proteins matter more than carbs, for example?
A: In general the algorithm is more about subtraction than addition. What I mean by that is we are more concerned with what we do not want in the food than we are about formulating the perfect food. There is heavy bias against ingredients we feel should not be in dog food. We are also looking for foods that have high meat content. While some grains are OK we do not want to see the ingredients too heavy on the grain side.
We start with a 100 point score and start subtracting points for bad ingredients, by-products, non-named proteins, non-specified meals, grain splitting, low meat content, non-desirable grains, and glutens. There are also some bonus items that add to the score. The bonus items are relatively minor.
Q: Upon what did you base the tool’s grades? For example, did you look at “best practices” in the pet food options and use that as the measuring stick for good, better, best?
A: As we researched optimum characteristics of “premium dog food,” we found that while there is a ton of great information out there much of it is conflicting- drawing varying conclusions.
The biggest problem I found was that while there is a lot of information out there, there was nothing offering specific direction for taking action. Our goal was to bring all the components together in one place and present it in way that was easy to understand. We strive to provide tangible information to be used in making buying decisions.
In our research, we also found that many ingredients in pet food were included simply as a filler, to lower the manufacturing cost. We categorized and prioritized these negative components and assigned them points. Foods containing these ingredients are penalized as we subtract for these negative ingredients.
Q: Which “good” ingredients bump grades/scores up?
Ingredients that improve the food’s rating score include fruits, vegetables, brown rice, millet, oats, barley, rye, glucosamine, chemical free, hormone free, and probiotics. The single biggest boost for food scores is derived from higher quantity and quality of meat ingredients.
Q: Which “bad” ingredients sink grades/scores down?
A: The bad ingredients have a more substantial effect on the score. They include corn, wheat, soy, glutens, by-products, non-specified proteins, non-specified meals, non-specified fats, artificial colors, sweaters, salt, chemical preservatives.
Q: Which ingredients give a food “extra credit”?
A: This is pretty much the same as the ingredients that bump the score up. The ingredients I would consider a bonus are chemical free, hormone free, fruits, vegetables, glucosamine, fish oils, & probiotics.
Q: Is this set up as a pass/fail system? Or are B and C grades possible with the tool?
(I only ask because my old food got an F and the new food got an A+, so I’m just wondering if anything in-between is possible.)
A: The algorithm is not pass/fail. It is possible to get any grade. I think what you are seeing in your own foods is the heavy bias against certain negative ingredients. For example it is difficult for a food to get a decent grade if it contains glutens. It is possible for a food to have a major negative and still get a passing grade but it would have to be almost perfect in every other category. That is generally not the case. In fact foods that fail generally have multiple undesirable aspects.
Q: What grade do you considering passing?
A: At K9 Cuisine we only offer foods that get a B or better. A food that gets a C is considered an average. If budget is a consideration a C rated food would be acceptable. However, there are many foods that are very affordable and get a B grade or better.
Q: If someone cannot afford an organic or super-premium food, are there 1-2 ingredients you’d recommend they avoid in other less expensive brands?
A: I would always avoid by-products and glutens. Next I would avoid corn, wheat and soy.
It is possible to feed a very good food and not break the budget. It takes a bit of work but it is possible. Many times foods that fail are also very expensive so there is not always a correlation between cost and quality.
Q: Some people are a bit confused over the concept of meal-based ingredients? Can you explain that? Are all meals “bad”?
A: I believe certain meals are an excellent source of concentrated meat protein. However they must be named meals. For example poultry meal is bad and chicken meal is good. There is a recurring theme here. We are trying to avoid by-products in dog food. When an ingredient uses a non-specified generic ingredient like “poultry” meal that meal contains by-products. When a food uses a specified ingredient like chicken meal the meal is made from the meat of the chicken. There is a slight exception. Fish meals are generic and they do not specify the type of fish.
Related Posts
Tags: dog food, Dog Food Dish Blog, dog food ingredients, dog food rating tool, K9Cuisine.com, online tool, premium dog food, premium ingredients
Posted in Dog Food Basics, K9 Nutrition | 1 Comment »
One Response to “Dog Food Rating Tool – Explained”
A professional writer based in Colorado, Roxanne Hawn doesn't just love dogs. She deep-down requires them in life. Something inside her genes, perhaps? That's why it's such a joy to write about all things canine. Roxanne began writing about pets in 1995, when she worked for the American Animal Hospital Association and later for the American Humane Association. During this period in her career, Roxanne served on the board of directors for the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy (a coalition of animal welfare groups). Roxanne also volunteered for many years at an animal shelter, where she witnessed firsthand what happens when the human-animal bond breaks or never forms.
[...] to Lilly and Ginko to K9Cusine.com’s dog food rating tool. You can read the bad and good news here. Follow Roxanne on Twitter @roxannehawn and on [...]