The best diet for dogs is one that’s made up of high-quality, wholesome ingredients that’ll not only help your dog stay fit and healthy, but that taste totally delicious too. It’ll be complete, nutritionally balanced and contain all the essential ingredients needed for your furry best friend to live a long, happy life by your side.
So, let’s take a look at some popular types of dog food diet, discuss the good, the bad and everything in between, to help you make the ultimate decision on what diet suits you and your dog the best.
What’s the best diet for your dog?
It’s important to keep in mind that every dog is different, so the food that works best for one dog might not work for yours.
Kibble
When thinking about dog food, kibble might be what instantly comes to mind. Uniform, brown biscuits are what mostly populate the supermarket shelves, so it’s easy to think that this might be the best diet for your pooch. And although kibble tends to be pretty cheap and super convenient as it keeps in the cupboard for many, many months, these are all points that benefit us humans, not our hounds.
Unfortunately, the cons typically outweigh the pros when it comes to kibble. Dry dog food is often made up of sketchy ingredients, nasty preservatives and colours that provide little to no nutritional value. Not the tasty, healthy food your furry friend deserves!
And even if the ingredients in kibble were high-quality, natural and nutritious, the process used to create kibble does a lot of harm.
To make kibble, the ingredients are processed under extreme heat and squashed into shape - a process called extrusion. Those high temperatures can seriously diminish the nutritional value that the original ingredients once held. Also, after all that, these brown biscuits typically taste pretty boring too, especially to eat every single day!
Wet food
Wet food tends to be a lot more appetising than kibble, both in smell and taste. Like kibble, it’s still a convenient and easy way to feed your dog, you can store it in the cupboard and serve it to your pup in minutes. It’s also a choice that’s still got a relatively long shelf life.
However, the quality can drastically differ from brand to brand, with many using poor quality ingredients and harmful processing methods. All the ways of preparing wet food require extremely high temperatures, which again can kill off important nutrients.
Also, you’ll also notice that most wet foods have a gloopy, congealed gravy/jelly-like consistency, and although this does make the food a whole lot tastier, it lacks in nutritional value. Not the healthiest option for your pup!
Home-cooked
Our pups are members of the family, so it’s understandable why you might think that a home-cooked diet, similar to your own, would be the best diet to feed your four-legged family member.
And while whatever you cook your dog will no doubt be natural, high-quality and delicious (come on, who can say no to a juicy piece of chicken?!), it’s very tricky (almost impossible!) to get the perfect nutritional balance that your dog needs.
And not to mention that it can even be a hassle cooking up your own dinner every single night, never mind cooking up doggy dinners every day too! So, despite the tastiness and the fact you know exactly what’s going into your dog’s meals, the effort, time, expense and knowledge required to get the nutritional requirements exactly right makes home-cooked meals an unideal choice.
Raw
Raw feeding is ever on the rise, with many owners loving the idea of feeding their dog natural, unprocessed meals that don’t contain any strange, suspect ingredients like many kibble and wet foods do.
And although we think raw feeding is truly a great way to feed your dog, it carries its own risks and inconveniences. Raw food can harbour many harmful bacteria, such as E.Coli and salmonella, which is risky for both your pup and yourself, alongside any children you might have in the house. Raw food is also messy and a bit tedious to dish up, and of course, takes up a lot of room in your freezer.
Air-dried food
Maybe not as well-known as the others, air-dried food aims to provide healthy, delicious food that never compromises on quality, all while remaining super convenient, unlike raw and home-cooked diets.
So, air-drying works by taking real, natural, tasty ingredients and putting them under a super low, gentle heat to remove the moisture from them. This naturally preserves the food, removes any harmful bacteria (no need for any nasty preservatives or harsh processing) and locks in all the flavour and nutrients. And then you just keep it in your cupboard, add water and serve up a wholesome, tasty meal in seconds! Take air-dried food on your travels without worrying about keeping it cool, just pull it out of the boot of your car and dish up.
At Pure, we make sure to only ever use the best, natural ingredients, so you can always give your dog the best food. It really is good, honest food, made simple.
What’s the best diet for my dog?
The best diet for your dog will be made from natural, high-quality ingredients, and will be minimally processed to ensure all the nutrients are retained. And to tick another box, it’s also great if it’s convenient for you to store and prepare.
And of course, every dog is an individual, with their own individual set of needs, requirements and preferences. So, the best diet for your dog will ideally be tailored specifically to your dog.
At Pure, we create natural, wholesome, delicious dinners, totally personalised to your dog. Just tell us all about your pup, their age, breed, weight, allergies, ailments and more, so we can create a tailored menu plan to ensure your dog is thriving.