Wendyl Nissen: It's a dog's life when owners don't read list of ingredients

My Dog roast chicken flavour, including garden vegetables, cheddar cheese and bacon flavours $5.99 for 500g.

My Dog biscuits unlikely to satisfy people looking for a more natural diet for their pooch

I hope readers of this column spend a bit of time looking at ingredients when shopping for their food. But how many of us bother to spend the same amount of time checking out our pet's food?

You might be avoiding flavourings, colourings and preservatives for your food, but what about the stuff you are feeding your dog?

• Selected wholegrain cereals (corn, wheat, rice and barley) - There is some debate about the benefits of cereals for dogs. Some people, like me, believe that before domestication dogs ate a high protein diet from animal sources and what cereals they did ingest came from the stomachs of those animals. So it's a good idea to keep their food animal-based, high protein and grain-free as much as you can. Others quote studies which prove that dogs have adapted to domestication and can benefit from and digest many cereals. Obviously it costs less to make a dog food which is mostly cereals than one containing animal protein.

• Meat and meat byproducts (poultry, beef and lamb) - According to the label this food meets the nutritional levels established by the Association of American Feed Control Officials so I am using the definitions of pet ingredients provided by the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

By definition, meat used in pet food must be the "clean flesh derived from slaughtered mammals and is limited to that part of the striate muscle which is skeletal or that which is found in the tongue, the diaphragm, the heart, or the oesophagus". This means muscle which is connected to a skeleton (striate muscle), meat found in the tongue and in the diaphragm, including the heart and oesophagus.

Meat byproducts are the "non-rendered, clean parts, other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals. It includes, but is not limited to, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents. It does not include hair, horns, teeth and hoofs."

• Cereal protein - This will be protein taken from a cereal of some sort. Hopefully it's not soybean which is a common non-animal source of protein used in foods. Dogs cannot digest soybean. This product is 24 per cent protein according to the label. I know that owners of working dogs recommend their diet is 50 per cent protein.

• Poultry digest - This will be why this food can be described as "roast chicken flavour" because it contains some chicken, albeit digest which is "a material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed animal tissue. The animal tissues used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth, hooves and feathers, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice".

• Beet pulp - This is beetroot and will be in here as a filler. Personally I can't see a lot of dogs willingly eating some pulped beetroot if offered it.

• Glycerol - This will be in here as a filler and a binder.

• Vegetable oil - Not sure what oil is used here. The label says this product is 10 per cent fat.

• Vitamins and minerals - There is no explanation of what vitamins or minerals are added in here.

• Salt - There is no explanation of how much sodium is in this product.

• Vegetables - Not sure what these are.

• Taurine - This is often found in pet foods, mostly for cats who cannot make taurine on their own so need it in their food. It is of some benefit to dogs also.

• Preservative - This will most likely be artificial as there is no mention of natural preservatives and it will be helping these biscuits maintain a long shelf-life. The best-before date on this packet is November 16, 2015.

• Flavours - These will most likely be artificial flavours because there is no reference to natural flavours.

• Cheese powder - I'm not sure about cheese for dogs other than as a very occasional treat, but this is in here in such a small amount that I doubt it would matter much.

• Food colourings - These will be artificial colourings because no mention of natural colourings is made.

• Marigold meal and antioxidants - Lutein can be found in marigold petals and is a carotenoid, which is good for health.

However in such a small amount I doubt if a dog would be getting much benefit from it. It is also yellow which helps with the colouring of some of this product.

My recommendations

Regardless of where you sit on the cereal/no cereal argument for dogs, I doubt you would willingly feed your dog artificial flavours, colours, preservatives and beetroot.

I feed my dog grain-free dog biscuits and chicken carcasses or necks which are often available for a very cheap price at my local supermarket.

This $6 bag of food is enough for two-thirds of a meal for my 25kg dog, according to the packet - or I can buy about 10 chicken carcasses which feed her for 10 days.

If you can't be bothered with all the freezing and mucking around that feeding animal protein requires for your dog, at least spend some time in the pet food aisle and look for a product which doesn't have artificial flavours, colours or preservatives and at least puts animal protein at the top of the ingredients list.

By the way, my dog - who has been exclusively fed a grain-free diet since she was a puppy - absolutely loved these biscuits and followed me around the house demanding more in a very annoying fashion.

Highlights

• Contains artificial colouring, flavouring and preservatives.
• Largest ingredient is cereals, not animal protein.
• Uses poultry digest which is treated animal tissue.
• Despite all my reservations, the dog loved it.

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