Ingredients on a bag of dry food are listed in descending order by amount; a bag promising mixture of corn, chicken and lamb contains relatively more corn than a bag that advertises lamb, chicken and corn. Furthermore, undesirable ingredients are often split up into their constituent parts so as to have less prominence: if the ingredient list reads, “chicken, corn meal, corn starch, corn flour, corn”, there’s a very good chance that there’s a lot more corn than chicken.

Because ingredient lists are so long, there are many that don’t impact the food in any meaningful way. These are usually the ones that come after the first pure fat ingredient (animal fat, fish oil, vegetable oil). Whether wet or dry, a lot of dog food contains ingredients people wouldn’t serve up at Christmas: horsemeat, bonemeal and grain by-products might all be mixed up into your dog’s food. Protein gels and grain gluten might be used in wet foods to create meaty-looking chunks.

Clearly, dogs are capable of surviving on a lot of diets. However, if you are concerned about your dog’s diet, you might want to take a closer look at the ingredients of the food you feed him. It might not be everything the front of the bag promises. Quality over quantity is the big rule for dog food.

Always research before just taking any dog food from the aisle.

Before you call me names, I did not deliberately feed the chips to my dog. What happened was I was eating this barbecue flavored chips, put it down because I had to answer my ringing phone, and when I came back to resume my eating, my dog had already finished everything.

And judging by the lively wag of his tail, I could tell he wanted more. Of course I did not give him any and I admit that it was my fault as I did not properly store away my chips. Hence my dog was able to reach it.

I’ll be extra mindful next time I’m eating something like that as I am aware that some junk food can be deadly to dogs. Come to think of it, junk food is also dangerous to us, humans.

If you want to learn more, read this article on how to choose the best food for your dog.

Some people are not sure how much or what kind of dog food they would give their dogs. But it’s actually a trial and error technique. Start your dog with just one cup of his meal. If you afterwards he seems to still be hungry, then add a half cup. And another if you think he’s still not full.

Two cups, in my opinion, is the maximum measurement for a medium sized dog. In my experience, that’s already enough to make him feel full and have enough energy and vitamins and nutrients to keep him healthy. Of course, just like people, dogs are not created equal. What works for one may not be the ideal for another. That’ s why it would be best if you just test how much food your dog  can and should eat.

Just like this one in this video:

What do you feed your dog? I mostly rely on store-bought commercial dog food. Alpo is what I usually buy, although I also use BeefPro. I believe both works best for my dog.

I have never fed my dog raw food, well, not like the one time that he was able to steal a leg of pork from our kitchen’s table. He did liked it, especially the bone. But I’m really quite worried of feeding him raw.

I’m well aware that he can get some disease especially if the raw meat was not handled properly. What if it was already contaminated? With regular, commercial dog food, I have more peace of mind.

But it’s just me. What’s your take on this matter?