Dog Food Rating System
01 Sep 2008
Below are all the AAFCO dog food ratings… (Grade A) “Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate that ABC Dog (Cat) Food provides complete and balanced nutrition for (appropriate life stage).” (Grade B) “ABC Dog (Cat) Food provides complete and balanced nutrition for (appropriate life stage) and is comparable in nutritional adequacy to a product which has been substantiated using AAFCO feeding tests.” (Grade C) “ABC Dog (Cat) Food is formulated to meet the nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Dog (Cat) Food Nutrient Profiles for (appropriate life stage).” Could anyone tell me any Grade B and Grade A dog foods? I have looked at a lot of dog food in pet stores and they all seem to have the Grade C rating. Thanks.
You may want to check out the attached rating of dog foods. It’s not based on AAFCO (which I don’t consider a true measure of the quality of the food): http://www.naperdoodles.com/dogfood.htm I’ve done quite a bit of research into quality dog foods and find the rating to be a good source of information.
3 Responses
2007 Oct 07
I feed Canidae. It is grade A
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2007 Oct 07
One thing to be aware of, too, about AAFCO ratings is that if a food is rated to be "complete and balanced", it just means that some percentage of dogs in the trial (it's something like 75%) did not get ill or lose excessive wait during a short feeding trial that lasts something like two months. It's not really a very comprehensive way to test a food because you have no way of knowing what kind of deficiencies might be in the food that would only show up over a long term. And of course, many of the pet food companies will recommend to never switch foods, so a food with a deficiency will become more pronounced over time when the dog eats the same thing day in a day out.
That said, you're already way ahead of the curve by even knowing what AAFCO is, so good for you for looking for a better quality food for your dog.
I don't honestly know which foods AAFCO rates as A or B, but I'd pay more attention to the label than the AAFCO rating.. Look for foods where:
1) meat is the first ingredient (and not some kind of by-product, either). Ingredients are listed in order of quantity, most to least.
2) all ingredients are specifically named, such as "chicken meal" instead of "poultry meal" or "animal digest", aka "we don't know what we're putting in there either"
3) they don't list ingredients as fragments, like "ground rice, brewers rice, rice flour" — this is them being sneaky because if they didn't break them out as separate bits, rice probably would have ended up as the first ingredient in the list
4) Avoid foods with corn — corn is often used in cheap-o foods as an inexpensive, but inappropriate, protein source and filler
Good for you for continuing to learn more about what's going into your dog. It's funny that after I started reading labels on dog food, I started reading labels on the stuff I eat too and I've never eaten the same way again. Both I and my dogs are the healthier for it!
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2007 Oct 09
You may want to check out the attached rating of dog foods. It's not based on AAFCO (which I don't consider a true measure of the quality of the food):
http://www.naperdoodles.com/dogfood.htm
I've done quite a bit of research into quality dog foods and find the rating to be a good source of information.
btw, I feed mine Innova.
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