The Pet Food Revolution: What is your dog eating?
Our picky, hungry, “teenagers”
Our dogs are picky eaters. Toby, our Great Pyrenees, has pancreatitis, so he's on a special diet. He often sniffs at it with disdain. Maisie, our Chihuahua-“terrorist” mix, is just picky. I recently put down her meal of canned chicken and meal mixer and she gave me this look, "Seriously, this is the same food you gave me yesterday. Would you eat pizza every night? And while we're at it, could you feed me at 1100PM? That's when I'm really hungry."
Thus, in the constant effort to keep our dogs healthy and happy, and knowing that a pet food revolution is underway, I turned to Sandy Bosben, the owner of Shine Pet Food Company in Santa Fe and our local pet Food Guru. (Full disclosure, my partner Laurie owns Teca Tu, "A Paws Worthy Pet Emporium" and sells Shine pet food).
I have been feeding dogs since I was ten, but I just did what my parents told me to do and didn't really think about what I was giving them. It was always a mix of canned dog food and kibble twice a day (the only options back then) for two voracious German Shepherds who were perfectly content dragging up a deer carcass from the river bottoms to munch on.
So let's just say I had a lot of preconceptions that I needed Sandy to weigh in on.
The first one was simple. Is it a good idea to feed our dogs table scraps? Somewhere in my brain, the answer was "no." But Sandy reminded me that meal scraps had been what dogs had been eating for 40,000 years since being domesticated. So her answer was yes, table scraps add variety and different protein sources.
And speaking of variety, Maisie's chief complaint, is it's a good idea to switch dog meals up. Eating the same meal day after day would bore us, and it probably bores our dogs as well.
Next, we dove into the pet food revolution. As we've all no doubt noted, every third commercial on TV or social media is about pet food, primarily heralding the shift from kibble-based pet food to a variety of other foods. The fresh pet food industry is growing by leaps and bounds, projected to be a 150-billion-dollar business by 2030.
I asked Sandy about kibble. She told me that kibble was invented around the turn of the twentieth century as more families were bringing dogs into their lives. It was easy to store for long periods and relatively inexpensive. Also, for military dogs, it was impractical to carry fresh food on missions, so kibble fit the bill.
Kibble-based foods currently account for about 60% of the pet food market, but over the last 15 years, other options have begun to make a mark. Now there is kibble, coated kibble, freeze-dried food, raw, raw frozen, and fresh.
Driving all this variety has been a shift in how dog guardians view their pets.
Sandy noted two trends. First, in general, we now view our best friends as part of the family. As a result, we want them to have the best lives possible, which includes the best foods.
Second, Sandy discussed the changing demographics she is seeing among her customers. As more young people are choosing not to have kids, but to have one or two dogs, the importance of those "family members" and the willingness to spend more discretionary income on them have changed.
The argument that fresh food advocates make is that, depending on the brand of kibble you use, it can lack nutrients. And studies show that dogs on a fresh food diet live an average of 3 years longer, with noticeable improvements in their coats, eyes, and energy, and a decrease in obesity.
Yet there is the issue of cost. Feeding dogs is like feeding teenagers. Not cheap!
Sandy advocated that we focus not just on the cost of food, but on the long-term value of good food. There are fewer veterinarian visits. They have a higher baseline of health, and our dogs live longer on a fresh-food diet.
The good news is that if you are caught between budget concerns and nutritional questions, and you have a hungry dog staring into your eyes, there is a lot of information online and in pet stores. Staff at the stores can help you put together a sensible diet for your dog that fits your budget and your dog’s needs.
Well, it's 1100 at night and Maisie has that lean and hungry look, so it's time to crack open the canned chicken.