PetSmart Dog Food REVIEW 😬
I’m going to give my personal opinion on the four most popular brands at PetSmart let’s start with the very Popular Science Diet kibble my hot take is I wouldn’t personally feed this to my dogs but it’s not all bad I love that they give back to shelter and rescue animals I’m surrounded by rescue dogs now you can see that on the front of their packaging I also like that they have chicken early in the ingredient deck and it is an accessible food but there’s some concerns that I have sure chicken is the first ingredient but
it’s quickly followed by a lot of corn and cereal grain the whole grain wheat cracked barley whole grain sorum corn corn gluten meal my first red flag is I see ingredient splitting which is something many brands do and it’s an ick for me where Brands take a less desirable ingredient corn in this situation and they break it up into sub ingredients like corn corn gluten meal and what that does is make corn seem lower on the ingredient deck than maybe it actually is so if you were to combine those corn corn sub ingredients into one
ingredient corn it would probably be much higher on the ingredient deck and Brands know that pet parents are becoming much more informed and this is really only problematic for me because I feel
that saw dogs who are fed sorum mil feed produce more feces and had overall lower nutrient digestibility now that study showed there could be potential nutritional benefits of that ingredient but again we have all these cereal grains high up in the ingredient deck it’s concerning remember dogs don’t have a biological requirement for carbohydrates in their diet it’s not to say they should have zero carbs but when I see a food that’s really high in carbohydrates like this food food I’m less excited about it speaking of carbs that’s one of the first things I look at
in a food but if you look at the ingredient deck and the guaranteed analysis you’re not going to see carbohydrates on the food which is unfortunate and I hope I hope that changes in the near future the way to calculate the estimated carbs in your dog’s kibble is on the screen here and in this food it’s about 50% carbohydrates which is really really high for dogs considering they are facultative or Scavenging carnivores meaning they can have some carbo hydrates in their diet but they definitely thrive in the presence of healthy quality sourced meat and again
looking at the ingredients I see that they add chicken liver and a copper supplement which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it does raise a red flag for me because I do worry about copper toxicity copper storage issues and when we look at the last half of ingredients looks like they have over 18 vitamin synthetics and it looks like they’re using a vitamin premix which again the reason that brands use these is because Kibbles I’m not anti- kibble but the fact is kibble is cooked and extruded multiple times at extremely high temperatures this means most
of the moisture is removed and many of the nutrients can be removed so they have to spray them back on in a perfect world I’m feeding my dogs a diet where they’re getting most if not all of their micro and macronutrients from real whole food sources anytime we look at a pet food I think it’s important to know who manufactures who makes that food and Colgate owns Hill Science Diet which again isn’t inherently bad but if we step back and think about what are their intentions as this massive conglomerate it probably and likely are going
to be profits so for me when I’m thinking of what food to feed my dogs I want to make sure that the company’s intentions behind the food are optimal nutrition longevity and wellness for my pets not bottom line dollar and trying to get the cheapest ingredients for the most money now that leads me to some some of the potential pros of this food one being the price looking at this bag specifically at PetSmart in my area again this can fluctuate a little bit it comes out to about 226 per pound I don’t see artificial flavors
or coloring which is a good thing and it looks like they add a little bit of torine which can be good for heart health okay now we’re going to have a dog switch and let’s jump to Natural Balance my hot take with this is the front of the bag frustrates me in big bold marketing letters it says limited ingredients so I flipped the bag over and I looked at the ingredients there were 43 what constitutes limited ingredients this seems like a lot to me and that’s a bit of an ick now I love seeing meat
and meat meals up front meat meals are another controversial ingredients because they are considered feed grade they are ultr processed so many veterinarians and nutritionists are worried about the bioavailability of the protein and the nutrition but it does help increase the amount of animal meat protein in the food another instance of ingredient splitting I see potatoes in here looks like three different times and again potatoes inherently aren’t bad but that just means that this food is pretty heavy in potatoes and that just depends is that the kind of food you want to feed your dog
and then they have big claims that their food is good for heart health or promotes heart health and that’s great I want my dogs to have a healthy heart looks like they’re using torine to make this clean but torine is listed after salt so those that have subscribed know about the salt divider rule meaning anything listed after salt only represents up to 1% of the total bag so there’s not very much torine in there candidly I don’t know how much is needed to truly promote heart health and when I count the vitamin and mineral synthetics
there’s 25 so it’s really heavy in these premixes and the protein percent is a little lower than I prefer for a kibble I like seeing at least 25 26% protein where majority of the proteins coming from animal meat this is at 24 so a little bit lower than I personally like and when we calculate the carbs again I’ll put the formula on the screen for how to do that and again it’s estimated carbs it’s 50% estimated carbs in these Foods now there are some pros potentially based on what you’re looking for there’s no wheat soy
or grain a lot of people like to avoid that uh and they do add a little bit of torine which I think a lot of people look for it’s also a little overpriced in my personal opinion for what it is it’s about $3 a pound at the PetSmart near me it’s just a little expensive for the starchy ingredients compared to what I would feed my dogs but again I leave it up to you would you feed this food remember I’m here to help you make an informed decision for your pet not based on fear or
misleading marketing so that you can use this information to make the best choice with your veterinarian again I’m not here to recommend cure treat prescribe simply here to help you get the right information now let’s talk about a PetSmart owned brand called Authority and this is definitely a budget friendly food first off looking at the food I see ingredients splitting again with corn corn gluten meal so it’s a pretty heavy in corn food corn is highly controversial I mean I like a little corn on the cob in the summer so I’m not anti-corn but it’s
pretty well known that it’s a highly GMO highly sprayed with pesticide crop so it’s one that a lot of we’ll call purists or nutritionist and a lot of Integrative and holistic veterinarians steer clear of in fact in the first six ingredients four of them are non-species appropriate Foods or ingredients that I would feed my dogs like many brains they use natural flavoring which is controvertial because that can contain a variety of things that are not disclosed to you and especially if you have a dog with sensitivities or allergies this can be problematic legally natural flavoring
can include almost any protein so it could have pork in there it could have beef could have chicken which again if your dog has sensitivities to that could be an issue it can also include bark different essential oils s so that’s just something to be aware of if your dog has sensitivities you’ll need to reach out to the brand directly and find out what is in those natural flavors it’s also a controversial ingredient because many believe that if you are making a food with whole real foods that dogs are designed to eat that you shouldn’t
need to add artificial or natural flavorings to the food to entice them to eat it they should just want to eat it is is a theory of many and even though we see meat in the first couple of ingredients the protein percent is still 25% and the carbohydrates are actually a little bit lower in this food than the others which is about 47% another red flag controversial ingredient is the use of sodium hexametaphosphate which is used regularly in dog Dental chews and dog dental treats and it’s concerning because according to this study this can lead
to digestive upset so it’s something that if your dog is on this food and they have GI issues loose stool just digestive issues it might be worth considering finding another food now I have to say the biggest Pro of this food is accessibility it is probably one of the lowest cost Foods I’ve seen there I think it’s about .79 a pound which makes it easy for those on a very limited or fixed income to afford a food for their dog and they have single Source protein options which can be good for dogs that have multiple
sensitivities to kind of single it out but again they do use natural flavoring so there could be something used in there so you’d have to ask the brand overall this isn’t a food I would personally feed my dogs I do like the price point though because I do want everybody who can have a dog be able to have a dog I just want you to be able to make inform decisions on what you’re feeding which leads me to this next food which is solid gold a very popular food and to be quite honest I don’t
hate it probably not a food I’d feed my dogs but there’s some misleading marketing tactics at least what I believe them to be misleading that is a major ick for me that kind of turned me off on the food so right away on the front of the bag I see their call outs for cold water salmon and vegetables in the recipe so I imagine when we turn the bag over and look at the ingredients we’re going to see a lot of healthy nutrient-dense vegetables we’ll look in just a moment and I see not one but
two call outs for gut health and that this recipe is powerful enough to promote gut health which is very important so this must be an awesome formula let’s look at the back I love seeing fish high on the ingredient deck that can be great for dogs with like chicken or beef sensitivities but be wary that they use an ocean fish meal and since it does not specify what fish is used in that your dog may have a sensitivity to some of the fish used in there and this brand also uses natural flavoring which could include
chicken or beef or essential oils all right so let’s go look for these vegetables that are promoted on the front of the bag which is Prime real estate marketing for any pet food and early in the ingredient deck I’m seeing a lot of legumes so much so that it kind of makes me feel like there’s a bit of ingredient splitting in here which to be fair legumes technically fall in the vegetable family so I think a more accurate description of this food is a fish and bean recipe because we don’t know if it’s exclusively salmon
so I would look at this as a fish and bean recipe okay now if we look further down on the ingredients we see carrots that’s awesome and I see what I think are their gut health promoting ingredients blueberry pumpkin cranberry and at the very end I see a probiotic remember they said gut health all over the front of the bag but remember these are listed after salt so they only represent up to 1% so at what point should we put things on a front of a bag as marketing to get us interested to buy that
only represent less than 1% of the total product and you tell me does that feel misleading do you feel like the bag gave more promise than it actually delivered again it’s up to you and what you would feel comfortable feeding your dog this information I want to make clear is based on my background working in the pet food industry earning my bachelor’s degree in nutrition science and being a certified professional K9 nutritionist that said this review was based on all the information I have in front of me today things change regularly which is why I
recommend for you to sign up and join my email list which I’ll have Linked In the description below now let’s look at the price point so this one is going to be the most expensive of the ones I’ve looked at at about 332 per pound at my local PetSmart and they do have a little bit higher protein percent and a little bit lower car percent than some of the others we’ve talked about so in my opinion those are good things they do have over 20 vitamin synthetics so a lot of synthetics packed in to this
food to help make it complete and balanced and I know a lot of people are looking for this they add toine in the food so I would say this is definitely a middle to upper-end pric food now the hard thing with feeding any of these mass-produced bigger brand Foods is when you Mass produce anything even outside of the pet space there’s risk any pet food there’s risk but especially when you’re Mass producing especially when you’re backed by big Investments or big businesses or corporations that are heavily focused on margins it can put our pets potentially
at risk for having let’s say contamination in the food or one of the vitamin premixed synthetics because these are synthetics to be made incorrectly maybe a little too much of something or a little too less of something which means our dog suffer so one thing I always always recommend mend and work with your vet but at least with my dogs I’m constantly rotating Brands I have at least three different brands on deck and I’m rotating my dogs I’ll have videos linked Below on how I transition my dogs to a new food and how often I
rotate but it’s basically every week every other week every two weeks I’ll be putting them on a different brand because undoubtedly the food you’re feeding your dog today will eventually likely have a recall and or a recipe change that may not agree with your dog and I don’t say this to scare you it’s just the reality of mass production it’s the reality of producing food for humans or pets now I share that because I’m going to give you a few of the kibble brands that I would feed my dogs if I was feeding kibble now
I am privileged and fortunate and blessed enough to be in a position which took many years to be able to feed my dogs a fresher food diet I do some DIY I also feed my dogs some gently cooked food as well as some raw foods complete and balanced really highly quality sourced Foods all of my favorite personal brands are on my dog food list you can find that on my website Rachel fuser.htm a few of the brands that stand out to me that are kibble are going to be farmina open farm specifically their raw mix
line I like of any of their recipes I think that for a budget friendly food nutrious source or from could be decent for again budget friendly they again have some things that I don’t love but could be good for some dogs I also typically like Nature’s logic so those are just some of the brands that I find mini dogs do well on that typically have better sourcing in general I’ll have those all linked down below so you can check them out and do your own research with your vet now if you want to learn even
more about what I’m feeding my dogs click the video right here but make sure you subscribe first and if you want to see how I make my dogs food click the video right here and I hope you have a beautiful day goodbye
