I decided to do some research on the best and worst foods for your pet to try to get a handle on my gluttonous Dachshund! If you’ve ever had a Dachshund, you know they are PIGS. Honestly. My little Taz will eat almost anything, and no matter how much I feed her, she acts like she’s starving.
And I don’t mean she acts hungry. She acts like she may perish at any moment if she doesn’t get something to eat immediately. It’s ridiculous.
So obviously I have to manage her food intake, otherwise she’d be so fat she wouldn’t be able to walk! It’s a constant battle – keeping Tazzie happy vs keeping Tazzie healthy.
WATCH MY VIDEO: Best and worst foods for your pet
Foods Poisonous for Dogs and Cats
We’ll discuss how to choose the best food for your pets in this post. But first, get this list of foods that are toxic for dogs and cats. You’ll receive a printable list to keep and share with fellow pet lovers.
How Do You Know Which Pet Food is Best?
How Do You Know Which Pet Food is Best?I worry a lot about what food Taz should be eating. It’s so confusing with all the pet food brands out there. Which is better? Dry food? Canned food? And trying to learn which ingredients are good for her or bad for her – never knowing if the information I’m getting is true and accurate or just a sales pitch from a dog food company.
It’s stressful because I want to make sure she’s getting what she needs and I certainly don’t want to give her anything that’s not 100% good for her.
Pet Food Advice from a Veterinarian
I got a lot of help from this video by Dr. Karen Becker. She’s done a lot of training for people about pet food – you can look on YouTube for more of her videos where she gets into great detail about pet food quality, ingredients, etc., and you can also read more of her advice about pet foods here.
But this video is a good one to start with, because it explains the differences between different types of food – it’s the best source I’ve seen thus far for finding out the best and worst foods for your pet. Dr. Becker also has a more recent video on this topic HERE.
Homemade Pet Food
You can buy the book mentioned in the video here. I bought it and started cooking for Taz. It’s kind of difficult – you have to really study the book to make sure you’re using all the right ingredients. She loves when I’m cooking liver, chicken hearts and gizzards…she even got a beef heart once!
Feed the Best Quality Pet Food You Can Afford
I read something about this once that has really helped me over the years with my pets, and that is, “You should be feeding your pet the best quality food that YOU can afford.” If you can afford top-of-the-line, great, but if you can only afford department store brands, then that’s OK.
I think the most important thing is that we do the best we can for our animals. Believe me, the fact that they have a home, are fed daily and have our love is the most important thing!
Best Fresh Pet Food
If you can afford higher quality pet food, you might consider upgrading your pet’s diet to fresh pet food. The two I recommend for dogs are The Farmer’s Dog and NomNom. You can read my review of The Farmer’s Dog here, You can get 50% off your first box with this link. You can read my review of NomNom here. You can get 50% off your first order with this link.
The brand I recommend for cats is Smalls Cat Food. I haven’t written my review yet, but the results of my search for the best fresh cat food ended here! You can get $10 off your trial of Smalls Cat Food here.
For Help with Choosing the Right Cat Food
You might also be interested in this article, Best Food for Your Cat. In that post, we discuss wet cat food vs dry cat food (spoiler alert..watch my video). We also discuss what’s actually wrong with feeding dry cat food.
watch my video: what should you feed your cat?
Choosing the Right Dog Food
For more information about choosing the right food for your dog, read these articles:
Feeding Your New Puppy – Proper Puppy Nutrition
Incorporating Vegetables into Your Dog’s Diet
Let’s Share Information!
Please, if you know of any other sources of accurate information regarding which foods we should be feeding our pets for their best health, please let me know by leaving a comment below.
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Hey there Debra!
My American Eskimo has a sensitive stomach. So we only feed her Blue Buffalo chicken and rice, I believe is the flavor she gets. Hard food. Anything else and her poor little stomach gets upset. Even canned BB food upsets her stomach. So basically, it was trial and error with her. You have great advice, and pets are the same as people when it comes to, “you are what you eat”.
~Jason
I’m glad you were able to find something that worked. I think Blue Buffalo is a good brand.
Wow I have never been thinking about cooking pet food for my dog! I have a husky right now and I always struggle how to feed him healthier. The commercial dog foods are really unhealthy and full of additives and preservatives.
Before buying the book I would like to know that kind of food am I learning from this book? What benefits will my dog get from it?
It’s mostly about cooking natural, whole food. For example, for Taz I might cook ground turkey, chicken or beef, throw in some “organ meat” such as liver or heart. Then maybe a sweet potato, vegetables and a fruit like a few blueberries. The book gives lots of ingredient suggestions. The biggest benefit, in my opinion, is that you’re eliminating all the preservatives and downright toxic stuff that’s in some commercial dog food brands. Whole, natural food is better – for pets and for us! Thanks so much for the comments.
You just have to make sure they’re getting the right amounts of nutrients added to the food if you’re going to make it yourself. Just making it with meat, fruits, vegetables and maybe rice is not going to be enough for a balanced meal. A grain free diet is not great as people thought it would be. Dogs are dying from Cardiomyopathy from it. I saw this was posted in 2016… it may of been discovered after you posted this. All vets are aware of this. Unless your dog is allergic to every grain out there, they should have something put in their food and pees and lentils do not count and are bad for them.