It has long been debated whether homemade or commercial food is better for your dog. To allow pet owners to decide for yourselves, you are provided with a list of what you should be looking for in a good quality dog food. These qualities can apply to either homemade or commercial items.

Good quality of the meat. Homemade dog food can easily have this quality. What you need to do is to shop for good quality meat and use that to feed your dog.

When it comes to commercial food products, making sure this criterion is met can be a little tricky. Owners cannot readily check the quality of the meat that was used. You can just stick to what you have used in the past. The brand name of the product and its past records will also be an important determinant.

Meat by-products such as organs are usually not advisable to be included in the dog food. So, when you are personally preparing the food, make sure that you do not include these. And when you are buying food, you can simply avoid these by looking at the label and making sure that you do not see terms such as ‘by-products’, ‘grains’, ‘organs’ or etc.

High amounts of animal proteins. Your pets need adequate intake of animal proteins. This provides for better growth and development. Also, muscle repair in cases of injury can be well facilitated by enough protein intake.

Avoid including or choosing products that have vegetable proteins in them. Although these would not produce any negative effects to your pets, these will not be as effective as animal proteins. It’s the same way as saying that you are feeding them non nutritious food.

You can include vegetables in your pet’s diet. But, you should know that they won’t need too much. You can include vegetables to meet the requirements for vitamins and some minerals. And in order to meet this, you only need minimal amounts of most veggies.

Avoid chemical additives. Chemical additives have varied purposes. Most commonly, it is to increase the shelf life of the food. Others use it to enhance flavor or color of the product. For homemade items, chemical additives can be almost completely avoided.

Buying commercial food products, though, would alert dog owners with regards these additives. Unfortunately, most of these additives are carcinogenic. Trusted food brands and those that have passed government standards may give you the guarantee that you are not buying a processed food product.

Choose which one costs less. Depending on what ingredients you buy or which brand you choose, you can see the significant difference on the price between a homemade dog food and a commercial dog food. So, if you still can’t decide which to give your pet based on the criteria above, you can take expenses into consideration.

So, you can feed your dog with homemade or commercial dog food. But, the most important things to consider are listed above and you should feed your dog based on these characteristics.

Author Bio: Jerri Nice D. Torres enjoys writing for Petflow which sells Taste of the Wild and bil-jac pet food as well as a host of additional products.

Category: Pets
Keywords: pet food,food for pets,pet lover,pets,pet