Picking kibble shouldn't feel as complicated as it does, and it shouldn't leave you second-guessing your choice. Yet, there are tons of threads across the internet and social media of pet owners everywhere asking for advice on what they should feed their dog.
The Marketing Hype
There are so many brands and various options that it feels almost impossible to choose, and every bag is marketed like it's the best thing you could ever feed your dog. You'll see buzzwords like "human grade," "wild-caught," "grass-fed," "fresh whole food," etc. thrown around often, but other than being descriptive, these words don't tell you much about what's in the food.
I'll be honest...I'm a sucker for marketing. Or at least I was, until I started learning what things to focus on. Anything with aesthetic packaging and important-sounding buzzwords, like the ones I just mentioned, were always sure to capture my attention, at least long enough for me to look into the product and decide if I actually wanted it or not. And the same used to go for kibble.
What Actually Matters
Sure, those dog foods labeled with the fancy buzzwords are added bonuses, but they shouldn't be the sole determining factor of which brand you choose to feed your dog. Food choice should be tailored to your dog's specific needs, not by marketing and cute packaging.
For bird dog breeds, some of the biggest important factors to consider when choosing a good brand is calorie and protein content. With their active lifestyle and high energy needs, sufficient calories will be important to help keep weight on them. For some dogs, this is fairly simple, but others can struggle to keep on weight when they're constantly active. My GSP, Nabu, is the skinniest of my three because he's always out running around and bouncing off the walls. Higher calorie foods or adding in extra toppers can help for those who struggle with keeping weight on their dogs.
Protein is equally as important for active breeds to help support strong muscles and healthy joints. The recommendation for average adult dogs is 18%-25% protein. But for active dogs, you'll want 25% or more, ideally closer to 30%. But, again, this will vary based on your dog's individual needs.
The nice thing is that most higher protein foods are naturally higher calorie as well, because they are typically made for active breeds. If you need more guidance with what nutritional needs your dog has, speak with your veterinarian as those needs vary based on your dog's life stage and personal lifestyle.
Cost Does Not Equal Quality
Over the last 7 years, I've tried various different kibble brands for various reasons, including Open Farm, Nature's Logic, Diamond Naturals, American Journey, and Acana, to name a few. Many were good, but many were also expensive, especially for a multi-dog owner like myself.
When we got our third dog, Nabu, it was actually my boyfriend's idea to look into more cost-effective options. With 3 large dogs, we were easily spending between $400-$500 a month on dog food. I was feeding brands that were $100+ for a 20-25 lb bag, and we would go through 4-5 of those a month! At the time, I really felt like it was worth it though because I was feeding brands that had no synthetics, had multiple protein options for rotation, and/or had all the important buzzwords (grass-fed, pasture-raised, etc.). And there was honestly nothing wrong with that, other than the cost (for me).
After doing some research, my boyfriend ended up finding Diamond Pro 89. It's $60 for a 40 lb bag, which meant we would save quite a bit. It also has a high protein content, and contains a lot of great things including probiotics, glucosamine, chondroitin, and more. But I still wasn't fully sold because the price just felt too good to be true. An affordable price for such a large bag meant it probably wasn't that great, right?
Wrong.
It turns out that lower cost doesn't always mean lower quality. While it is true that the cheaper options tend to use fillers, byproducts, and meat meals to meet the minimum nutritional standards, it's not the case for all brands. All it takes is understanding how to read the ingredient panel.
How to Know If Your Kibble is Good Quality
Earlier we talked about paying attention to calorie and protein content when picking dog food. But there's much more to it than that. Thankfully, you don't need to be a veterinarian or pet nutritionist to understand the basics. There are tools out there that make it very simple to compare brands and help you make the right decision.
About two years ago, I stumbled upon this resource from House of Paws Pet Boutique. It was a blog post talking about how to "grade" your dog's kibble to figure out if what you're feeding is good or bad quality (I won't go into all the details in this post, but you can check out their post on the subject here). They had this PDF tool that you could print and fill out using the ingredient panel on the kibble you're feeding to analyze and score the quality of the food (you can find that PDF in the blog post I linked above).
I thought that was pretty cool, so I took the ingredient panel of Diamond Pro 89 and was pleasantly surprised by the results! It scored a letter B and the ONLY reason it wasn't an A was because there are no fruits or vegetables listed as an ingredient. But that honestly wasn't a big deal for me because 1) we feed a bunch of different whole foods as toppers and treats, so even if they're not in the kibble, they're still in my dogs' diet in some way, shape, or form, and 2) this brand is formulated to meet the nutritional standards set by the AAFCO for dog food, which means it meets the minimum requirements for all nutrients.
So, if you ask me, Diamond Pro 89 is an A brand kibble. And the price makes it that much better!! If you purchase it from Pet Supplies Plus as a reward member, you'll get frequent coupons as well every month, which is something that I use to save even more. If you're on the hunt for a quality kibble brand that doesn't break the bank, Diamond Pro 89 might be worth looking into.
Grade Your Kibble
If you're interested in seeing if your dog's kibble will pass the test, I took the time to create an online quiz version of the PDF tool shared by House of Paws Pet Boutique. (Let me be clear that this quiz is NOT mine, it is simply the questions from the PDF provided in an interactive quiz format. I do not take credit for this quiz).
Take the quiz below - you'll have to scroll alllll the way down to the bottom of the page beneath the comment section to view the quiz.
P.S. Let's start a resource list for everyone! After you take the quiz, leave a comment on this post sharing your kibble brand and the score it got for others who are on the hunt for a quality kibble brand.