From Puppies to Adults How Holistic Pet Food Meets Every Canine s Needs

20 Best Dog Food Brands in 2022

Best Dog Food Brands: Buyers Guide & FAQs

Each dog food brand has its own unique take on what can be considered the best for your pet. Some remain true to the principles of an ancestral diet while others would prefer to give dogs a homier take on their meals. Whatever brand you choose, you will ultimately have to pick the brand that provides the best nutrition for your pet and within your means.

What to Look for in a High-Quality Dog Food

Picking a really great dog food brand can be exceptionally difficult since just about every other brand will almost have the same formulation. This is where you can put to good use your nosiness. You can dig a lot deeper into the inner workings of the different food brands so you can easily identify which ones you should consider the best and which ones to stay away from. The following things are what we generally recommend to our friends whenever they have to choose a dog food brand.

Soundness of Ingredients

Manufacturers of dog food products are expected to put their ingredients as well as a guaranteed analysis of ingredients in their packaging. If the brand simply doesnt have this information, then you can already strike it off of your list.

Make sure you understand how to read the ingredients. These are typically arranged according to their proportion in the formulation. So you can expect the very first ingredient on the list to have the most in terms of amount relative to the rest of the ingredients. As such, keep in mind that dogs need named animal proteins as the first ingredient in their dog food unless your veterinarian specifically told you that your dog needs carbohydrates as its principal food.

Be on the lookout for fillers, usually in the form of corn, wheat, soy, or other ingredients that may have very little nutrient value. Also, keep an eye on artificial ingredients such as colorings, preservatives, and flavorings. Steer clear of these.

Learn to compute the dry matter weight of the nutrient composition. The guaranteed analysis will usually come as minimum or maximum percentages. To compute the dry matter weight, you need to remove the moisture content. For example, you have dog food with a minimum protein content of 25% and a moisture content of 10%. Subtract 10% from 100% to get 90%. Now, divide 25% by 90% to get 27.78%. This means the dog food actually contains 27.78% proteins as dry matter, not 25%.

Compliance With Standards

Dog food manufacturers are also expected to specify in their products whether the recipe is for All Life Stages, Growth, Supplemental, or Maintenance. Sadly, not all dog food brands will put the appropriate classification in their labels and you really cannot help but wonder why. We cannot say to avoid these brands, but if its any indication, a pet food manufacturer that doesnt put an appropriate classification for its recipe is an indication of the manufacturers lack of understanding or utter disregard for standards.

Company History

Some pet food companies are relatively new in the business so it will be quite difficult to gauge the trustworthiness of their brand. Some have been in the business for many decades, yet are not really popular or are very difficult to source. There are dog food brands that are under giant multinational corporations. Overall you should always pay attention to the companys history and be on the lookout for consumer product issues such as complaints and the like.

History of Dog Food Recalls

It is rare for a pet food manufacturer not to have any of its products recalled. That is why dog food brands that have no history of dog food recalls are in a much better position to command respect from the dog-loving world. A dog food brand that has been in the business for quite some time and has yet to experience a recall of its products can be considered as one of the best since they are truly taking care of the quality and safety of their dog food formulations.

3 Things to Know Before You Choose the Dog Food Brand

Now that weve shared with you the things to look for in a dog food brand, the next logical step is to identify the best dog food. Here are three things you need to know before you order your first bag of dog food.

1. Age and Life Stage

It should be clear by now that choosing the best dog food is largely dependent on the age and life stage of your pet. This is because different dogs across the lifespan and in various stages of development will have different nutrient requirements.

For example, puppies require more protein and carbohydrates plus the correct proportion of calcium and phosphorus to ensure they will have the necessary nutrients to build muscles and organs, fuel their increased physical activities, and ensure stronger and well-developed bones, respectively. They also require special substances that will be crucial in the development of their brain, eyes, coat, and skin.

The same is true with senior dogs. Their physiologic functioning may no longer be as efficient as when they were younger. As such, they may require fewer calories while increasing their protein intake. They will also benefit more from dog foods that have substances to help improve mobility.

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Pregnant dogs as well as nursing dogs will typically follow the diet of a puppy, although a special formulation for lactating and pregnant dogs is ideal.

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2. Breed and Size

Theres this notion that dogs eat the same kind of food. After all, theyre just dogs. But the truth is that different breeds come with different needs when it comes to optimum nutrition. Some are more prone to allergies, so choosing a limited ingredient diet or dog food with less allergenic ingredients is a must.

Large dogs have different requirements from smaller ones. Small and toy breeds have very fast metabolic rates and will, thus, benefit more from a high-calorie diet. You cannot give the same high-calorie diet to large and giant breeds since you would want them to grow at a more normal pace.

So keep in mind your dogs breed and size whenever choosing the right dog food for your pet.

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3. Activity Level and Health

The third thing you have to know before buying dog food is your pets activity level and health status. If it is very active, then you go for a dog food that contains just the right amounts of calories to serve as fuel for its activities. We have to emphasize right amounts because you also have to be very careful not to give more calories than what your dog can burn; lest you turn it into an obese dog.

If your pet comes with arthritis, skin allergies, gluten sensitivities, diabetes, or any other medical condition, it is best to talk with your veterinarian first so youll have a much better grasp as to the type of dog food that you have to buy. However, there are dog foods that are formulated specifically for certain scenarios such as weight management, diabetes, hip dysplasia and arthritis, and a whole lot more.

Take a look at our guides on Weight Management Dog Food and Diabetic Dog Food.

Are There Certain Dog Food Brands for Specific-Sized Dogs?

We mentioned in the preceding section that one of the things you have to know before buying dog food is the breed and size of your pet. Heres why.

Large dogs, especially puppies, are at-risk for developmental orthopedic disorders such as hip dysplasia. As such, their rate of growth should be allowed to proceed at a much slower rate than smaller dog breeds. This is to ensure that the bones and joints will have time to develop at a normal rate rather than supply them with loads of nutrients leading to very rapid growth and development. They need food that is less energy-dense and has slightly lower levels of both calcium and phosphorus.

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On the other hand, smaller dogs have a very fast metabolism. As such, they can easily consume their energy stores within hours. If this is not replenished, it can lead to hypoglycemia. This can result in weakness, muscle tremors, lethargy, seizures, and even death. Smaller dog breeds require energy-dense dog food to be given 3 to 4 times a day. Besides, the stomachs of toy and small dog breeds are way smaller than large dogs. By making sure that a single serving of dog food packs more calories than a similar serving of large-breed dog food, you dont need to give more servings to your small dog.

Heres neat info to remember: Small dogs need about 40 calories for every pound of their body weight. Large dogs need only 22.5 calories per pound of body weight.

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As for dog food brands that have formulations for specific-sized dogs, the majority of the brands that we featured in this list have formulations for small and large breeds. These include Blue Buffalo, Wellness, Natural Balance, CANIDAE, Merrick, Fromm Family Pet Foods, and Wellness Core. Surprisingly, only one dog food brand provides size-specific formulas in all 5 size classifications of dogs (toy, small, medium, large, and giant) Purina Pro Plan. Taste of the Wild, Rachael Ray Nutrish, and Pure Balance only provide for small breeds. Both Nutro and Hills Science Diet have formulations for toy, small, and large breeds while Orijen only has a single recipe designed especially for large breeds of dogs.

Best Holistic Dog Food: What to Look for in a Holistic Food

Reading the health claims on a pet food package is like reading the headlines from the tabloids that line the checkout aisle at the grocery store you cant always believe what you read.

Pet food manufacturers do their best to make their products as appealing to pet owners as possible and they use some pretty clever tricks to encourage you to pick their brand over another brand.

One of the tactics pet food manufacturers use is plastering their product labels with words and health claims and that give you a positive impression of the product the word holistic is an example.

Keep reading to learn what holistic means in its application for pet food and to receive some tips for shopping for a holistic pet food product for your dog.

What Are the Top 7 Brands of Holistic Dog Food?

If youre looking for a pet food product that will nourish your dogs body from the inside out, a holistic dog food might be the way to go.

Holistic pet foods may not have a standard definition but you can count on them to offer high-quality, natural nutrition in complete and balanced formulas. To help you get started with your search for the ideal holistic formula for your dog, here are some quick reviews for our top six choices in holistic dog food brands:

1. Nom Nom Fresh Pet Food

If you want to give your dog the best of the best, consider Nom Nom Fresh Pet Food Delivery. Nom Nom delivers freshly prepared dog food right to your door. Simply fill out some information about your dog online and choose a recipe the pros at Nom Nom will do the rest!

Nom Nom is a premium dog food company making gourmet dog food when you order it. They have a variety of recipes to choose from that are suitable for all breeds and life stages.

You wont find many ingredients at all, and never colors or dyes. Every recipe is hand made from the highest quality ingredients, used in part and in whole.

You can customize your dogs meals to his unique calorie requirements, and you can rest easy knowing that they use only the highest quality ingredients.

Keep in mind that fresh food is fairly pricey, and youll be paying quite a bit if you feed your beloved dog Nom Nom as a staple diet, but its hard to beat the quality and the difference you see in your dogs overall health status will be noticeable!

Nom Nom has recently come out with the Fresh Variety Pack, which I think is a marvelous idea. With this food pack, you can get 200g of each of Nom Nom's four pet cuisines so you can try each out and see which flavor your dog might take to the best. (Its also always a good idea to trial food first to see how your pup does on it.)

As a devoted fur parent, my dogs health is foremost on my mind. That's why I've been a regular customer of Nom Nom for quite some time now. I can truly say that Its fresh recipes have made a huge difference in my pets' health and vitality.

2. Earthborn Holistic

With a name like Earthborn Holistic, you shouldnt be surprised to learn that this brand follows a wholesome approach to pet nutrition, designing each product to nourish your dogs whole body from the inside out.

Every recipe features premium ingredients for balanced nutrition that supports your dog physical health and total wellbeing. Earthborn Holistic offers an assortment of original and grain-free dry dog foods as well as several canned food formulas they also offer moist grain-free dog treats and oven-baked grain-free dog treats.

For their dry foods, Holistic Select has several life stages formulas for puppies through adult dogs as well as recipes made for small breed dogs. No matter what your dogs needs may be, this brand has a product to match.

3. Holistic Select

The Holistic Select brand of pet food has been in business for just over ten years but they have already made a name for themselves in the natural pet food industry. This brand makes it their mission to provide natural nutrition for dogs and cats, believing strongly in a philosophy that total-body health begins with digestive health.

All of Holistic Selects products are supplemented with their Unique Digestive Health Support System which includes natural fibers, prebiotics, probiotics, and digestive enzymes as well as other healthy and natural ingredients.

Holistic Select dog foods come in dry food and canned food form including original and grain-free recipes. This brand also offers a selection of formulas for dogs in all life stages as well as breed size and healthy weight recipes.

4. Annamaet

The Annamaet pet food company was founded by Rob Downey in 1986 and it has remained a family-owned and -operated company. This brand offers holistic pet food products that are made in the USA using premium ingredients.

Every recipe is an example of complete and balanced nutrition, formulated using the finest quality ingredients to ensure that your dog gets more of the nutrients he needs and less of the things he doesnt.

Annamaet currently only offers dry dog food formulas and there are eleven recipes to choose from. This brand uses premium proteins like wild-caught salmon, free-range venison, breast meat chicken, and fresh duck in recipes that offer anywhere from 23% to 32% protein.

Annamaet offers a selection of original and grain-free recipes as well as formulas for working or performance breeds and breeds of different sizes.

5. Halo Holistic

Halo Holistic line of dog foods which they describe as, the best dog food ever. Every recipe is designed to promote the health and happiness of pets throughout their entire lifetime. Halo Holistic dog foods are made with real meat proteins, wholesome carbohydrates, and fresh fruits and vegetables.

They offer a blend of omega fatty acids for healthy skin and coat, not to mention plenty of antioxidants and other healthy nutrients. Halo offers a selection of original and grain-free formulas featuring real WHOLE meat, poultry, or fish, and no meat meal of any kind.

Many of their recipes are designed for puppies and dogs of specific sizes as well, so you can choose the formula that best suits your dogs individual needs.

6. Fromm Gold

A family-owned and -operated business, Fromm follows a holistic approach to pet nutrition in their Gold line of products. This product line features recipes in three categories Heartland Gold (grain-free red meat), Gold Coast (grain-free ocean fish), and Fromm Gold (an original recipe with duck, chicken, and lamb.

Every recipe in the Gold lineup is made in small batches in company-owned facilities in Wisconsin to ensure quality and safety. Choose from a dozen different recipes for dry food products and seven canned food formulas.

The products in this lineup are formulated for dogs in all life stages including puppies, adults, and senior dogs. There is also a weight management and a reduced activity recipe, plus formulas for small and giant breeds.

7. Solid Gold

The Solid Gold pet food company was founded in 1974 by Sissy Harrington McGill, an animal lover who made it her mission to create a nutritious, natural food that would keep her own dogs happy and healthy.

The brands first product, Hund-N-Flocken was a big success and the company now offers a well-developed line of natural and holistic dry dog foods. Solid Gold makes what they call pet food with purpose and their products are made with powerful proteins, digestible carbohydrates, and vitamin-rich super foods.

Every recipe is designed to unlock your pets healthiest self, so they dont use any corn, wheat, or soy ingredients and their products are free from artificial additives as well. Simply put, Solid Gold offers healthy, holistic formulas that deliver quality nutrition the way nature intended.

What Does Holistic Mean?

The FDA has a long list of specific definitions for the words food manufacturers use on their packaging. The American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) performs a similar role for animal feed and pet food that the FDA performs for people food. They monitor and regulate the manufacture and sale of pet food products, including the use of certain health claims.

What many pet owners dont know, however, is that pet food is much more loosely regulated than people food, especially when it comes to what a manufacturer can put on their packaging.

Some of the words you see plastered across pet food bags dont actually have a set definition according to the FDA or AAFCO this means that pet food manufacturers can pretty much use them however they like.

But what does this mean for you? It means that you cant always believe what you read and you need to take the time to make your own evaluation of a pet food product before you buy it.

Though the word holistic doesnt have a specific definition according to the FDA or AAFCO, it does have certain connotations. According to Merriam-Webster, the word holistic means, relating to or concerned with wholes or complete systems rather than with the analysis of or dissection into parts.

To put it into context, holistic medicine involves practices that attempt to treat the whole person, both mind and body. Keeping this context in mind, you might understand holistic pet food to include products that are designed to support your dogs total-body health and wellness products that go beyond just meeting your dogs minimum nutritional requirements.

The ingredients in holistic dog food are selected carefully and with a purpose to ensure that your dog gets all of the essential nutrients he needs and nothing he doesnt.

What Should You Look for in a Holistic Dog Food?

Because holistic dog foods are designed to nourish your dogs total body health and wellness, it is generally safe to assume that they are high-quality products. Just remember, however, that you should always take the time to evaluate the quality of a pet food for yourself before you buy. The beauty of holistic dog food is that it doesnt just meet your dogs needs for energy and nutrients it ca provide other benefits which may include the following:

• Improved skin and coat health
• A stronger immune system
• Healthy and regular digestion
• Improved heart health
• Strong, healthy teeth and bones
• Sharp vision and hearing

In order for a holistic dog food to provide these benefits, however, it needs to be made with high-quality ingredients. When shopping around for a holistic dog food formula, that is exactly what you need to look for quality ingredients.

It is always a good idea to start evaluating a pet food product by looking at the guaranteed analysis to make sure that it doesnt just meet your dogs bare minimum requirements for protein and fat. Generally speaking, the higher the protein content of a dog food formula the better.

Higher fat content is usually a good thing as well, but only if it doesnt lead to an excess of calories. Your dog will need more fat in his diet while he is a growing puppy but his metabolism will slow down a little as he ages, causing his need for calories to decrease slightly as well.

Once youve determined that the dog food you are looking at has the right protein and fat ratios, you should move on to examining the list of ingredients. Holistic pet foods should always have a high-quality source of animal protein as the first ingredient consider it a bonus if the first two or three ingredients are all premium proteins.

You also want to see digestible carbohydrates near the top of the list, though they dont necessarily need to be grain-free. If your dog struggles with an allergy or sensitivity to grains you should by all means avoid those ingredients but whole grains can be valuable ingredients to include in a holistic dog food formula.

You should also look for high-quality animal-based fats like chicken fat or salmon oil these ingredients provide a concentrated source of energy as well as essential fatty acids to support your dogs brain, skin, and coat health.

In addition to knowing what ingredients to look for in holistic pet food products, you should also know what ingredients to avoid. If a product contains artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives it probably isnt a holistic recipe. You want to see all natural ingredients, no chemicals or by-products.

Holistic foods also tend to be free from hormones, antibiotics, and steroids as well as GMO ingredients. It is not necessarily a requirement but a bonus if the product includes organic or certified ingredients. Dont be too concerned if the brand doesnt qualify as a human grade pet food.

In order for a product to truly qualify as human grade they need to use human grade ingredients and manufacture their products in human food facilities there are only a handful of brands out there that meet this requirement.

All in all, a holistic pet food should start with a high-quality source of protein and carbohydrate then be supplemented with other natural ingredients and beneficial supplements.

Dog food comes in many different forms from dozens of different brands. To some degree, the words a pet food brand uses to describe their own products should be taken with a grain of salt but brands that describe their products as holistic generally mean it.

Holistic dog foods are made with the finest quality ingredients in healthy, wholesome formulas designed to support your dogs total health and wellness. If youd like to give holistic dog food a try, start your search with one of our top six choices reviewed above.