Different types of dry food are bought for the dog time and time again. Either the food doesn’t suit the dog at all, the number and size of poop bags aren’t enough during a walk, or acquaintances and strangers in the Facebook world condemn the food as low-quality. At some point, people start asking for a recommendation for a good brand of dry food.
My basic response is that any mid-priced food that reasonably suits the dog’s stomach, to which meat is added – thus moving to a 50/50 diet.
But the question of good or quality food is not limited to just dry food. The same question is asked in the raw feeding community – is this meat good for the dog.
It’s genuinely impossible to answer this question. It’s somewhat a matter of values, where dry food brands are ranked in order of preference based on the product description, the amount of meat, brand, and price – but truly, people list foods they have been satisfied with. And that is different from what is quality food for a dog.
The same applies to meat, but since the nutritional content of dry foods is always the same (other than the amounts of proteins and fats, but the same applies to meat), the quality of meat is also defined by what the owner seeks for the dog from the meat.
If a complete diet is desired, then basic minced meat of one type is very poor because it is not a complete diet. If the dog tends to lose weight easily, then horse meat is often poor, even if some owner of a dog with intestinal issues praises it. If whole sea fish is minced, it is nutritionally high-quality, but for a dog with acid reflux, it is often a really poor choice.
And once again, the answers reflect more what the respondent feeds than what meat product would be good or quality by any measure.
On a general level, the answer is easy, and it’s not popular: any dry food is good when it suits the dog and the owner willingly pays for it.
