Understanding the Label
Knowing how to read a dog-food label is a must if you want to choose the best food for your Lab. Important parts of the label that you already know about are the statement of nutritional adequacy — “complete and balanced for growth” or “complete and balanced for all life stages” — and the claim that a food's nutritional value has been proven with AAFCO feeding studies. The next thing to study is the ingredient list.
What's in It?
The label must list ingredients by weight in decreasing order. In other words, the first ingredient — which ideally is some form of animal protein — cannot be exceeded in weight by any of the ingredients that come after it.
Be aware that manufacturers can get around this requirement by a practice called split-ingredient labeling. This involves spreading out, or splitting, ingredients of the same type so they appear farther down the label. For instance, a grain such as corn, rice, or wheat might appear on the label in several different forms, such as flour, flakes, middlings, or bran. A food labeled in this way might end up containing more protein from plant sources than from animal sources.
When you find a food you like, continue to check the label every once in a while to make sure the ingredients remain the same. The best dog food manufacturers use a fixed formula — meaning that the ingredients don't change from batch to batch — but others change ingredients based on availability and market prices. Some dogs with sensitive stomachs can suffer digestive upsets from this kind of unexpected change in ingredients.
You might see certain dog foods described as “premium.” These are usually expensive foods that you find only in pet supply stores. The difference between premium and nonpremium foods is density per volume — in other words, a cup of a premium food generally has more usable nutrients than a cup of nonpremium food.
Name Calling
Can you tell anything from a food's name? Surprisingly, yes. There are strict regulations concerning what a food can be called. Let's say that you're looking at a can that reads “Grandma's Chicken for Canines.” That food must contain 95 percent chicken, not counting the water used for processing. Once the water is accounted for, the food must still contain at least 70 percent chicken. If the name includes a combination of ingredients — “Grandma's Chicken and Beef for Canines” — chicken and beef must make up 95 percent of the total weight (excluding water), and the food must contain more chicken than beef.
A food name that contains a qualifier such as “dinner,” “entrée,” “formula,” “nuggets,” or “platter” must contain at least 25 percent of the named ingredient — lamb, let's say. So “Grandma's Lamb Dinner for Dogs” contains at least 25 percent, but less than 95 percent lamb. What if Grandma makes a lamb-and-beef dinner? The lamb and beef together must make up 25 percent of the product, with at least 3 percent being beef.
Sometimes you'll see a food that highlights a special ingredient, such as bacon or cheese. Manufacturers can list these tasty ingredients if they make up at least 3 percent of the food. If you see Grandma's Beef Dinner for Dogs “with cheese,” you know that it contains at least 3 percent cheese. If it says “with cheese and bacon,” it must contain at least 3 percent of each ingredient.
Guaranteed Analysis
What else can you learn from the label? Look for the guaranteed analysis. This states the minimum percentages of crude protein and fat and maximum percentages of crude fiber and moisture. Sometimes it includes guarantees for other nutrients, such as calcium, phosphorus, sodium, and linoleic acid.
Because canned food has more moisture than dry food, you'll see differences between the two in the levels of crude protein and most other nutrients. To compare nutrient levels between canned and dry food, multiply the guarantees for the canned food by four. For example, if you're looking at a canned food with a guaranteed analysis of 8 percent protein, and a dry food with a guaranteed analysis of 21 percent protein, you would multiply that 8 percent by four to come up with a dry-matter percentage of 32 percent protein for the canned food.
The label also lists feeding guidelines, which are only a rough estimate. Each Lab is different, so you'll need to experiment to find the right amount of food for your dog. If he starts looking chubby, cut down. If he looks too thin, add more. Remember that a growing Lab or one that works hard in the field all day needs more food than one that lies around the house while you're at work.
