What's In Your Kibble by Denise Call (Denise is a breeder, show competitor, trainer, and vice-president of Tidewater Golden Retriever Club.) What's really in that bag of dog food you feed every day? What are all those ingredients listed on the label? What's not listed I should know about? In my year and a half of feeding raw here is what I have learned from various sources. I have spoken to vets, dog food manufacturers, read books, cruised the internet, and gleaned from articles and health journals all I could about what goes into dog food and how it is made and packaged. The following is not pretty and sometimes down right disturbing, but I believe it is information everyone should be aware of before they open their next bag of kibble. Let's start with the label. All dog foods have to meet MDR or minimum daily requirements established by the government. Well that sounds good doesn't it? To achieve this rating foods are fed to a group of test dogs for a set period of time. The test subjects receive only the food tested, no supplementation is allowed. If at the end of the test period no dogs have gotten sick or died, the food receives its MDR rating. That's comforting, isn't it! MDR - the minimum daily requirements to sustain life. Think about it. It was stated in one article that you could cut up cardboard, spray it with vitamins and meet the MDR established for dog food. How about how all those ingredients that are listed on the label. We all know to look for the first ingredient to be meat right? That means the most plentiful ingredient in the bag is meat, right? Guess again! Our dog food manufacturers have figured out a way around this and still keep meat listed as first ingredient. How? After the first ingredient, all others are listed in descending order of amounts contained in the product. Usually the next ingredient listed is some type of grain product - be it corn wheat or rice. Our smart manufacturers have broken down that second ingredient into it's components. In this way each component is less in weight than the meat source so the meat stays as the number one ingredient. Do you follow me? For example instead of saying rice the label will read: rice bran, rice hulls, rice gluten, rice middlings. This is all rice folks, plain and simple. Now lets move on and look at what all those ingredients really are. The following list is what I call RED FLAG ingredients - a warning that it is not fit to be consumed by animals or humans. Meat: Most meat in dog foods are labeled 4D - meaning dead, dying, diseased or disabled - not fit for human consumption. All of us have seen sale dates on meat, right? What happens to meat once it is past date of sale? It goes to dog food companies. All those packages are sliced open and dumped in 50 gallon containers. It all goes in together - beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fish - it doesn't matter. Then it sits; sometimes on a loading dock all day, waiting for pickup. Meat By Products: A mixture of contaminated animal heads, toe nails, bones, blood, pus, intestines, feathers, hair and lungs. Renderings, Rendered By Products, or Rendered Meats: This one should have a skull and cross bones on it. Any and all sources of meat are processed to become this product - be it in chunks, fats slices or oils. The source for rendered material includes "meat" from animal shelters and veterinarian offices around the country. Millions of pets are put to sleep every week. Fluffy is not buried folks unless you specifically ask and pay for it. Bodies are routinely sold to rendering plants to be made into dog food. A lot of these are full of diseases, tumors and cancers. Bodies are rendered with collars, tags and all. This adds a bit of toxic metals, plastics and nylons to your pets foods. And let's not forget the shot that put Fluffy to sleep. According to the AVA, the American Veterinary Association, the sodium pentobarbital used to euthanize pets survives the rendering process and ends up as a toxin in pet foods. Note: In the rendering process no testing is conducted to detect drugs, pathogens, heavy metals or pesticides. Animal Fats: A nicer name for rendered products and or recycled restaurant grease. Millings: Anything swept off the floor - grain hulls, shafts, dirt, grease, grime, cleaning chemicals. Proylene Glycol: An additive used as a flavor enhancer. It gives things a sweet taste and makes it more palatable. This chemical comes from the same family of chemicals used to make anti freeze. BHA and BHT: Preservatives used to keep foods from going rancid and prolong shelf life. The only problem is they have been shown to cause liver and kidney disfunction. Ethoxoquin: Another preservative which is a known carcinogen. Note: Most of us know to look for BHA, BHT and Ethoxoquin and try to avoid foods with them listed on labels. Unfortunately the dog food company only has to list on it's label what it adds to foods. If the product they purchase has these chemicals added as a "preservative," by law they do not have to list it on their labels. You may be getting ingredients you think you're not. All these ingredients are then heat processed at very high temperatures and extruded into pellets. The extrusion process is the same used to make PVC pipe. The ingredients are heated to a molten state then extruded (pushed) through a form then quickly cooled to harden. This process severely diminishes any nutritional value that was present. After all this, vitamins and minerals are sprayed on using grease or animal fats. One final word before I sum up. Check you labels often. Manufacturers change their ingredients due to availability. The labeling laws give companies a grace period to make changes in labels. In other words, company X may print 10,000 labels with specific listed ingredients, but by law, they can change ingredients and use up their old labels before reprinting the changes. Not every commercial food out there has all of these RED FLAG ingredients, but most have one or some. You have to remember your pet gets the bad with the good at every meal, every day his entire life. He has no choices. But you, as his care taker, do. Take the time read your label find out what you are putting in your dog. Educate yourself for the health of you dog. Do the best you can do. Find a food with no RED FLAG ingredients. Choose a label that says "whole meat products" instead of "by products." Don't purchase a product if it has rendered anything in it. You may want to skip processed food altogether and go to a home-made "raw" diet. Take control. I did and the rewards in your pet's health are worth the cost and effort.

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