Feeding your dog well is an important part of the process of loving and taking care of him. You care, which is why he doesn’t live on apple slices and bacon fat. And because you care, you want more than just mediocre dog food. The first decision in picking out dog food often revolves around the age-old dry dog food vs. canned debate.
If you’ve ever noticed (and there are, of course, exceptions to this observation), people with large dogs tend to grab armloads of 50-pound bags of dry food at the pet store. Meanwhile, people with small dogs grab one of those little red plastic shopping baskets and fill it with treats and cans of petite dog food. Is there a reason for this? Do small dogs need to gnaw on the soft, slick content of canned food, while big dogs need the challenge of crunching dry food pieces into oblivion? Well, probably not.
Should I Feed Kibble or Canned Dog Food?
There are some dogs who absolutely must have canned dog food, but these dogs have an obvious reason. For example, dogs that are missing vital chewing teeth need canned dog food. Dogs raised solely on canned food are unlikely to make the switch to dry food later in life. This is similar to asking someone who has eaten oatmeal every morning for the last sixty years to suddenly wake up and start eating peanut brittle for breakfast. There’s comfort in the softness and ease of a puddled meal, and something disconcerting in the effort of crunching, whether you’re a sixty-year-old man or a dog who has lived solely on canned food.
Canned dog food is almost always more appetizing to dogs. There are plenty of theories to explain this, though none are fully backed by facts. Some people believe it’s more attractive to dogs because it’s not as healthy for them. This depends entirely on which line of dog food you’re selecting. If you’re feeding your dog filler-laden hard dog food, there are many high-protein canned options out there that would easily outperform the dry food at the nutrition counter.
Hard dog food has numerous advantages over the soft stuff. In the “dry dog food vs. canned debate,” dry dog food comes out ahead with its ability to help clean a dog’s teeth (most dry dog food eaters tend to have better breath than those who eat soft food), its ease of storage and handling (dry food can be left out for free feeders, while wet food must be consumed on a schedule), and its ability to provide the necessary chew and crunch that dogs need to stay healthy. The chew and crunch that dogs crave harken back to their primal wild pack days, when chewing and crunching were stress-relieving signs of power and prowess.
However, dry dog food also has some cons, especially when it comes to crude protein and fatty acids. Most dry foods contain a high level of wheat byproducts, while wet food is more likely to have appropriate levels of crude protein, which is essential for healthy pups. This might seem like a contradiction to what I mentioned earlier, but it isn’t. While the brand you choose is definitely important, there are still trends to be aware of.
If, by chance, you had to pick a dog food off the shelf, with no idea of the brand or a chance to check ingredients, your chances of picking a lower-quality food with high wheat filler would be greater if you chose the dry food. This is because wet food is made with a more obvious blend of ingredients. It’s harder to sneak a high concentration of wheat and filler into a wet mixture. Just like adding wheat to soup, if you add too much, the soup becomes more like paste than soup. But with dry food, making those hard, crunchy little pieces is easier when you use a high level of wheat. This doesn’t apply to every dog food on the market, but it is a common factor that often contributes to poorer quality dog food.
Dogs can often be found grazing in the backyard, seemingly interested in eating their leafy greens. While a certain amount of vegetables can add necessary vitamins and minerals to their diet, dogs are primarily carnivores. They need the nutrition of hearty meat eaters. Even the small, dainty breeds need to have the same type of nutrition as the game they would take down in the wild. This is what their bodies are made to thrive on, and it’s what they crave. Naturally, there have been times when we’ve had no idea what we were feeding our dogs. The unfortunate dog food poisoning incidents woke us up, reminding us that the pet food industry is not strictly regulated. Unless we do our due diligence and serve our dogs high-quality food, we are just mindless consumers. Thankfully, we are smarter consumers now.
What Matters Most in Feeding Your Dog
What matters most, in ending the dry dog food vs. canned debate, is that the food we feed our pups is as healthy as possible. Dogs who eat only canned food should have other opportunities to chew on things, clean their teeth, and satisfy their need for a hearty crunch. On the other hand, dogs who eat dry food should be given the occasional delectable treat. Balancing the crunch with tasty treats is just one more aspect of providing the most loving and specialized care we can for our dogs.
