To select the best dog food for your dog, you must examine the label on the dog food carefully. Do not just scan through it. You need to read everything it says.

The ingredients of the dog food will be listed in the order from largest weight to smallest. This allows you to know what specific foods in what amounts are present in the food.

- Whenever the first line on the ingredients list is some kind of whole meat, you can ignore it because this number is calculated before even the meat is processed.

- Animal by-products that exist in dog food reflect a low quality dog food.

- See the level of moisture: if it is over 11, this means that the dry matter basis is inferior in quality.

Things to pay careful attention to:

- When chicken or beef meal is the first ingredient listed on the ingredients list, this is a good sign. This means that the the protein level is much higher than it would be should whole meat be listed as the first ingredient.

- The good thing about premium dog foods is that they don't contain animal by-products.

- Premium dog foods usually have at most 10% moisture, which is very good.

The difference between chicken meal and chicken is that chicken meal means that it has been cooked to destroy bacteria, while chicken is just pure chicken.

Chicken is made up mostly of water. If a label on a bag of dog food says 60% whole chicken that is quite misleading as that does not take into account how much of that 60% of chicken is left after baking it to remove unwanted substances. So beware.

Moreover, if it says 60% chicken meal, then the advantage goes to you as the buyer because in this case the chicken has been cooked to kill bacteria.

Since there are a wide variety of dog food today, the best way to ensure that your dog has a healthy diet is to always be aware of the ingredients in the dog food.

You have to ensure that your dog is getting healthy dog food with good nutrients. If not, your dog's health will deteriorate and he will fall ill. In some very critical conditions, he might even die.

Although you may save some money by going for inferior quality dog food, believe me when I say that you and your dog will suffer in the end if you choose to do it this way. My advice to you is give your beloved the dog only the best dog food.