Dog Health Food Your Poodle Could Be Suffering From The Wrong Food

Your Poodle deserves the best food and today more than ever before dog health food is becoming a vital part of keeping your pet healthy. We've all seen the news report about contaminated batches of dog food causing sickness and even death. I know I always wonder where the next batch is going to land and if my best friend is going to suffer from it.

More companies look for ways to cut costs by sourcing cheaper ingredients wherever possible. This isn't going to always be the best thing for your dog though.

A couple of years ago there was a very widespread recall of dog food after it was found that there was melamine (a type of plastic) in some of the ingredients. After some work it was found that imported cereal proteins (which have little nutritional value in the first place) which was the culprit. But really what this means is that it doesn't matter what the standards are in the US based production if the ingredients they are using are already tainted.

This may have been a couple of years ago but I would like to know what has changed to prevent it happening again. Considering there was melamine found in milk powder produced under much stricter human food standards recently, I don't have much confidence that it isn't going to happen again. I certainly don't want to have my dog suffer because of some mix up on a production line.

Apart from the accidental poisonings, what else really goes into your dog food? A toxic preservative called ethoxyquin is often added but won't appear on the ingredients list as it's often added before the production process. Usually this additive is found in fish meal, so if it's in your dog food, I'd be thinking very seriously about changing foods. Ethoxyquin has been linked to side effects from severe allergic reactions and skin problems to cancer and liver failure.

Often fish protein is promoted as being a healthy ingredient for you dog, and it's true that there are other vital nutrients in fish, but that doesn't outweigh having a potential carcinogen in your dog food. There's other ways to get those nutrients that are going to be a lot safer for your dog.

And then there's the grain fillers that are often used to bulk out dog food. These fillers, things like corn and rice protein, have very little nutritional value for dogs. Most of the time it's just a way to use leftover products from human food and has little to do with nourishment for your dog.

This should make you start thinking about what you're really feeding your Poodle. Dog health food and especially home made food is one of the easiest ways to make sure that there is no harmful additives going into your dog's meal.