I’ve worked at a vet’s office and asked one of the one’s I really trusted, what they would recommend for my new dog. He said “None” of the commercially produced ones. When I asked why, he said it was because there are no quality standards for pet food.

There could be variations between one batch and another. One lot could cause diarrhoea, another dull coat, intermittent vomiting or skin problems. Since you change what batches you feed your dog over time, you will never know what caused the problem.

You would be shocked what goes into dog food.

Products unfit for human consumption are put into dog food. That includes rendered pets. Yes, euthanized and animals that die from disease are rendered into products that end up in your dog food. Supporters of this practice say that the product is sterilized so that no diseases are transmitted. When you read pet-food labels and it says meat or bone meal, that’s what it is — cooked and converted animals, including some dogs and cats. Even worse than the thought of our dogs becoming cannibals is the process that the flesh goes through to become bone meal. This meat and bone must be treated with toxic chemicals to render it to product.

Since many of the condemned animals are euthanized, dog food contains sodium Pentabarbital. There is also heavy metal contamination such as lead from our environment. While food for human consumption must meet strict standards, dog food does not.

So think long and hard before you feed your dog that food from the supermarket that is labelled healthy dog food. It probably is not.