The Salt Divider

Woohoo, so I finally have internet, we've made the move to Labrador and all is well.

I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to what my dogs eat. Growing up of course we fed them whatever was at the grocery store. We didn’t see any harm in it; the bag and the TV ads made it look like a good food, like we were giving them the healthiest stuff on the planet. As I got older and more into pet care I was horrified, worse when my Lab mix ended up having a lot of terminal health problems that were commonly associated with foods like that. My parents were never convinced that there were better foods out there, that the ones on the TV ads and in grocery stores were not healthy. The other foods were too expensive and he was just a dog, a much loved family dog but just a dog none the less. My current dogs are fed a much healthier diet of high quality kibbles and prey model raw.

For the most part we all know things such by-products should be avoided and that the first 5 ingredients are the most important, but while cruising the internet today I came across what is called “the salt divider”. I’d never heard of it before and it peaked my interest as I am always open to new information regarding my dogs’ health. Salt is a marker of ingredient quantity in pet food, anything listed after salt on the ingredient list is generally so minimal (less than 1% of the diet) that it barely counts. So if your feeding a food for a certain health benefit such as urinary issues and want a food with cranberries in it and it is listed below salt (salt has several names so you might have to look it up) the fact is that in that 30lb bag of food the amount of cranberry is pretty much equal to that of a cranberry.  That’s pretty sad and misleading. You’re better off buying fresh cranberries or a urinary supplement to add to their food.

So of course after reading about this I decided to check the bags of food I currently had. Woof eats Chicken Soup for the Soul Adult Weight Care, it helps with his pancreatitis as the fat level is fairly low. Salt isn’t listed until the 7^th and 6^th to last ingredient, after that pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, rioboflavin (vitamin B2), vitamin D supplement, folic acid are listed. Not bad.