Do you know how to find the best dog food for your Morkie? What to look for and what to avoid? Here are 7 handy tips to guide you in picking healthy dog food for your Morkie –whether it’s dry food (kibble) or canned.

Why can’t we just trust manufacturers?

Commercial dog food is a multi-billion dollar industry; it is much bigger than baby food. In 2015, we spent $60.28 billion on our pets in the U.S. Pet food alone represents $23 BILLION in sales per year, compared to baby food, at $1.25 billion.

The pet food industry is one of the most profitable in the world. And it’s growing by leaps and bounds every year.

With a profitable market this size, it’s all about marketing pet food, not necessarily making excellent dog food.

Like cigarette makers in the 1950s and 60s, pet food manufacturers:

• lie to us about what’s in their products
• use terrible ingredients
• spend tons of money on advertising
• ignore existing regulations without any penalty
• “regulate” themselves
• know full well that what they make is killing our pets

So, unfortunately, you must do your own research to find a reliable and good-quality dog food manufacturer. 

Weigh the pros and cons of kibble versus canned dog food

Canned dog foods typically have much less grain and carbs than kibble, which needs these ingredients to bind the product together.

Canned food can have fewer preservatives since the canning process takes care of that; however, canned food typically uses a lot of thickening agents such as carrageenan, which has been associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), acid reflux, and intestinal ulceration.

Most dog food cans today are lined with Bisphenol-A (BPA), declared a toxin in many parts of the world.

Kibble costs less per serving and is more convenient to use; however it less protein-dense, so your Morkie must eat more to get the same benefits.

Diet Rotation

You wouldn’t want to eat the same food, day after day, year after year. Neither does your dog. Plus, no single brand is perfect. The answer is diet rotation.

It’s simple. Every few months, slowly change your Morkie’s food (dry, moist or canned) to another brand or another type within the same brand.
Do the changeover slowly, so you don’t trigger GI upsets and diarrhea. Add about 1/4 new to the old food for a week, increase it weekly until it’s all-new food.

ALWAYS AVOID FOOD WITH:

• generic descriptions like meat, poultry, and fish
• “meat byproducts” 

• Avoid all dog foods with animal digest, including a named meat digest.

• Avoid food with “meat and bone meal” even if the meat is named.

• CORN in the top 5 ingredients

• Avoid dog foods with more than one carbohydrate in the first 5 ingredients.
• Avoid dog foods with a generic fat source, rendered fat or beef tallow.
• Avoid food with BHA, BHT, Ethoxyquin, and PG (Propylene Glycol).
• Avoid food with added sugars and watch for its other names.

Do dogs need carbohydrates?

Meat is a quality, complete protein. It contains all ten essential amino acids — nutrients dogs cannot live without. Plus, dogs can easily digest it, especially compared to plant proteins like corn or grain. But high quality, meat-based proteins are also the single most expensive ingredients in dog foods. So manufacturers use grains and other carbohydrates as fillers that also deliver some protein.

The problem is, dogs don’t need corn, or wheat, barley rice, soybean meal, dried beet pulp, and potatoes. Carbohydrates aren’t necessarily bad for your dog, but they’re just not needed for good nutrition. For a small dog like a Morkie, food with too much corn or grain can fill him up before he gets enough quality meat protein.

Kibble has to have some form of carbohydrate in the recipe to bind it together, but grains shouldn’t be at the top of the ingredients lists.

The best compromise especially for kibble 

Avoid dog foods with more than one carbohydrate in the first 5 ingredients.

Here are the first 5 ingredients in a popular —  but very poor quality — kibble, Alpo Prime Cuts Savory Beef Flavor. As you can see there’s virtually no ‘meat’ in this food.

Tip #3: Avoid these Top Three Offenders 

Watch for these ingredients on the label – none belongs in your pet’s food and some can even shorten his life.

3. Corn

There is no nutritious value in any dog food that lists corn as the first ingredient. It is a useless filler that is a known cause of allergies and is difficult for dogs to digest.

And in the wild – ever see a wolf break into a cornfield to steal a cob or two?

What does “organic” mean on a dog food label?

Look very carefully at how the main protein source is described

You would expect food that’s called “chicken” and lists “real chicken” as the main ingredient, would include chicken. Not so fast.

The food can be made up of chicken by-products, which is essentially slaughterhouse waste. Beaks, heads, and feet. But the picture on the left is the one that will appear on the package.

Download this free one-pager “Pick This Not That”