WDJ 2009 Approved Dry Dog Foods

[Anie]

I just read the Feb issue too! I actually feed my mini schnauzer Addiction and he really really likes it! Why would you consider the protein level too low? I've been feeding him this brand for a couple of years now and he's doing so well. I have to say I quite like the WDJ articles, there was a good one on cognitive dysfunction disorder (or something like that) end last year.

[LabbieMama]

I don't see anything wrong with the WDJ, I have subscribed for 3 years but now I just have too many dog-related publications coming in and want to scale back. I think the WDJ has some very helpful articles that I know I have benefited from as well as my friends.

[Lovemymunchkins]

I appreciate the WDJ for what it is...I certainly wouldn't call it the dog owners Bible, but, it certainly does a lot more for educating the general pet owning population than some other dog magazines I've subscribed to in the past.

I noticed in this months article before it listed the approved dry dog food listing for the year there was a note saying how if you really wanted to feed your dog the "best" food, you would home cook or feed raw food but if you couldn't do either of those, the list they provided were kibbles they felt were acceptable to feed your dog. They weren't really encouraging kibble but, saying, if you were going to feed kibble they felt these were the better ones....at least that's what I got out of it anyway...

I do like how they put what company makes each dog food...I think that is helpful information to a lot of people and they do have some interesting articles as far as training goes...

[LabbieMama]

I'm bumping this up so lovemymunchkins can see this thread, too.

[Lovemymunchkins]

I'm bumping this up so lovemymunchkins can see this thread, too.

I see the foods now, on the first page....wow...don't know how I missed that! Sorry again, hopefully someone can remove my other thread, I didn't know they had been posted....

[Akitasrule]

I subscribed to WDJ a couple of years ago specifically for their pet food evaluation. My impression was that they put very high emphasis on "actual" content % over "top five" ingredients because of the moisture level of meats.
My question is... are they truly autonomous? Are they able to evaluate the"quality" of the dog food without pressure from the suppliers? Based on the general low rankings of the "big name" brands I would have guessed that they were unbiased ratings. Where would you recommend a better, unbaised evaluation of wet and dry dog foods? I, like my Akita, am ALL EARS!

[LabbieMama]

..... Where would you recommend a better, unbaised evaluation of wet and dry dog foods?

I would suggest dog food analysis Dog Food Analysis - Reviews of kibble and click on the Reviews tab. Doesn't seem to be biased to me at all. A decent kibble in my opinion would have a 4 star rating or higher.

[Brodster]

Anyone know why no Champion Foods, Orijen or Acana make the WDJ list?

[buddy97]

Anyone know why no Champion Foods, Orijen or Acana make the WDJ list?

i think i recall reading somewhere that they were erroneously left off the 2009 list but added later.

here is the 2010 list:

Whole Dog Journal

[ziggy29]

I subscribed to WDJ a couple of years ago specifically for their pet food evaluation. My impression was that they put very high emphasis on "actual" content % over "top five" ingredients because of the moisture level of meats.

This is as it should be, IMO. A lot of cheap, low-quality foods may crow about having meat (usually chicken) as the first listed ingredient. But often in the cheap foods it's the "wet" form of chicken which loses ~70% of its weight when made into kibble -- and there's either no other meat products or they are way down on the list, too low to make a difference. The net result is a low meat content product that's low in quality animal protein.