8 Mistakes Dog Owners Make When Choosing a Dog Food
Choosing the right dog food can feel overwhelming, especially when owners are faced with marketing buzzwords, ingredient debates, dog food rating websites and conflicting advice online. In this guide, The Canine Dietitian explains eight of the most common mistakes dog owners make when choosing a food — and what actually matters when deciding what to feed your dog.
Choosing a dog food should be fairly straightforward.
Your dog needs a nutritionally complete diet that suits their age, health, lifestyle and individual needs. You need something you can afford, access consistently and actually feed long term.
Simple, right?
Unfortunately, the modern dog food market has made choosing what to feed feel far more complicated than it needs to be.
We now have foods described as natural, premium, fresh, human-grade, ancestral, holistic and species-appropriate, hypoallergenic and grain-free We have dog food rating websites giving foods stars and percentages. We have influencers dissecting ingredient lists on Instagram. We have companies telling owners they should feel guilty for feeding kibble, and strangers on the internet telling people that their vet knows nothing about nutrition.
The result?
Dog owners who are more confused than ever.
So, rather than giving you another list of the “best dog foods”, let's look at eight of the biggest mistakes I see owners making when choosing food for their dogs — and what actually matters instead.
If you're completely overwhelmed and don't know where to begin, my free What Should I Feed My Dog? guide is a good place to start.
1. Choosing a dog food because of marketing words on the packet
This is probably one of the biggest problems in the pet food industry.
Words such as:
natural
premium
super-premium
wholesome
holistic
fresh
ancestral
biologically appropriate
species-appropriate
clean
nourishing
can sound incredibly reassuring.
But sounding good and telling us something useful about the nutritional suitability of a diet are not necessarily the same thing.
A word such as premium, for example, doesn't automatically tell you whether the food provides appropriate levels of protein, fat, calcium, phosphorus, vitamins or trace minerals.
Similarly, a food describing itself as natural doesn't automatically mean it is nutritionally superior to another food.
And something being marketed as fresh doesn't tell you whether it is the right calorie density, fat level or mineral composition for your dog with a health condition.
These words can influence how we feel about a product without necessarily giving us the information we actually need to evaluate it. Feelings are ok but they are not the basis on which we should be buying our dog’s food.
This is something I encourage owners to become much more aware of.
When you read a packet or website, ask yourself:
Is this giving me useful nutritional information, or is it giving me a feeling?
Because there is a very big difference.
If you want to get better at spotting these tactics, download my free Decode the Hype: How to Spot Bad Marketing in the Pet Industry guide. It covers common buzzwords, fear-based marketing and some of the tricks used to make one type of food appear inherently superior to another.
2. Making your decision based purely on the ingredient list
This is one of the most common ways people assess dog food online.
Someone looks at the ingredients and says:
“This food contains maize, so it's bad.”
Or:
“This one has 70% meat, so it must be better.”
Unfortunately, nutrition isn't that simple.
An ingredient list tells you what ingredients have been used. It doesn't tell you the full nutritional composition of the finished food or whether that food is appropriate for your particular dog.
You cannot reliably determine from an ingredient list alone:
the digestibility of the finished product
its calorie density
whether its mineral levels are appropriate
the calcium-to-phosphorus balance
the amount of particular amino acids available
whether it suits a dog with gastrointestinal disease
whether it is appropriate for kidney disease
whether the fat level is suitable for a dog with pancreatitis
whether a puppy diet supports appropriate growth
This is particularly important because ingredients also contain multiple nutrients.
Chicken isn't just “protein”.
Rice isn't simply “carbohydrate”.
Oils aren't just “fat”.
Each ingredient contributes different fatty acids, amino acids, minerals, vitamins and calories to the finished recipe.
Ingredient lists have a purpose, particularly if we are identifying specific ingredients a dog needs to avoid if a dog has an intolerance or an allergy.
But they are not a nutrition report card.
3. Assuming more meat automatically means better dog food
“High meat” has become one of the most successful marketing messages in the pet food industry.
And I understand why.
Dogs like meat. Meat provides valuable nutrients. Seeing a large percentage of meat written across a packet feels reassuring.
But more isn't automatically better.
Dogs need nutrients, not marketing percentages.
A diet containing a very high proportion of meat can also contain relatively high levels of phosphorus, protein and fat. Whether that is appropriate depends entirely on the dog eating it.
A young, highly active working dog may have very different nutritional needs from a sedentary ten-year-old Labrador.
A healthy adult dog has very different considerations from a dog with chronic kidney disease, pancreatitis or certain gastrointestinal conditions.
More importantly, the percentage of meat on the front of the packet doesn't tell us whether the whole diet is nutritionally appropriate for your dog
Dog food formulation is about balancing nutrients across an entire recipe not just assuming that a high meat percentage = better
And this principle applies to home cooking too. A bowl made from meat, vegetables and rice may look wonderfully wholesome but still be nutritionally incomplete.
If you're interested in preparing meals yourself, my Home Cooking for Dogs: The Beginner's Guide explains the basics of creating balanced food rather than simply putting together a bowl of “healthy ingredients”.
4. Completely trusting dog food rating websites
Dog food comparison websites can look incredibly authoritative.
Foods might receive:
★★★★★
9.4/10
A+
87%
Gold Award
Naturally, owners assume these scores must be based on some kind of objective nutritional assessment. The problem is that rating systems are only as useful as the criteria being used to generate them.
Some websites heavily reward things such as high meat percentages while penalising ingredients including cereals or that contain synthetic vitamins and minerals. Others make assumptions about ingredients based on how appealing they sound to humans.
But nutrition cannot always be condensed into a percentage or star rating. As owners we are desperate to be told “this scores the highest, this is the best” we want things made easier for us. The problem is a food receiving a very high rating on a website may still be completely unsuitable for your dog, your lifestyle and your budget.
Likewise, a veterinary therapeutic food might perform poorly under an ingredient-based rating system despite being specifically formulated to manage a particular medical condition.
This is where context matters.
Before trusting a rating site, ask yourself the following:
Who runs it?
What qualifications do they have?
How exactly are foods scored?
What evidence sits behind the scoring system?
Does the website receive money through affiliate links or commissions when you purchase certain foods?
Are they evaluating nutritional suitability, or simply ranking ingredient lists?
Dog food review websites can provide information but hey shouldn't make the full decision for you.
I've written about this in much more detail in Are Dog Food Review Sites Misleading Owners?, including why a low rating on a therapeutic diet doesn't necessarily mean it is a poor food.
5. Ignoring your vet because someone online says vets know nothing about nutrition
There has been a worrying trend online towards convincing owners that vets cannot be trusted when it comes to food.
You'll hear claims such as:
“Vets only get one lecture on nutrition.”
“Vets are paid to sell prescription food.”
“Your vet recommends that food because the company sponsors them.”
These statements are frequently repeated with very little context.
Your vet is the person who has examined your dog, taken their medical history, interpreted their blood results and understands their clinical condition.
That matters enormously.
Nutrition doesn't exist separately from medicine.
If your dog has:
persistent diarrhoea
recurrent vomiting
unexplained weight loss
pancreatitis
kidney disease
bladder stones
suspected food-responsive disease
liver disease
diabetes
protein-losing enteropathy
then choosing their food isn't just about deciding which packet has the nicest ingredients, that you like it because it looks like something you would eat yourself.
Diet can form part of the medical management of disease.
Does that mean every vet is a specialist in advanced nutrition?
Of course not.
In exactly the same way that every GP isn't a consultant gastroenterologist.
Good professionals recognise where their expertise ends and when referral or collaborative support may be useful.
But replacing veterinary advice with recommendations from an Instagram account because Sharon owns a healthy-looking Cockapoo and has 150,000 followers isn't evidence-based decision making. ( we love all Sharon’s by the way)
Your vet should be part of the conversation.
And if your dog has ongoing digestive problems, resist the temptation to simply keep buying different foods. My guide to dog food intolerances and elimination diets explains why a structured investigation is far more useful than repeatedly switching, swapping and adding more variables in.
6. Choosing food based on what worked for somebody else's dog
“My dog's been eating it for six years and he's absolutely fine.” or “ I have had dogs all my life and they’ve not had any issues.”
I see variations of these statements constantly.
The problem is that one dog's experience tells us very little about how another dog will respond. Anecdotal evidence will only take us so far.
Dogs are individuals.
They differ in:
age
breed
activity level
calorie requirements
gastrointestinal tolerance
medical history
body condition
food preferences
One dog might do brilliantly on a particular food while another develops loose stools on exactly the same diet.
That doesn't necessarily mean the food is inherently good or bad, it means different dogs respond differently.
Testimonials can be useful for things such as customer service, packaging, delivery times, how easy the food is to store and cost.
They are much less useful for determining whether a diet will be nutritionally appropriate for another individual animal.
This is also why phrases such as “this fixed my dog's allergies” or “switching to this cured my dog's stomach problems” need to be treated cautiously.
One dog's experience is an anecdote, not evidence that the same approach will work for yours.
7. Changing foods constantly in search of the “perfect” diet
Owners are now exposed to a relentless stream of new foods.
Fresh food.
Air-dried food.
Cold-pressed food.
Raw food.
Freeze-dried food.
High-meat kibble.
Insect protein.
Personalised subscription food.
Every company understandably wants to explain why its approach is different. The result is that some dogs are switched from diet to diet because owners constantly worry that something better is available.
This can be particularly problematic in dogs with sensitive digestive systems.
If your dog is maintaining an appropriate weight, producing consistently good stools, eating their food, has normal energy levels and is otherwise healthy, you don't necessarily need to keep changing things.
There is no perfect dog food, there is only food that is appropriate for the individual dog eating it. Stability amy be boring to us but it’s hugely underated.
This is particularly important when owners describe a dog as “fussy”. Constantly changing food, adding something more exciting or replacing a meal when the dog refuses it can sometimes reinforce the problem.
If that sounds familiar, my Fussy Eater Guide looks at why some dogs become selective around food and what you can do before changing their diet yet again.
8. Forgetting to look at the dog
This might sound obvious to a lot of you, but it is probably the most important point in this entire article.
We spend so much time analysing dog food that sometimes we forget to assess the animal standing in front of us.
Ask yourself:
Is my dog maintaining an appropriate body condition?
Are their stools consistently normal?
Are they eating their food happily?
Is their coat in good condition?
Do they have normal energy levels?
Are there persistent gastrointestinal signs?
Are they gaining or losing weight unexpectedly?
Does their food suit their current life stage?
Do they have a medical condition that changes their nutritional requirements?
A food can look fantastic on a website and still not suit your dog.
Equally, a food might not look particularly exciting to a human reading the packet or looking at it in a bowl but your dog may thrive on it.
If you're considering a food because it is marketed as “fresh”, “less processed” or somehow safer than conventional pet food, it is also worth reading more widely about food safety, manufacturing standards and quality control rather than looking only at the front of the packet.
So what should you actually look for when choosing dog food?
Rather than becoming fixated on individual ingredients or marketing language, take a broader view.
Start by asking whether the food is nutritionally complete for your dog's life stage.
Then consider your individual dog.
Their age.
Their body condition.
Their health.
Their activity.
Their digestive tolerance.
Their calorie requirements.
And importantly, consider whether the food is something you can realistically and consistently feed.
Budget matters.
Availability matters.
Convenience matters.
Your own lifestyle matters.
There is very little benefit in choosing an expensive feeding system that causes financial stress or that you cannot maintain long term simply because social media convinced you it was nutritionally superior.
Good nutrition has to work in the real world.
And if you already feed a complete kibble but want to add some variety without accidentally turning every meal into a nutritional free-for-all, Boost the Bowl covers safe topping, calorie allowances and simple recipes.
There is no single “best dog food”
If you take one thing away from this article, let it be this:
Stop looking for the best dog food.
It doesn't exist.
There are many different ways to feed dogs well.
Kibble isn't automatically bad.
Fresh isn't automatically better.
Grain-free isn't automatically healthier.
High meat isn't automatically superior.
Premium is not a stamp of nutritionally superiority, it’s a marketing term designed to make you think that food is better!
The right diet is the one that provides appropriate nutrition for the individual dog eating it.
Sometimes that might be a supermarket kibble.
Sometimes it might be a carefully formulated home-cooked recipe.
Sometimes it might be a veterinary therapeutic diet.
And sometimes the food your dog is already eating is perfectly fine.
Nutrition should be based on your dog — not fear, guilt, marketing or whichever dog food trend happens to be dominating Instagram this week.
Still not sure what to feed your dog?
If you're overwhelmed by dog food labels, ingredient lists, review sites and conflicting advice online, you have a couple of options.
Start with my free What Should I Feed My Dog? guide for a straightforward introduction to choosing food without the marketing noise.
You can also browse my full range of dog nutrition e-books and guides, covering everything from home cooking and elimination diets to fussy eaters and safe foods.
Or, if you want individual help, my Everyday Nutrition Consultation is designed for owners who want somebody to objectively look at their dog's current diet, lifestyle and requirements.
I'm not affiliated with dog food companies, I don't use affiliate links to recommend foods and I don't receive commission for telling you which brand to buy.
The aim isn't to find the fanciest food.
It's to find something appropriate, practical and sustainable for your dog.
This article is for educational purposes only and does not replace veterinary diagnosis or treatment. Bladder stones can cause urinary obstruction and other serious complications. If your dog is repeatedly straining to urinate, unable to pass urine, appears painful or becomes unwell, seek veterinary attention urgently. Dietary changes for a dog with diagnosed urinary stones should be made in conjunction with their veterinary team and should take the type of stone and the dog's wider medical history into account.
