Chicken Soup Dog Food and Our Dogs

We were very fortunate when we picked up our chocolate lab puppy, because the breeder had already done extensive research and found a dog food that she preferred for her animals. Unfortunately, some people don't have it quite that easy. You frequently have to look past all the marketing found on your television and in print to find the real truth. As I’m sure everyone knows, great marketing does not equal great dog food.

Whenever looking for a new dog food, it's always important to take a look at the ingredients list first. A type of meat should be the first or the second item listed in the ingredients. Out of the first five ingredients, you should see 2 to 3 different types of meat. If you find a type of meat listed first, but the remaining four items are grains and vegetables, then it's likely that the meat will be outweighed by the other ingredients.

There are many ingredients to watch out for when looking for a dog food. Meat and bone meals are a great example of low-quality ingredients. I've also heard of items such as peanut shells and other ground-up by-products being placed into the food as filler. Since a lot of the filler ingredients do not have any real taste, some companies will add extra fat into the dog food to get the dogs to eat it.

When we met our breeder, she recommended Chicken Soup for the Puppy Lover’s Soul. She had become a big fan of this food and after doing some research, it seemed to meet a lot of the criteria for a good dog food. When you look at the current list of ingredients, you'll find chicken, turkey, chicken meal, cracked pearl barley, and whole grain brown rice. I really like the fact that chicken and turkey are the two primary ingredients.

At this time, I'd love to be able to tell you that I've had great luck with this dog food and that my dogs eat it, but that simply isn't true. My Chocolate Labrador started eating Chicken Soup for the Puppy Lover’s Soul and had great results on it. Unfortunately, when he turned 11 months old and we switched him over to Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover’s Soul (Chicken Soup Dog Food), after a few weeks he started developing allergy symptoms.

After a long, drawn out process of over three months, we determined that he was allergic to the grains in the food. I still believe this to be an excellent dog food and if my dogs didn’t have dog food allergies, they would probably still eat it.