Top Ten: WORST brands of dog food to feed your dogs

Have you ever wandered down the pet-food isle and wondered what brand of food to feed your four-legged friend? Well, many dog owners have, and unfortunately, they bought food that could potentially make their dog sick.

The first ingredient on a bag of dog food should be meat. Not corn, soy, wheat, or bone-meal. It should be meat, whether that be pork, beef, chicken, fish, venison, lamb, duck, or even a combination of all. Corn, soy, and wheat can be in a dogs food, but the first and foremost ingredient in a dogs food needs and should be meat. Dogs need to live on a meat diet, and corn is a vegetable. Dogs can have trouble digesting corn, especially when its the first and most ingredient in his food. And another thing to watch out for is 'meat-by products' because it does say meat in the title, but it is unknown what animal the meat came from. For all you know, the meat could be from a three-legged, inbred pig! And for soy and wheat? Those are used as fillers, which are ingredients that have no nutritional value in a dogs food, but fill the dog up anyway. This can cause obesity and liver failure.

#10: Purina Benefuls

While it's not wrong about having meat as the first ingredient, it is wrong about having corn-meal and soy, which is a filler. And if you look at the ingredient, the fillers outweigh the meat. And even worse, in 2015, Purina was sued because multiple dog-owners claimed that their dogs threw up, some died, after eating Beneful. Turns out, Beneful has mycotoxins, a group of poisonous bacteria found in grains. Why is this food still on shelves? Because people buy it and large companies are money hungry.

#9: Purina Dog Chow

Purina Dog Chow is a very popular brand of dog food. However, Dog Chow is filled with some nasty ingredients, such as corn, soy, and wheat, the fillers, and artificial coloring. Dogs don't care what their food looks like, it's dyed to please humans and make them think, "That looks like real meat." But, it's mostly not. It's mostly grains with chicken flavoring. And it's also rich in preservatives, to prevent the food from going moldy or stale.

#8: Pedigree

Pedigree is another popular dog food brand. The first three ingredients? Ground whole corn, chicken-by products, and corn gluten meal. What it means by chicken-by products is the leftovers, which is sometimes feathers, bones, beaks, feet, eyes, organs etc. And another lawsuit by dog owners was to Pedigree, because their dogs were sick eating it. Some people even claimed there was pig hair in the food! Pedigree shrugged this off and said it was natural because it was from the pork.

#7: Kibbles 'N' Bits

Ah, a smiling Border Collie on the front must mean the food is good! But, the ingredients aren't very smiley in Kibbles N' Bits. Corn is the first ingredient on the list, which means its the most ingredient. And the 'Bacon and Steak Flavor' means it is flavored to taste like bacon and steak, and that there is no bacon and steak. And the food is full of fillers, and not a lot of proteins. However, Kibbles N Bits has helped a lot of picky dogs eat, but it shouldn't be their only source of dog food. And, some dog owners claim that their dogs have itchy skin when they eat this food, which is true to my dogs, because two out of the three itch.

#6: Iams

Iams does have chicken as the first ingredient, that is true, but the second ingredient is corn meal, which is a filler. And the third ingredient is chicken-by product, which is usually the leftovers of the chicken at a slaughterhouse. And then you move on down the line to beet pulp, which has high fiber content and can lead to obesity, and sorghum, which is related to corn and used as another filler.

#5: Purina Bakers

Bakers is another brand of dog food made and produced by Purina. Why does Purina sell so much dog food? That's because they are good at marketing. This brand of dog food has multiple unnamed cereals and the reason why dogs love it so much is because all of the extra sugar, fat, and oil that goes into the food. Weight gain is at the dogs' doorstep with this one.

#4: Ol' Roy

While Ol' Roy is a good source of calcium, a vitamin used for bone strength, the first ingredient happens to be corn meal, which is a filler. Another concern is that corn meal is a plant-based protein, which has no value to dogs, as they eat meat. And is also lists 'meat'. Not a specific type of meat, just meat. And the only two things of meat listed is the nameless meat and bone-meal. Yikes.

#3: Kal Kan

While it's hard to find Kal Kan because it was bought by Pedigree, it is still out there and it is still bad. To begin with, the first ingredient is always corn. And it also has bone-meal, which is ground up bones an cartridge. And bone-meal seems to be the only source of animal-deprived ingredients. And with that, there is no telling of what animal was ground up and put into this bag.

#2: Gravy Train

The classic. You can add warm water to the dog food and turn it into soft food that is floating in 'gravy'. Reminds me of the time when I was younger and I used to mix shampoos together to make the ultimate hair-cleaning solution. The biggest problem with Gravy Train is that it lists meat-by products and doesn't list what animals the meat came from. It claims lamb or chicken, but to me, meat-by products is all of them.

#1: Twin Pet

Twin Pet is the kind of food you would find on the shelves of a local and small grocery store. It isn't good at all because most of the ingredients is plant-based ingredients. The only source of meat seems to be meat-by products, which could be anything. And you can find wheat middling, which is basically the dust of ground-up wheat.

Now that you've read and learned about the worst brands of food for your dogs, please feel free and tell me what kind of food you feed your dog and what good things and what bad things have come with that. Happy Reading, and of course, Canine Good!