The Label Is Not Written for You

Dog food packaging is designed to look appealing and trustworthy. The large print talks about natural ingredients, balanced nutrition and wholesome recipes. The small print, however, tells a very different story. Learning to read that small print is one of the most useful things you can do as a dog owner.

Ingredients Are Listed by Weight Before Processing

The ingredient list follows EU regulations and lists components in descending order by weight before cooking or drying. This matters enormously. Fresh chicken, for example, contains roughly 70 percent water. Once cooked and dried, it becomes a fraction of its original weight. A food that lists fresh chicken first may in practice contain far less chicken protein than a food listing dried chicken meal third.

What Analytical Constituents Actually Tell You

Below the ingredient list you will find the analytical constituents: crude protein, crude fat, crude fibre and moisture. These are minimum or maximum guaranteed values, not exact figures. They tell you the category of nutrients present but nothing about their quality or digestibility. A food with 28 percent crude protein could derive that protein from highly digestible meat or from much less digestible plant sources.

Watch Out for Category Names

EU regulations allow manufacturers to use broad category terms instead of specific ingredients. Terms like meat and animal derivatives or oils and fats are legal but vague. They permit the recipe to change from batch to batch without updating the label. Dogs with food sensitivities in particular benefit from foods that list specific named ingredients.

• Specific: chicken, salmon oil, dried beet pulp
• Vague: meat and animal derivatives, oils and fats, various sugars

Additives and Preservatives

Additives must be declared by their specific name or EU additive number. Vitamin E, for instance, is a natural preservative listed as tocopherols. Synthetic preservatives such as BHA or BHT must also appear. Nutritional additives like added vitamins and minerals are required to be listed and are generally a sign that the recipe is trying to meet complete nutritional standards rather than relying entirely on raw ingredients.

A complete food must by law meet minimum nutritional requirements set by FEDIAF guidelines. A complementary food does not, and must be fed alongside other foods to avoid deficiencies.

Complete Versus Complementary

This distinction is critical and is often buried in small text. If the label says complementary, the food is not suitable as a sole diet. Many wet foods, treats and mixer biscuits fall into this category. Feeding a complementary food as the only meal can lead to genuine nutritional gaps over time.

Taking ten minutes to properly read a label before buying is not obsessive. It is simply the difference between marketing and information.