Letâs talk about labels. Letâs talk about truth. And letâs finally talk about whatâs really in your dogâs bowl, and what that means inside their body.
đ Understanding What Youâre Really Feeding
If a bag says "fresh chicken" or "pure salmon", thatâs good. That means exactly what it says. Itâs specific. Itâs traceable. It means someone took care to include a clear, identifiable meat from a single source.
The same goes for dehydrated chicken, dehydrated salmon, or similar, these are real meats, gently dried to preserve their nutritional value. When done well, they remain high in protein and easy to trace.
But many bags donât say that. Instead, they say things like:
- Meat meal
- Animal derivatives
- Meat and bone meal
- Hydrolysed protein
- Animal fat
- Vegetable derivatives
Made even worse if theyâre not even the first ingredient, hiding behind wheat or maize.
These terms donât help you understand the food. Thatâs the point.
Each one opens the door to ingredients being swapped around, substituted, and mixed from week to week without changing the label. These are umbrella terms. They protect the manufacturer, not the dog.
And when it comes to quality? Youâll never know. Because these words hide bones, beaks, cartilage, fat scrapings, and any leftovers not used in human food production. The final mix is then pressure-cooked at extreme heat, the vitamins are killed, and then those vitamins are sprayed back on at the end, if you're lucky, using high-quality ones. But most often, they're not.
This is called rendering. It is how poor kibble is made.
â ïž But Not All Kibble is Bad
Letâs be clear. Kibble got its bad name for a reason, and that reason is truth. But that truth mostly belongs to the biggest manufacturers who spend millions convincing people of a different story.
Sadly, smaller independent brands often inherit this bad reputation too. The gossip trickles down, fuelled by passionate but ill-informed minds who think theyâre helping, but are actually repeating stories built by the very companies they mistrust. The irony? Itâs their marketing budget that planted the story in the first place. And their profit that keeps it alive.
Itâs still happening now, as we write this in 2025.
đ§Ș Hydrolysed Protein: A Short-Term Trick
Hydrolysed protein sounds technical, because it is. It means the protein has been broken down into such small pieces that your dogâs immune system cannot recognise it. For allergy support, this can be useful short term. It tricks the body to prevent a reaction. But long term? That trick comes at a cost.
Your dog needs real structure. Recognisable structure. Hydrolysed diets are not built for full health, just temporary management. Thatâs a critical difference. The more people who know this, the better the countryâs health for dogs will become. The vast majority of owners get onto hydrolysed, and think "That it then". Which is the most innocent but cruel way of thinking there can be. Itâs just a simple short-term fix.
đ„ Sweet Potato and Potato, together is Better
From our own tracking of thousands of dogs, one pattern keeps appearing. Sweet potato and potato, when used in low to moderate amounts, produce better digestive consistency and stool quality than either ingredient used alone. Together, they balance each other. Alone, they often fall short.
This is not opinion. This is observation backed by data, built on dogs, not assumptions.
đ§ The Ingredient That Broke the System
Letâs take peas. Used correctly, in small amounts, peas can provide a useful fibre boost. But in high volumes, they can interfere with amino acid balance, mineral absorption, and blood sugar control.
Today, in 2025, thereâs a popular food sold in a major UK pet chain. On the front? A beautiful photo of fresh meat. A trusted brand name. Natural promises.
On the back? 20% peas.
Thatâs one fifth of the food. Peas.
Itâs lazy, itâs cheap, and itâs dangerous. But it looks the part. It sells. And that is the real danger. A weak mind can be bought by a clever label. A weak mind will even pay extra to keep funding the cycle.
đŻ One Thing That Is Accurate
Want a quiet irony? The one part of the label thatâs almost always correct⊠is the feeding guide. That little box most people ignore. That box is built from actual science. Based on real metabolic needs.
And yet, itâs often the one thing people overlook. Because in a world of fancy labels, fake promises, and emotional marketing, basic biology is hard to sell.
But itâs biology that saves dogs. Not branding. Not buzzwords. And definitely not the gossip of people repeating what they were told, rather than what theyâve actually studied.
If this blog made you stop and think, thatâs a good thing. Youâre now seeing behind the curtain, and into the biology.
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Your dog, if it could talk, would worship you even more than it already does. đŸ