Dog Kibble: How Much Is Way Too Much?
Do you wonder how much kibble really belongs in your dog’s bowl? Many of us who have large breed dogs are suspicious about the enormous amount of dry food that some pet food companies recommend feeding. We cannot help wondering whether it is self-serving for a company to advise customers to feed a great deal of their food? People have reached me through my radio shows and asked whether they are reading a dog food label correctly when it gives directions on the bag to feed a 100 lb. dog eight to ten cups of dry food a day! I checked on the bags of some dry foods at a local pet store and, sure enough, the less-than-premium dog foods did recommend that amount for a dog 75 lbs or larger, which would blow up like a balloon!
When I was researching THE DOG BIBLE I came to an early, cynical conclusion that if a pet food company gave directions for 8-10 cups a day, those gigantic portions meant they would use up a bag more quickly and have to buy more food! But over time I came to understand that the companies might have to recommend cups and cups of daily kibble in order to achieve complete and balanced nutrition and calories — because the nutritional value in every cup is so much lower than feeding a super premium brand, like Halo, as I do.
Recently, I adopted a gorgeous young Blue Weimaraner named Maisie — who arrived pretty skinny. (At any rescue, the dogs tend to be lean because food is pricey giving a dog “just enough” makes sense economically.) They had her on 6 cups a day of a lamb-based kibble from a big box store — which sounded like an awful lot of food for a 9 month old puppy, yet I quickly discovered that it actually wasn’t half enough to quench her appetite! To satisfy her hunger I had to give as much as 12 cups a day. It seemed absurd and I also worried about her gaining weight, even though she was still a growing girl who was getting loads of exercise. I bought a bag of that food from the Big Box store so that I could transition her slowly off of it and on to Halo Spot’s Stew, which turned out to be quite a challenge. (More on that next week!)
What I discovered made me love Halo and their food even more. The directions on the bags of the chicken, salmon and lamb kibble that my dogs were lucky enough to eat (I rotate protein in every bag) suggest I should feed 4 ½ cups of kibble for a 100 lb dog. Now that makes sense! If I was feeding nothing but kibble (which I am not) that would be a very reasonable amount to see in their bowls — about 2 cups per meal. What that means to me is that in Halo I have picked a truly high quality food that I actually need to feed much less of to get even better nutrition — which means better health.
It’s not hard to see why I favor Halo, choosing a food made from top quality ingredients, with real meat, no rendered meals or by-products and no chemicals. And the price is fair because it lasts me twice as long as a lower quality food would. Some decisions in life are true no-brainers!
-Tracie Hotchner
Halo is a sponsor on Radio Pet Lady Network, by our invitation.
