Compare Dog Foods

Choosing the best food for your dog, when almost all foods are presented as "the best dog food" might be a frustrating task. Compare them and make an informed decision.

Select dog food:

Select dog food:

Dog Food Comparison

Choosing proper food for your dog is crucial to keeping it healthy and happy. We created a dog food comparison tool that will let you easily compare dog foods side by side.

Our tool allows you to compare dog food brands and their products, no matter if it's dry or wet dog food, or puppy, adult, or senior food.

However, since there's no point to compare dry and wet food, you can compare only dry foods with dry foods, and wet foods with wet foods. The same goes for puppy, adult, and senior dog foods.

Compare Dog Foods

How To Compare Dog Foods?

It takes a lot of time to carefully analyze each food, so you won't find thousands of different dog food comparisons on our site. Instead, we've covered the most popular ones, and we're working on adding more foods constantly. If you'd like to see certain food, please drop us an email.

Each dog food comparison starts with basic information: its type (is it dry or wet food) if it's specifically designed to suit your dog's age (life stage), and some basic description provided by the manufacturer.

You can also see the difference between foods in term of energy it provides (kcal per kg) and their price.

We understand the price of dog food is an important factor when deciding which dog food to buy, so we share the information on the price per bag, but also the price per pound, so you can easily compare different dog foods and different bag sizes.

We also share the information if it's formulated, and produced in the US, and if they source some ingredients outside the US.

Most popular foods usually come in several different flavors, and by reading the introduction you'll learn what flavors and variations of a certain dog food exist.

Dog Food Ingredient Comparison

Once we've covered the basic stuff, we can dive into analyzing dog food nutrients, and see what's inside.

Each dog breed comparison contains multiple charts and tables that let you easily digest the data and understand the difference and similarities between the two different dog foods you are comparing.

Unlike other sites that let you compare dog foods by numbers only, we go beyond by giving you the context, explaining what is important to look at and what's not, and also what are the recommended values.

No matter if it's wet or dry dog food, each manufacturer is obligated to provide a guaranteed analysis that contains macronutrients: crude protein, crude fat, crude fiber, and moisture content.

Proteins in Dog Food

Protein is a crucial part of a dog's diet. It plays a number of important roles in your dog's body, including hormone production, skin cell formation, muscle development, tissue repair, hair, tendon, and ligament growth.

The quality of protein is important as its quantity.

The majority of protein usually should come from whole meat, no matter if that's chicken, lamb, beef, turkey, duck, salmon, bison, venison, or iberico.

You'll also see meat meals, such as chicken meal or turkey meals, on pet food labels.

Meat meal is a powder-like substance made from chicken parts and by-products, and besides protein, it contains vitamins and minerals such as glucosamine, important for a dog's joint health.

There is also food where the majority of protein comes from hydrolyzed soy protein, but these foods are special veterinary foods that often require a veterinary prescription. Hydrolyzed protein foods are used to address specific medical issues, and it's a bad idea to choose these foods on your own.

Besides animal protein sources, there are also plants high in protein, such as peas, oats, soy, etc.

By reading our comparison you'll see the first five ingredients in each food so you can easily understand what your dog actually eats, and the total amount of protein.

Most dry dog foods have between 20% and 30% of protein, while wet foods contain between 5% and 8%.

Fats in Dog Food

Fat is another important macronutrient for your dog. That's a concentrated source of energy, which contains 9 calories per gram, while protein and carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram.

Besides providing energy to your dog, fat is used in many other processes, including the development and proper function of the dog's body cells, nerves, muscles, and body tissues.

Low fat dies could cause many issues in dogs.

A typical dry kibble food contains less than 20% of fat, and it's advisable to choose the food with less fat if your dog is obese or prone to obesity.

Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids

Total fat information isn't enough to conclude if you're dealing with good or bad food, you should also look at Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids.

These are essential fatty acids, which means that dogs can't be made by the dog, they have to be obtained from food.

Essential fatty acids are an important part of a dog's diet, and they affect inflammation levels and affect the brain, heart, and joint health and development.

However, if the ratio between Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids isn't good, it could actually cause inflammation, rather than reduce it.

That's why we calculate this ratio for each food and tell you if it's good or not. The National Research Council (NRC) recommends a ratio of 2.6:1 to 26:1 Omega-6 to Omega-3, although there's no magic number and perfect ratio.

Grains in Dog Food

Grain free dog foods are popular, but the studies about health benefits the grain free dog food are mixed.

In fact, the FDA alerted pet owners that there may be a link between grain-free diets and a diagnosis of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM).

Grain free dog food doesn't contain any grain: wheat, corn, rice, oats (oatmeal), barley, rye, soy, etc. Manufactures substitute them with other carbohydrate sources, such as tomatoes, sweet potatoes, lentils, peas, quinoa, and other vegetables.

That being said, grain free doesn't mean carb free dog food. You should never cut all carbs.

However, around 1% of dogs have grain allergies, and for these dogs grain free diet is a necessity.

Most dogs have wheat, corn, or soy allergy, and there are many dog foods that aren't grain free, but these foods don't contain these three grains or don't contain some of them.

In our dog food comparison, you'll easily see if food is completely grain free, or if it's free of these three common allergens, or just some of them.

What Are The Best Dog Foods?

We've compared the most popular dog food brands, including American Journey, Blue Buffalo, Hill's Science Diet, Orijen, Purina One, Purina Pro Plan, Rachael Ray Nutrish, Royal Canin, Target's Kindfull, and Taste of the Wild.

Dog foods we compared are high quality dog foods, formulated to meet the nutritional standards established by the Association Of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) Dog Food Nutrients Profiles and use high-quality ingredients.

What Is The Best Dog Food For Picky Eaters?

Unfortunately, there's no universal answer to this question and you'll have to try which food and flavor your dog will love the most. Most dogs love the chicken flavor, and dog foods made with chicken as the main ingredients are one of the most popular.

Another thing that might help your peaky eater eat better, is kibble size. There are some dog foods for small breeds that have smaller kibble sizes, which makes it easier for your dog to chew them. On the other hand, there are foods made having large breeds in mind.

You might want to ask your local pet shop if they provide free samples to see how your dog will like them.

Popular dog food comparisons: