[ladyjane]

Originally Posted by 107barney

Although I am a home cooker, I can't say it is "best" for a dog. From a nutritional standpoint I think it is better and from a food safety standpoint it is better. I have to qualify this statement to say I believe these things to be true how I personally select, prepare, handle, and feed the items. There are several downsides to home cooking even when one does things as detailed as I sometimes do. It's not all that fun to spend time cooking, the expense can be higher, and the meals aren't as portable or easy to store as kibble. For convenience, I feed kibble in addition to home cooking. I use Royal Canin products and Purina. Many would think that a holistic company or fancy ingredient list is more important but for me when purchasing a commercial food that I do not process, my number one factor is SAFETY. These large companies are at the top along with Hill's for a reason and that reason lies in the quality control at ingredient sourcing all the way to final product. I would prefer that a veterinary nutritionist balanced the diet and I prefer a company that food trials on test dogs not my beloved pets. Again, that takes the majority of companies out of the game for me. I have had the privilege (fortunately or unfortunately) with working with vet nutritionists for my dogs and over the years I have been well schooled in the many myths that would have once made me select the greatest sounding ingredients in the bag or can with the pretty dogs on the label. Unless and until pet owners start to demand more out of a company other than marketing in the way of real science and real experts and real quality control, we will continue to hear about salmonella, aflatoxin, E. coli, and other scary and threatening recalls. While recalls occur in human food as well, it seems to be so pervasive a problem in the pet food industry. I'm afraid of dog food, and I have good reason to be. If I must feed kibble at times, I want safe before any other checklist item.