Sophie eats whatever I eat and she gets her own plate! Is she spoiled? Sure she is. I do, however, have good reason to not feed her "dog food."

The first of these is that there are ingredients in even the most premium of dog foods that are not approved by the FDA for human consumption. Why is this the case? Because it is not healthy for us to eat. If it is not healthy enough for us to eat, it certainly is not healthy enough for my dog to eat!

The second reason for my shunning of dog food is the old-age thing. The longest lived dogs I have met have nearly always subsisted mostly or entirely on people food. There have been exceptions to this, of course, but the trend seems to be that dogs who eat dog food generally live shorter lives. I have made it a point when I meet older dogs to ask the parents what the dogs eat and when I hear about "young" deaths, I do the same. Here is be the breakdown of what I have found:

  • Longest life: People food or primarily people food
  • Medium life: Premium dog food
  • Shortest life: Super premium dog food, "special blend" dog food from private companies, cheap dog food.

*NOTE*:Longest life means the dog consistently lives more than two years past expected life for the breed, medium life means expected life span, shortest life means less than expected life span for the breed.


The final reason I don't feed dog food is because of evolution. We created the dog from wolves etc. and the relationship is one that goes back some fifteen thousand years. Up until the creation of dog food around seventy years ago, dogs ate our table scraps. We had been cooking our food long before the advent of the dog, so I am a bit skeptical about raw food diets as well. The solution?: I feed my dog what I eat to keep the natural balance of things.

Food for thought?