1. 1. What You Dont Know About Your Pets Food May Make Them SickGood nutrition is as important for your pets as it is for you. While most commercial petfoods have adequate nutrients to keep your dog healthy, they also have additives and by-products that you might not want your pet eating. However, it can be difficult todetermine exactly what is in your pets commercially produced food.Usually commercial dog foods, whether wet or dry, will list meat first in the list ofingredients. The meat in your dogs food could be beef, chicken or lamb, but meat is notwhat makes up the majority of your pets food. Grains and by-products are the two mostprevalent ingredients in pet foods. Dry dog foods also contain quite a few "meals" inthem.Meals are ground up by-products such as bones, soybeans, corn gluten and other highprotein ingredients. Meals are dry, having had all the fat and moisture removed beforeadding them into the mix that makes up dry dog foods. Since ingredients are listedmainly by weight so meats are listed first because they contain water and weigh more, notbecause there is more of them in the product.Commercial pet foods can also contain what is called the 4 D animals. The Ds stand fordead, diseased, dying and disabled. It has only been recently that these animals havebeen banned for human consumption, but they are still allowed in pet foods. Diseasedanimals can contain a wide variety of problems from cancers to mad cow disease. Wouldyou want to feed your pet friend something that has those diseases?Dry foods can also contain food dyes and colours to alter the appearance of the food tomake it more appealing to pet owners. Some of the colouring agents, however, areknown carcinogens or can cause other health problems for pets. Red No. 40 is a knowncarcinogen, Blue No. 2 may increase a dogs sensitivity to viruses.When buying your pets food, read the labels carefully. You may want to opt for anorganic pet food as many of them are not made with any by-products and they often donot contain colouring agents. Click here for more pet food information from TeneriffeVeterinary Surgery.http://www.teneriffevet.com.au