Surprised I found this article on CNN
And it doesn't look to be sponsored by any major dog food company because it lists what most of us have learned over the years. It even gives mention to BARF.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/06/04/help.pet.eat.healthy.mnn/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
Jesse
http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/06/04/help.pet.eat.healthy.mnn/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
Jesse
Comments
I do question one detail of their reporting, though:
"She noted that pet food companies conduct tests with working dogs that burn many more calories than household pets."
Um, really?
I don't have a whole lot of information about how dogs enrolled in food trials are selected, but the studies that I've read don't indicate that the dogs come specifically from working backgrounds.
As a specific example, I know IAMS recently flew a bunch of pet bloggers out on a junket tour of their facilities to convince them that they're not the evil food-testing laboratories that PETA claims they are (though IMHO, they're trying to divert the issue from their low quality ingredients by reframing the story as a Good Corporation vs. PETA thing). Part of their "defense" was to show off their nutritional facility/center, where animals obtained from breeders (whom they claim are "ethical" though I am skeptical since I thought you need a USDA license to sell to any research facility) are kept for a while as feeding trial subjects before they're adopted out into (hopefully) permanent homes. While I have a lot of remaining questions about how that system works, the point is that the feeding trial animals are housed in a pretty posh pad and given opportunities to play, but NOT anything I would consider excessive, calorie-burning "work."
... I guess the bottom line is that there is still a lot of misinformation and lack of transparency out there about pet food and the manufacturing process, so we've got to know our dogs, try to understand what we're feeding, and if we can't trust the labels, go home-prepared.