What you feed your furry friends determines how healthy and happy they will be in the future. All of us want to feed our pets healthy, and understanding how to select good dog food is absolutely necessary to ensure that. With numerous dog food brands available in the market, making the right choice is more complicated than ever. To help you out, here are a few tips to help you pick healthy food products for your dog:

Keep your dog’s age in mind

The most important tip you must remember while buying healthy dog food is to consider your dog’s age. Dogs have three life stages: puppy, adult, and senior. It’s vital that your dog eats food appropriate for their age. Experts suggest that puppies need food packed with proteins and minerals since their muscles and bones need these nutrients to develop strength. Similarly, food for adult dogs must be chosen based on their activity levels, and foods low in calories but higher in fiber, fatty acids, and proteins are recommended for senior dogs.

Consider their nutritional requirements

Determining what nutrients your dog needs is another important tip for choosing a healthy dog food brand or product. Most puppies and dogs need over 20 percent of their protein intake to be animal-based, like meats and eggs. It’s best to buy food products that contain all the essential vitamins and minerals your dog needs. Additionally, experts recommend picking foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids to balance the omega-6 fatty acids present in several store-bought dog foods. This balance is important for your dog’s health, and omega-3s also provide several health benefits.

Learn to read the ingredients label correctly

You must be able to determine whether a food is healthy just by scanning the ingredients list, and it’s quite simple! Federal law requires companies to list the ingredients in a fixed order. The first ingredient on the list is the primary one and has the largest quantity, followed by the second, third, and so on. This means the most important ingredients like meat and fish should always be the top three on the list for the food to be considered nutritious for your pooch. The first ingredient must be whole meat or fish like salmon, lamb, chicken, or turkey, followed by specific processed meat meals like lamb or chicken meal. This must be followed by whole fruits and vegetables.

Avoid less nutritious ingredients

Knowing what ingredients are not beneficial for your dog is as important as knowing what is beneficial. Usually, cheaper dog food contains a lot of grains like corn or wheat, and experts say that these hardly offer any nutritional value for canines. Whether or not dogs require grains is a debatable topic, but most people agree that dog foods should not include grains as the primary ingredient. So, the best tip to buy healthy dog food is to pick one that doesn’t list grains in the top three to five ingredients on the label.