Collection: Dog Food

Choosing dog food comes down to three decisions: the format, the life stage, and whether your dog has any specific needs to work around. Everything else is preference.

We stock more than 25 brands across every format - dry kibble, canned and pouched wet food, frozen raw, freeze-dried, and meal toppers - from Acana, Victor, Fromm, Merrick, Wellness, Blue Buffalo, Zignature and more. Whether you're feeding a growing large-breed puppy who needs controlled calcium, a senior who needs fewer calories and more joint support, or a dog whose stomach has never quite agreed with chicken, the food is here.

The guide below walks through how to choose, how much to feed, and how to read a label properly. And any food on this page can go on auto-ship - every two weeks, monthly, or quarterly, 5% off, cancel whenever you like.

How to choose the right dog food

Start with format

Format is the first fork in the road, because it determines cost, convenience and how much your dog enjoys the food more than the brand on the bag does.

Most households land on dry food as the base, sometimes with wet food or a topper mixed in. That combination gets you the cost efficiency of kibble with enough moisture and aroma to keep a dog interested. There's nothing wrong with it, and it's what the majority of well-fed dogs eat.

Then match the life stage

Nutritional requirements change substantially across a dog's life, and the AAFCO statement on the packaging tells you which stage the food was formulated for.

Puppies need more protein, more fat, and more calories per kilogram of body weight than adults, plus tightly controlled calcium and phosphorus. This last point matters enormously for large-breed puppies - excess calcium during growth is associated with developmental orthopaedic disease, and it's the single most consequential feeding decision you'll make for a Labrador, German Shepherd, Great Dane or similar. Large-breed puppy formulas exist specifically to control this. Use one.

Adults move to a maintenance formula, typically around one year for small and medium breeds and 18–24 months for large and giant breeds. The goal shifts from supporting growth to holding a steady body condition.

Seniors - generally from around seven years, earlier for giant breeds - usually need fewer calories as activity and lean mass decline, though not less protein. Older dogs actually need adequate high-quality protein to preserve muscle. Many senior formulas add glucosamine, chondroitin and omega-3 for joint support.

All life stages foods are formulated to meet the growth requirement, which is the more demanding one. They're convenient in multi-dog households but are more calorie-dense than an adult maintenance food, so portion accordingly.

Then account for size and build

Small breeds have faster metabolisms per unit of body weight and small stomachs, so small-breed formulas are more calorie-dense in smaller kibble.

Large and giant breeds benefit from moderate calorie density, controlled growth in puppyhood, and joint support in adulthood.

Deep-chested breeds - Great Danes, Weimaraners, Standard Poodles, Setters - carry elevated risk of gastric dilatation-volvulus (bloat), and slower eating is one of the few modifiable factors. A slow-feeder bowl or a puzzle feeder is a cheap intervention for a serious risk.

How much should you feed?

The feeding guide on the bag is a starting point calculated for an average dog at that weight. Your dog is not average. Neuter status, age, breed, activity level and individual metabolism produce a genuine two-fold variation between dogs of the same weight.

Here's a more useful starting point. The table below uses the standard resting energy requirement formula - RER = 70 × (body weight in kg)^0.75 - multiplied by 1.6, the typical maintenance factor for a neutered adult dog of average activity.

Adjust from there. Intact dogs and working or highly active dogs need more - often 1.8 to 2.0 times RER, or higher for genuine working dogs. Senior, sedentary or overweight dogs need less, often 1.2 to 1.4 times RER.

Check the kcal per cup for your specific food. The 380 kcal/cup figure above is a mid-range average. Foods range from roughly 320 to over 500 kcal per cup, and using the wrong figure will put you 30% out. The number is on the bag or the manufacturer's website.

Then use body condition instead. Run your hands along your dog's sides. You should feel the ribs easily under a thin layer of fat, without pressing. Looking down from above, there should be a visible waist behind the ribs. From the side, the abdomen should tuck up rather than running straight. Reassess every couple of weeks and adjust portions by 10% at a time. The dog in front of you beats any formula.

Reading a dog food label

The ingredient list

Ingredients are listed by weight before cooking. This creates two effects worth understanding.

Whole meats - "deboned chicken", "beef" - are roughly 70% water before processing. They lose most of that mass during extrusion, so an ingredient listed first may contribute less to the finished food than one listed third. Meat meals ("chicken meal", "lamb meal") have already been rendered and are concentrated protein by weight, so their position on the list more accurately reflects their contribution.

Neither is inherently superior. A food listing "chicken, chicken meal" is generally getting substantial poultry protein from both. What's worth noticing is ingredient splitting - where a single component appears as several entries ("peas, pea protein, pea fibre, pea starch") which individually rank lower than they would combined. It isn't deceptive exactly, but it does change how the list reads.

The guaranteed analysis

This gives minimum crude protein and crude fat, and maximum crude fibre and moisture. It's the standard comparison tool, with two limitations: "crude" protein measures nitrogen content and doesn't tell you about amino acid quality or digestibility, and the figures are as-fed, which makes comparing a dry food to a wet one meaningless without conversion.

The AAFCO statement

Look for wording confirming the food is complete and balanced and naming a life stage. There are two routes a manufacturer can take:

• Formulated to meet AAFCO nutrient profiles - the recipe meets the numbers on paper

• Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures - the food has been fed to actual dogs under protocol

The second is a higher bar. Neither guarantees quality, but a food without any AAFCO statement is not intended as a complete diet - which catches people out with products marketed as food that are actually toppers or complementary feeds.

Comparing foods fairly: dry matter basis

This is the single most useful technical skill in dog food shopping, and almost nobody uses it.

You cannot compare the protein figure on a dry food to the one on a wet food directly, because most of the wet food's weight is water. To compare them, convert both to dry matter basis: divide the nutrient percentage by the total dry matter (100 minus moisture).

Worked example

A dry food shows 26% crude protein, 10% moisture. Dry matter = 100 − 10 = 90%. 26 ÷ 0.90 = 28.9% protein on a dry matter basis.

A wet food shows 9% crude protein, 78% moisture. Dry matter = 100 − 78 = 22%. 9 ÷ 0.22 = 40.9% protein on a dry matter basis.

The wet food looked like it had a third of the protein. It actually has considerably more. Run this calculation any time you're comparing across formats, or comparing a freeze-dried food to a kibble - the raw label figures will mislead you every time.

Dogs with special dietary needs

Sensitive stomachs

Loose stool, intermittent vomiting and excess gas are common and usually manageable. Things that help: a highly digestible formula, a single or limited protein source, moderate rather than very high fat, and added prebiotics or probiotics. Slow every dietary change down - 14 days rather than 7. And rule out the obvious first: scavenging, too many treats, and abrupt food changes cause more digestive upset than food intolerance does.

Suspected food sensitivities

True food allergy in dogs is less common than the marketing suggests, and it's more often a protein than a grain - chicken, beef and dairy are the most frequently implicated. Signs are typically dermatological as much as digestive: itchy skin, recurrent ear inflammation, paw licking.

The only reliable way to identify one is a strict elimination diet run for 8–12 weeks under veterinary supervision, using a novel or hydrolysed protein and nothing else - no treats, no table scraps, no flavoured medication. Switching between commercial foods to see what helps rarely produces an answer, because most foods share overlapping protein sources.

Limited ingredient diets are the practical tool here. Brands like Zignature, Natural Balance, Canidae PURE and FirstMate build recipes around a single novel protein - duck, lamb, salmon, venison - with minimal other ingredients.

Weight management

Somewhere around half of dogs in the US are overweight or obese, and it shortens lifespan measurably. If your dog needs to lose weight, use a weight management formula rather than simply feeding less of a regular food - cutting portions of a standard food cuts protein and micronutrients along with calories. Weigh portions rather than scooping. Count treats; they're the usual hidden culprit. And target slow loss, around 1–2% of body weight per week. Ask your vet to set a target weight rather than guessing.

Switching foods without upsetting your dog

Abrupt changes are the most common cause of digestive upset when owners switch brands. Transition over 7–10 days:

For dogs with sensitive digestion, stretch this to 14 days and move in smaller increments. If stools loosen at any stage, hold at that ratio for a few extra days rather than pushing forward. Some softening in the first few days is normal; persistent diarrhoea, vomiting or lethargy is not, and warrants stopping and calling your vet.

Storing dry food properly

Keep the food in its original bag, folded and clipped, placed inside an airtight container. Owners routinely pour kibble loose into a bin, which is a mistake on two counts: the bag has a grease barrier the container doesn't, and it carries the lot number and best-before date you would need if a recall were issued.

Store somewhere cool, dark and dry. A garage that reaches 90°F in summer accelerates fat oxidation and will turn a good food rancid well before you finish the bag. Aim to use an opened bag within about six weeks - which is a reason to buy a bag size matched to your dog rather than always buying the biggest.

If your dog suddenly refuses a food they've eaten happily for months, smell it yourself before concluding they've become fussy. Rancid fat is a common and frequently missed explanation.

Shop dog food by brand

We carry full ranges from the brands below.

Also stocked: Cesar, Crave, Eukanuba, Evangers, Health Extension, Koha, Nutro, Petcurean, Rachael Ray. 

Never run out: auto-ship

Running out of food on a Sunday evening is how dogs end up with an abrupt diet change and a bad week. Put any food on this page on auto-ship and choose your interval - every 2 weeks, monthly, every 3 months, or every 6 months. You save 5% on every order, you can change the frequency or skip a delivery at any time, and there's no commitment.

To size the interval: divide your bag weight by your dog's daily intake. A 30 lb bag fed at 3 cups a day (roughly 12 oz) lasts about 40 days - so monthly delivery, with a small buffer.