Feeding a pet is not easy with all of the advertising out there that has special claims as to what makes one company’s food superior to the next. Many animal nutritionists claim that making food for a specific breed or age is irrelevant, while other veterinarians and holistic health proponents disagree. One veterinarian in the latter camp is Dr. Gary Cotton, DVM, otherwise known as “Dr. Gary”, founder of Dr. Gary’s Best Breed dog and cat food.
In 1994, Dr. Gary was working at a clinic in Ohio, where he observed health conditions that he believed to be caused by nutrition, or lack thereof. By suggesting changes to clients, Dr. Gary watched health conditions improve, which in turn led him to develop a Best Breed. The first diet offered was Best Breed Cocker Spaniel. It was made to address the typical cocker spaniel health issues of “oily skin, infected ears, bad colon, and high irritability.”
The philosophy behind Best Breed is “common sense nutrition”. This is described by Best Breed as:
“Common Sense Nutrition means we disregard the usual marketing and cost control techniques often used by the large conglomerate pet food companies and simply develop the healthiest all-natural pet foods possible.”
This means the food is manufactured with human-grade ingredients, not meat and corn by-products or harmful chemicals. The food is cooked slowly at low temperatures to keep the nutritional value high. One plus point is that Best Breed uses non-GMO ingredients and US suppliers.
Today, there are twelve different diets to choose from for dogs. Specific breeds include cocker spaniel, “German dog diet”, poodle, and schnauzer. There is also a field dog diet, working dog diet, puppy, all-breed, and senior dog diet, along with two “holistic plus” blends. There is also a cat food diet available and some supplements.
Even if someone is skeptical about whether or not age or breed formulas are relevant in pet food, Dr. Gary’s Best Breed does contain ingredients that are made out of whole food sources. The first four ingredients of the cocker spaniel diet food are chicken meal, pearled barley, oatmeal, and dried beet pulp (“beet residue remaining after juices have been extracted for sugar (sucrose) or molasses production”). More whole meat sources would be a benefit to this food; however, it does seem to be a good option for feeding, and comparable to a food like Canidae.
This article was written by My Pet Saving’s contributor Melissa. She has a master’s degree in creative writing, owns several pets and runs her own online pet magazine. To learn more about this author check out the contributor profile page.
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