How to Read a Dog Food Label
How to read a dog food label
Every bag in the UK has to carry the same legal declaration. Once you know what the four parts mean, you can compare any two foods in a minute and ignore the front of the bag entirely.
1. The description: complete or complementary
"Complete pet food" means the food on its own meets the dog's nutritional needs; it is a legal claim, tested against FEDIAF guidelines. "Complementary" means it does not, and must be fed with something else. Treats, toppers and most tinned "meat" products are complementary. All Happy Dog dry and Pure wet recipes are complete.
2. Composition
The ingredients, in descending order by weight before cooking. Three things to check:
"Ostrich meat meal" is dried and concentrated; "fresh chicken" is three quarters water and will shrink in the finished food. Two bags can list meat first and end up with very different amounts of it. The full explanation.
"Ostrich" and "potato" are named. "Meat and animal derivatives" and "cereals" are legal but tell you nothing, and the recipe can change between batches. For a dog with a sensitivity, generic terms are a dead end.
Count them, including fats and flavourings. A single-protein food has one. A food with "chicken fat" and "hydrolysed poultry protein" alongside lamb has three.
3. Analytical constituents
What the finished food contains, by percentage: crude protein, crude fat, crude fibre, crude ash, moisture, and sometimes calcium, phosphorus and sodium. This is the part to compare between bags, because it describes the food as fed rather than the ingredients before cooking.
| Term | What it means | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Crude protein | Total protein, animal and plant | Low twenties for adult dry food; higher for puppies; reduced in renal diets |
| Crude fat | Total fat | Typically 10 to 16% dry; under 10% in low-fat diets |
| Crude fibre | Indigestible plant fibre | 2 to 5% for most dogs; higher in weight-loss diets |
| Crude ash | Total minerals, not "ash" in any other sense | Around 6 to 8% in dry food; very high figures suggest a lot of bone |
| Moisture | Water content | About 10% dry, up to 80% wet |
Comparing wet with dry. Wet food figures look low because of the water. To compare, divide each figure by (100 minus moisture). A wet food with 8% protein and 78% moisture is about 36% protein on a dry-matter basis. Our own analyses are quoted on dry matter for this reason.
4. Additives
Vitamins, trace elements and any technological additives, listed per kilogram. Vitamins and minerals here are normal and necessary; they are how a complete food is made complete. What you do not want to see are artificial colours (E100 series numbers), artificial preservatives such as BHA and BHT, and added sugars, which appear as sucrose, dextrose or caramel.
The rest of the bag
The feeding guide is a starting point, not a prescription; adjust to the dog's condition and weigh the food rather than scoop it. The batch number and best-before date are what you would quote if you ever had a concern, and they are how we trace a bag back to its retention sample at the factory. How that works.
Questions about a specific label? Send us a photo and we will read it with you.
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