Some people think that dog food companies skew the amount to feed in the guidelines on the higher side so that you’ll feed more and, in turn, buy more.
Others think the amount of food in the bowl when following that chart doesn’t seem like enough food.
I’ve experienced both in one day.
I needed to find a new dog food for my foster dog Bumbles (I foster dogs for Paws & Prayers of Akron, Ohio). Bumbles, a Lab/Shar Pei mix, suffered some mange due to stress. I wanted to find her a healthy, grain free, limited ingredient food that wasn’t too pricey. (The rescue has free food that has been donated by the public, but I always buy healthier food for my fosters because I’m a food snob and because I don’t like feeding rescue dogs chicken based foods or grains.)
I narrowed my decision down to two foods and decided to look at the feeding guidelines to see how they compared. I looked at the back of a small bag of Zignature Limited Ingredient Duck and was surprised to see that the amount to feed was about HALF that of the other food I was looking at. So I picked up a big bag of that and went home.
When I got home and started to feed the dog, I looked at the chart on the back of the big bag and wondered if I had gone temporarily crazy in the store, because the amount was not what I remembered it being. So I brought up the website, and the feeding chart there matched what I had noted in the store. (Remember, I was looking at the chart on the small bag, but bought a large bag.)
I emailed Zignature to ask why the chart on my bag didn’t match the chart on their website. Here is the response I received:
Hi Leigh
Thank you for your email. Our feeding guidelines were recently re-evaluated, and the information posted on the Zignature website is the most up-to-date. We are transitioning the updated bags into stores as they run out of inventory.
Best Regards
Jamie Amato| Customer Service | Pets Global, Inc.
You might want to double check your food, too. As you can see in the picture above, the amount of food to feed daily between the two charts can vary between 1-2 cups. That’s a big difference in the bowl and in the price! And now when I feed the amount from the re-evaluated chart, the portion looks way too small for my 80 pound foster dog. As a pet sitter, I’m always reminding people to feed according to the guidelines, but now I must admit I’m stumped. Bumbles says she likes the old chart 🙂
I have a 105 pound Akita who is a large breed and on Zignature Turkey dry. I feed 3 cups a day and if I fed more he would increase weight which is unhealthy. The old feeding chart is the right one and their new one is strictly to make more money for them. Their response to your email was so generic and lame that it spoke volumes