Dr Liesel van der Merwe is a small animal medicine specialist. Send her your questions: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Dr Liesel van der Merwe

Everything is getting expensive and the rand has to stretch and this applies across the board to all levels of society. If households have to cut costs on groceries and other essentials, then it is obvious that costs will need to be cut regarding pet care. Food is one of the monthly expenses that will fall under the knife. So, if you cannot afford a super premium diet, then how do you decide what food to buy?

There are a lot of brands of dog food on the market. How do you choose? The first step is to see if they belong to the Pet Food Industry Association of South Africa. As per their website:

“The Pet Food Industry Association of Southern Africa (PFI) is a non-profit body formed by pet food manufacturers, dedicated to upholding quality standards that ensure the nutritional wellbeing of household pets.”

“Representative of 62% of the pet food market in South Africa, each member commits to manufacture and market food that meets internationally accepted standards as set out in Act 36 of 1947. The Department of Agriculture’s regulatory authority manages Act 36.”

“The PFI aids industry in facilitating the complaint process, highlighting matters of non-compliance to the inspectorate of Act 36 for investigation”.

Since being established in 1998, the PFI has targeted legislation, legislation compliance and has been working to ensure that all pet food sold in South Africa has the nutritional wellbeing of your pets as its primary concern.

All dog food bags will have a label with a list of ingredients. The source of the ingredients is, however, not specified. There is a minimum protein percentage, but one cannot see from the label where this protein comes from.

Offal can be good quality protein depending on what is used, but if just hooves and skin are used, this form of protein cannot be digested by the dog and actually counts for nothing. There are even chemicals, which are non-harmful to your dog, which can be added to artificially increase the protein percentage.

Obviously, these poor practices will be less likely in brands registered with the PFI, as they are monitored. One thing cheaper foods may struggle with is the omega three and six fatty acids, as these fats in the diet need expensive anti-oxidants to prevent the food from becoming rancid.

Our dogs are quite tough when it comes to eating things. They are omnivores and scavengers. So, many will manage fine on poorer quality pellets if supplemented with good quality vegetable and meat table scraps. However, especially the smaller breeds are prone to pancreatitis from a too high fat intake, which is also often a problem with table scraps. Certain breeds are also well known to be susceptible to gastrointestinal issues and are managed better on a high quality diet.

Finally, be realistic. A very cheap brand of food bought from the corner shop cannot have good quality digestible ingredients. You cannot expect champagne on beer money.

If you change your dogs’ pellet diet brand, choose the highest quality you can afford, change over gradually over a week or so and then check how your dog does on the new diet. Maybe add extra Omega three fatty acids as capsules.

Monitor his stools – increased volumes of stools may be expected, but every frequent or softer stool indicates poor digestion of the diet. Observe also for general coat health: Is it shiny or duller? Is the dog itching and losing condition or hair?

It’s a big market out there – read reviews, choose with the PFI in mind and check how your individual pet manages on the diet. All dogs are different with their digestion, just like us humans.