If you feed kibble you need to know what ingredient splitting is. Pet food labels can be confusing at the best if times, and sometimes, manufacturers make it seem like their product is better than it actually is.

Ingredients in pet food are listed in order of how much each ingredient weighs before the food is cooked and turned into kibble. If you take a more abundant ingredient such as a grain or legume and split it into smaller portions, your more desirable ingredient (e.g. meat) can be listed higher up the list making it seem like that is the most abundant ingredient.

For example:

• Peas, pea flour, pea protein

• Rice flour, rice bran, brewers rice

• Dried potatoes, potato starch, potato protein and potato flour

• Whole corn, corn meal, corn gluten meal

These are each essentially the same ingredient (with some nutritional differences). If these ingredients are listed separately, a meat protein can be at the top of the list, even though it weighs less than the other ingredients combined. This makes it seem like the product is mostly made from meat protein when the product is actually mostly grains or legumes and their by-products.

While some grains can be useful for dogs (not all grains are bad!), some dogs can be sensitive to grains so study ingredient labels carefully.

Knowing how to read ingredient lists helps you make a more informed decision on what to feed your pets.

Do you really know what you are feeding your dog?