• Shop
  • DELIVERY
    • Auto-Delivery
    • Other Services
  • News
  • Food Guide
  • Resources
    • FAQs
    • About
    • Secure
  • Contact
  • Search

Smiley Dog | Healthy Pet Food | Free Seattle Area Delivery

Delivering Healthy Pet Food With Peace of Mind

Bark at us 24 hours a day! (206) 903-9631
You are here: Home / Food Guide / Pet Food Evaluation Basics / Digestibility / Digestibility Examples

Digestibility Examples

Share

Dog Food Digestibility Examples

Food A provides 100% of daily nutritional requirements for a 25 pound dog with a one cup serving. Food B provides 100% of daily nutritional requirements for a 20 pound dog with a one cup serving.

  • Food B will most likely cost you less to purchase, although you will feed more each day.
  • Food A will most likely use higher quality ingredients, since it is more highly digestible, as reflected in the feeding guidelines.

So which is “cheaper”? Which is the better value?

Often, but not always, the better quality food will end up costing about the same or slightly more than the bargain brand. This is usually not obvious if you compare only pricing, but you now know how to do more than that.

Do the math, and you may be surprised at the result. Look at the bag size, feeding guidelines, and price.


Here is another hypothetical, but typical, example for a pet owner with a 25# dog.

  • A 15 lb. bag of Smiley Dog food costs $28 and has a feeding guideline of 1 cup per 25 pounds.
  • A 20 lb. bag of Smelly Dog food costs $25 and has a feeding guideline of 1 cup per 20 pounds.

It looks like a no-brainer here. Smiley Dog food costs $3 more and you get 5# less. Shouldn’t Smelly Dog food be significantly cheaper?

Let’s take a closer look at that 25# dog owner’s situation.

We’ll assume three cups of food equal one pound. That means:

  • 60 cups in a 20# bag of Smelly Dog food
  • 45 cups in a 15# bag of Smiley Dog food

Smiley Dog food will last 45 days. (45 cups/ 1 cup each day from feeding guidelines). It will cost $0.62 per day to feed ($28/ 45 days)

Smelly Dog food will last 48 days (60 cups/ 1.25 cups each day from feeding guidelines). It will cost $0.52 per day to feed ($25/ 48 days)

Hmmmmmm.

We can immediately determine that Smiley Dog food is better quality than Smelly Dog food because of the feeding guidelines.

A difference of a dime a day. Not quite as stark a difference as it appeared earlier. That’s the value of considering dog food digestibility in your evaluations.

And what happens when the manufacturer of Smelly Dog food decides to reduce their bag size to 17.5 pounds while keeping the price the same? The daily price difference drops to $.02/ day.

Woof.

Is it worth saving a few pennies to put your dog through the added stress of metabolizing a poor quality food? You’ll more than make up for it with fewer vet bills over the life of your dog. Not to mention how much less volume of poop you’ll clean up over that time. . .

Choose a better dog food!

Share

Food Guide

  • The Pet Food Industry
  • Pet Food Evaluation Basics
    • Pet Food Ingredients
    • Digestibility
      • Metabolizeable Energy
      • Digestibility Examples
      • Feeding Guidelines
    • Special Circumstances
    • Guaranteed Analysis
    • Choosing & Comparing Pet Food
    • Pet Food Math 101
    • Food Comparison Checklist
    • 10 Commandments of Choosing Healthy Pet Food
  • Getting Started with Raw Pet Food
  • Are You On Your Own With a Pet Food Recall?
  • Dog Foods at Smiley Dog
  • Cat Foods at Smiley Dog

Want to learn more?

Give us a call at
(206) 903-9631
or head to the Contact Page to send an email.

We look forward to hearing from you!

  • Shop
  • DELIVERY
  • News
  • Food Guide
  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Search

Does something on this page bug you? Big or small, let us know so we can fix it.
Click the tick to report your bug! Tick!

As of October 1, 2018 Smiley Dog operations and ownership transitioned to Sam's Cats and Dogs, Naturally. Click here to be taken to the Sam's website.
Shop Sam's