I've always fed my dogs home cooked as I like to know what ingredients are going into their food. They are given a wide selection of meat, offal, poultry, fish, vegetables, fruit as well as cheese, eggs, goats milk, plus sunflower oil and yoghourt or kefir. Most mornings for breakfast they'll have raw chicken feet, necks or wings. I only give them kibble occasionally and neither of them have ever had canned food and its very rarely they're given "human food" such as biscuits or pizza and treats are also home made.

I've fed my dogs this way for more years than I can remember and have always had healthy dogs with no allergies or weight problems, and more importantly all my dogs seem to approve of my cooking and the selection of food they're given!

Chlosmum - How do you know they approve of your cooking They're hardly likely to complain in writing or ask for there money back. Perhaps they eat it out of politeness. Perhaps deep in those lovely canine heads are harboured thoughts, such as "Oh No! Not Chicken in Aspic again!" "Wish we could have a tin of Cheapo Dingo Chunks in Goo!" Only leg pulling - please forgive me!

Before I'd give credence to that site I'd like to see some documentation of how they make their ratings (why 5.0 for this and 4.7 for that) and who pays for the site.

There has been pathetically little research on long term health consequences of basic dog diet parameters. A fortune has been spent promoting this or that brand/product/idea. I've known dogs who lived past 20 years in good health when fed cheap supermarket junk dog food.

Wish it was possible to provide good information rather than just complain about all the hype. But I cannot find much good information.

My OH is 26, hardly ever gets ill, is nice and slim, rarely goes to the dentist, and rarely gets spots.
However he rarely exercises and eats mostly junk food. Yes I do cook and he will eat bits but given the choice he would have white bread sandwich for lunch and pizza for tea, snacks are usually a packet of biscuits, crisps, sweets, chocolate and drink nothing but cola and lucozade.
Compared to him I'm also 26, could do with dropping a few stone, and could really do with going to the dentist AGAIN and always have spots, along with asthma and IBS.
I have breakfast most mornings (oats, smoothie/milkshake, yoghurt, brown toast or cereal), have a brown bread sandwich, salad or something for dinner with a piece of fruit, have various normal meals for tea (always with some veg) and have snacks (not always healthy but I do try). Drinks is usually decaff or hebal tea, dilute, fruit juice, milk or water. I work with young children so pretty active at work and used to walk Cookie everyday.

Just because a dog has lived, survived and not been constantly at the vet on a certain food doesn't mean it's good. The majority falls down to that individual's predisposition.
I know my OH can survive and appear to thrive on junk food, but if I did what he did I would be even fatter, spottier and my IBS would be making me ill and my lack of exercise wouldn't be helping my asthma.

The point is . . . we don't know what IS good. How much carbs is too much? How much fiber? Is corn really bad? Is grain free really good? Can there be too much protein? Are some fats better than others? Is relatively high fat ok if the carbs are kept down? How does this differ between breeds? or between ages and activity levels?

There are lots of dietary fads in the canine world. I don't see much serious testing on any of them. And it is freaking hard to test any food for all breeds and all life stages, so it's not surprising that meaningful results are few and far between.
I'd say that if your dog is doing well on food X, food X is 'good' for your dog, whether it's cheap or inexpensive.

Hello - sorry but I´ve never heard about acana - my dog loves cereal-free dog food.

Acana grain free kibble is imported from Canada and is available at the larger pet shops here in Hungary. If you look up Acana Germany you'll find a store locator which lists the names and addresses of all the pet stores in Berlin that sell it.

Acana is INSANELY EXPENSIVE (simply overpriced IMO) imported dog food. Assuming you don't own a Chihuahua, only wealthy or semi wealthy people can afford to feed it here. My two dogs, at 55 and 92 lbs respectively, make it WAY too costly to feed. At some point, IMO, it almost seems like there's only so much a kibble should cost, but if you can afford it, go for it. I'd NEVER buy Acana kibble, I can't afford raw, but raw is cheaper than that, which makes no sense at all.

I found raw to be cheaper than the fairly standard okay food I was feeding before. If anyone is interested I fed Burns fish and brown rice, but this was about 5 years ago. The push we had to switch completely to raw was they seemed to have changed something with no warning and it gave him an upset stomach. We even took the bag back and got a different batch as the shop didn't know about any changes but still had the same problem.

Think I said before, but as he got ill and started to refuse his food we bought some AATU. The 80% duck 20% fruit and veg. That was way way more expensive than raw, but totally worth it to feed the days he didn't want his raw food.