When it comes to the decision between feeding your dog complete dry dog food or canned wet food there may not be an obvious winner but each has its own pros and cons. Through our research its seems like most studies are sponsored by the dog food manufacturers making it hard to gain an unbiased opinion, however through digging deeper we've found that most independent dog food analysts sway towards wet, canned dog food over dry or suggest feeding a mixture of the two.

One of the main advantages of wet dog food is the fact that due to its adaptable attributes it makes it very easy for manufacturers to create a variety of deliciously tasty flavours that your will dog probably find far more appealing that a dry kibble. Wet food also seems to contain higher values of vitamins, proteins and moisture than its dry alternative, it's also processed less and has the advantage of their being no need to use as many chemical preservatives than that of dry food making it seemingly the healthier option. However dry complete dog food also has its advantages, not only for the dog owner as its normally a lot cheaper than canned food, but also for your dog in the fact that by eating a dry kibble it exercises the dogs jaw muscle therefore satisfying its natural chewing instinct and also helps to keep your dogs teeth clean by removing tartar build up and plaque. Dry food also has a longer shelf life that its wet alternative which once opened goes off very quickly, making it a lot easier to bulk buy.

After weighing up the options it seems generally, as the experts recommend, the best option it to feed your dog a mixture of both foods therefore giving them the advantages of each. By alternating the feeding habits perhaps by feeding complete dry food as the morning meal and wet canned food at night your dog gets the best of both worlds avoids the problem of them becoming a finicky eater whereby they will only eat one type of food.

Find our more about complete dog food

Does anyone else have any thoughts on which is best ? I guess it depends from pet to pet but I know some vets are biased to one rather than the other.

I use mainly dry and he has a spoonful of wet to add some taste and texture. I use the dry mainly because it has all the nutrients, it's doesn't go off and it's good for them to crunch on to maintain dental health. I use a bit of wet food just to add taste and texture. I wouldn't use all wet food because it's bad for dental health, and you have to feed more than dry to get the same nutrients, as wet is 80% water.

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Mummy to 7 pets: 2 rabbits, 3 rats, 1 dog, 1 cat

Both mine are on Orijen, there are many wet and dry foods - I think the important bit is to get a decent quality of nutrition into them. Ive always preferred dry due to tooth decay as mentioned with wet but overall its the ingredients I go for and you cant go wrong with the above I dont think

I feed complete dry (just switching over to burns), nature diet and some raw.

All three are great individually but together I think they're amazing

I have ever only fed canned food to my 12 year old dog who can be very fussy at times

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we feed a combination of both wet and dry wet = Nature diet and Dry = Arden Grange ours are doing really well on this combination

We feed both wet and dry...nature diet and nature menu with wafcol puppy salmon and potato and skinners field and trial.
I have been very pleased with all these....and the dogs look great.

I'll go for dry dog food. It is good compared to wet dog food especially for puppies because it helps in cleaning their teeth as well as in growing their teeth. Budget wise, you can save with dry dog food than in wet dog food. My puppy is in Orijen dry dog food. I'm giving him wet dog food just once in a month.