‘Looks good on the surface’: Expert reveals whether you should feed Kirkland dog food to your pet

Most pet owners want to feed their animals the best quality food. Some popular pet food brands include Purina, Hill's Science Diet, Royal Canin, and Iams.

A Candian-based pet nutrition boutique reviewed Costco's Kirkland-brand dog food and why they don't recommend it in a video with 1.9 million views.

TikTok user Regina's Pet Food Experts (@houseofpaws) is based in Regina, Saskatchewan. In the video, one of the company's food experts says, "Is Kirkland a good food for your dog? Kirkland looks good on the surface, but let's see just how good it is."

The pros of Kirkland pet food

The expert notes that Kirkland pet food is made by Diamond Pet Food Manufacturing, which is one of the largest pet food manufacturers in the world. She explains that protein is the first ingredient listed on the packaging of good quality dog food.

"As always, the first thing that we're looking at is the first ingredient and we want to see that it is a named protein," she explains, revealing Kirkland's ingredients. "This formula does include a named protein. So, that scores Kirkland 10 points."

Next is where the salt is located on the ingredients. And that's because, like humans, consuming too much salt is bad for dogs. "You can see where it's circled," says the content creator, pointing to the third sentence of the list. Why is it important?

"Because salt can only be one percent of the entire bag. Anything listed after is less than one percent of the bag," the pet food expert elaborates. "So, when it comes to our fruits and veggies, we want to see them before the salt." Since the salt comes after the fruits and veggies, the pet food earns five out of 10 points.

"We're looking at is how the food is preserved," she says. Because the food contains carrots, peas, dried kelp, apples, cranberries, rosemary extract, and parsley flake, among others, they get a high score, she says, "Kirkland is persevering their food naturally which scores them 10 points."

Then, the TikToker discusses coloring. "Kirkland is not adding any color to the food. This is important because the color is completely useless in pet food," she states. Thus, they receive 10 out of 10 points.

"We need to look at the guaranteed analysis to see what are the carbs," the content creator says. "Kirkland's carbs come in 45 percent." As a result, they get another five out of 10 points. "We want to see a low-carb dry option," she adds. When a dog consumes a lot of carbs they can experience digestive problems like bloating, diarrhea, and vomiting.

Potential drawbacks of Kirkland pet food

Finally, she discusses how the Kirkland has their ingredients listed. "It looks like Kirkland starts off good with a named protein, then a lamb meal, a named meal," the pet food expert states. "But the next three ingredients are three different types of rice: Brown rice, white rice, and rice bran."

Why is this a big deal? "This is important because what Kirkland has done is split their ingredients," she explains. "What it's doing is pushing less desirable ingredients down the panel and more favorable ingredients higher up the panel."

Now, the food is rice and lamb rather than lamb and rice because there's more rice than lamb. In the expert's opinion, splitting ingredients isn't a good sign. "If a manufacturer is splitting their ingredients, they are trying to hide something from us," the content creator says. "This is why they lose 10 points off their total score."

The final tally

"Nobody else we reviewed was actually splitting their ingredients," the pet food expert says. "So, Kirkland is going to lose 10 points off their total score, giving them a score of 30, an overall grade of a 'D' kibble."

Then, the content creator wraps up the video by urging people not to use Kirkland's pet food. "If you're feeding Kirkland dog food, there are much better options out there for your furry guy. Remember when we're feeding a dry food, we only ever want to feed a 'Grade A' kibble," she concludes.

Viewers weigh in

Viewers in the comments section had mixed opinions.

"Kirkland dog food is excellent. Our vet told us to buy it," one viewer wrote.

"My dog has been eating Kirkland dog food for 12 years and she is thriving," a second stated.

"We used Kirkland, we believed it was great, and then they started changing the formula without telling anyone and our dog ended up extremely sick," a third shared.

"Can't use kirkland dog food in general my husky gets itchy more have [to] go back red barn," a fourth commented.

Did Kirkland change anything to their dog food?

Kirkland has not confirmed or denied if they changed anything to the dog food. However, there have been seven recalls in 2012. The recalls were, "Various dog food formulas were recalled, but the Super Premium Adult Dog Lamb, Rice & Vegetable Formula experienced a significant number of recalls. All of the recalls were related to potential Salmonella poisoning and were initiated by Kirkland," according to Dogster.

So, is Kirkland dog food a good brand? The dog food earns a measly 1.7 out of 5 stars out of 592 reviews on Consumer Reports. Ultimately, it's up to the dog owner to decide which food is best for their furry friend.

@houseofpawsboutique Bonus review! Lots of folks asked about Kirkland dog food so let's take a peek! #petfood #dogfood #catfood #petnutrition #pethealth #petstore #dogs #cats #yqr #feedfresh #bestofthebest #petnutritionexpert #HouseOfPaws #dogfoodreview ♬ The Rebel Wolf - Dnoks06

The Daily Dot reached out to Regina's Pet Food Experts via Instagram direct message and TikTok comment as well as Costco via media contact form.

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