Sportmix Dog Food (Dry)

by Mike Sagman
Share

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Sportmix Dog Food receives the Advisor’s second-lowest rating of two stars.

The Sportmix Original product line includes four dry dog foods. We found no AAFCO life stage recommendations for these foods anywhere on the Sportmix website.

  • Sportmix Bite Size
  • Sportmix Chunk Style
  • Sportmix High Protein
  • Sportmix Puppy Mini Morsels

Sportmix Chunk Style Dog Food was selected to represent the others in the line for this review.

Sportmix Chunk Style

Dry Dog Food

Estimated Dry Matter Nutrient Content

Protein = 24% | Fat = 9% | Carbs = 59%

Ingredients: Ground yellow corn, meat meal, ground wheat, soybean meal, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols, a source of natural vitamin E), salt, vitamin A supplement, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin E supplement, riboflavin supplement, d-calcium pantothenate, niacin supplement, choline chloride, vitamin B12 supplement, folic acid, thiamine mononitrate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, biotin, calcium iodate, copper sulfate, ferrous sulfate, manganous oxide, zinc oxide, magnesium oxide

Fiber (estimated dry matter content) = 5.7%

Red items when present indicate controversial ingredients

The first ingredient in this dog food is corn. Now, contrary to what you may have heard, corn isn’t necessarily a bad ingredient.

On the other hand, although there’s no way to know from the list entry itself, the corn used in making many pet foods can be similar to the kind used to make feed for livestock.

And that can sometimes be problematic.

What’s more, corn is commonly linked to canine food allergies1.

For these reasons, we rarely consider corn a preferred component in any dog food.

The second ingredient includes meat meal… “the rendered product from mammal tissues, exclusive of blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices”.2

Since in this case the source animal is not known, this meat can come from anywhere. Road kill, dead zoo animals, diseased or dying livestock… even euthanized cats and dogs.

On the brighter side, however, meat meals are meat concentrates and contain nearly 300% more protein than fresh meat.

Although this item does contain all the amino acids a dog needs, we do not consider meat meal a quality component.

The third ingredient is wheat. Wheat is another problematic grain and subject to the same issues as corn (previously discussed).

The fourth ingredient is soybean meal. Soybean meal is actually a useful by-product. It’s what remains of soybeans after all the oil has been removed.

Soybean meal contains 48% protein. However, compared to meat, this item is considered an inferior plant-based protein providing a lower biological value.

The fifth ingredient is chicken fat. Chicken fat is obtained from rendering chicken… a process similar to making soup in which the fat itself is skimmed from the surface of the liquid.

Chicken fat is high in linoleic acid… an omega-6 fatty acid essential for life. Although it doesn’t sound very appetizing, chicken fat is actually a quality ingredient.

From here, the list goes on to include a number of other items.

But to be realistic, ingredients located this far down the list (other than nutritional supplements) are not likely to affect the overall rating of this product.

With two notable exceptions…

First, we find no mention of probiotics… friendly bacteria applied to the surface of the kibble after processing.

And lastly, the minerals listed here do not appear to be chelated. And that can make them more difficult to absorb. Non-chelated minerals are usually associated with lower quality dog foods.

Sportmix Dog Food
The Bottom Line

Judging by its ingredients alone, Sportmix Dog Food appears to be a below-average kibble.

But ingredient quality by itself cannot tell the whole story. We still need to estimate the product’s meat content before determining a final rating.

The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 24%, a fat level of 9% and estimated carbohydrates of about 59%.

As a group, the brand features an average protein content of 27% and a mean fat level of 11%. Together, these figures suggest a carbohydrate content of 54% for the overall product line.

Below-average protein. Below-average fat. And above-average carbohydrates when compared to a typical dry dog food.

In addition, when you consider the protein-boosting effect of the soy meal, this looks like the profile of a kibble containing only a moderate amount of meat.

Bottom line?

Sportmix Dog Food is a plant-based kibble using only a moderate amount of chicken or meat meals as its main sources of animal protein… thus earning the brand two stars.

Not recommended.

A Final Word

This review is designed to help you make a more informed decision when buying dog food. However, our rating system is not intended to suggest feeding a particular product will result in specific health benefits for your pet.

For a better understanding of how we analyzed this product, please be sure to read our article, “The Problem with Dog Food Reviews”

Remember, no dog food can possibly be appropriate for every life stage, lifestyle or health condition. So, choose wisely. And when in doubt consult a veterinarian for help.

Have an opinion about this dog food… or maybe the review itself? Please know… we welcome your comments.

Notes and Updates

05/15/2010 Original review
12/15/2010 Review updated

  1. White, S., Update on food allergy in the dog and cat, World Small Animal Veterinary Association, Vancouver, 2001 ↩
  2. Association of American Feed Control Officials ↩
Dog Food Advisor IconThe Dog Food Advisor publishes independent reviews to help pet owners make better choices when shopping for dog food.


Tagged as: , , , ,
  • Jared

    ive hunted 9 hog dogs for years and all ill ever feed them is sportmix 24/20. I can feed a lot less because of the high fat content. ive been through a lot of dog food, and for the price, performace, and hard poo I get from the sportmix, it’s worth every penny. i’ve watched my dogs run for 12 hrs after hogs all night long through the swamps of louisiana and texas and they never fizzed out. not to mention swimming through slus and blasting through marsh cane and heavy wooded areas. sportmix is truly a good feed.

  • Julie

    I have been feeding my lab sportsmix for 2 years now and I have not seen any health related problems in him. When my husband got purina dog chow once he started to back out and losing wieght now we only feed him sportsmix brand and I trust it. My brother also feeds his dog the sportsmix and have not had a problem with that either. I would say if you feed your dog high quailty dog food their body is used to getting that and when you switch to a different brand of dog food it must be done slowly by mixing it in with their current dog food until their bodies can take the change before making the change complete. It’s like when a kid haven’t had a lot of sugar but when they eat sugar they get sick after being on a sugar high for a while.

  • ShamelessRawFoodie

    Oh yes… and it’s amazing what people have money for after they claim to not have money for better quality food – sport events, music events, beer, cigarettes, tattoos, piercings, latte’s, latest/greatest gadget, on and on.
    Just think of all that spend $2 per day on vending machine junk – $1 beverage + $1 snacko. That’s $60 per month, easily enough to purchase quality food for their precious pooch who didn’t request to be a victim of inferior food.
    I recognize most people aren’t in the category of mega-bucks, but it would be superb if we had a societal shift whereby food (Real Food) was a priority over non-essentials.

  • Gordon

    Well said DFN. I like the “animal income” analogy. It’s true. And also, with out food, that a lot of us like to spend as little as possible on, is what actually keeps us alive. Food itself, not the fact a lot spend as little on it as possible.

  • melissa

    Scotty-

    How true. I picked up my order of Acana yesterday(7 bags) and two bags of Pro Pac-this may or may not be enough for one month(depending on the number of rescue fosters that come through-last month was 10 bags Acana and 4 Pro Pac) The bill was almost $500 . Add to that the Wellness(canned and dry @ $38) Canned 4 health was another $50, and the ingrediants for their homecooked portion was another $45. I feed this way because I can, but not everyone has the ability to spend a lot of $$ in this economy on their pets food. What bothers me is those that CAN and DON’T, taking the cheap route out thinking it doesn’t matter-

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja Dog Food Ninja

    Now, that’s not to say that I’m getting rid of my Xbox… :-D

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja Dog Food Ninja

    We have gotten to a strange point and it has taken many hundreds of years, but now-a-days, the average person would scoff at the idea of spending more than 20% of their income on their food. What is so strange about this is that, in nature, almost 100% of an animal’s effort is put towards finding and eating food on a daily basis. The food in an of itself is the animal’s “income”. We think we are so isolated from nature because we build walls and have supermarkets and Xbox and silly-string, but our health is paying the price for our neglect of real nutrition.

  • http://www.dogtownco.com Scotty

    I cant tell you how amazed I am at people who think 50 bucks a month is a lot of money to feed a dog. I think they only think that because of the availabilty of cheaper foods that shouldnt exist in the first place. 50 divided by 31 is $1.61 A DAY!!!!!!!!! I spend 50 a day to feed myself and two boys ….AT LEAST!!!!! THERE IS A REASON THE DOG FOOD IS CHEAP……There is nothing in it worth anything.

  • “Ryo”

    Diana, if you’re still interested on this topic, I agree with Jonathan- “meat meal” could mean anything. Also, “made in USA” isn’t very important…. roadkill in the USA can’t be any better or worse than roadkill found in China or something. But, I must say, Iams is not exactly a good food, either. I’d advise your daughter to try Precise kibble and Purebites treats- at my pet store, Precise only costs $9.99 for a 5 pound bag! Yes, that is, in fact, cheap where I am. Purebites in the chicken variety costs $6.99 for the mid-size bag, I think. I currently only use Purebites treats for my cats so I am not very familiar with the prices for the dog treats.
    Hope this helps.

  • Jonathan

    Diana, Sportmix COULD contain euthanized pets, horses, roadkill, etc because they use unspecified meat meal. I say “could” because that would be the ingredient those things are found in, but then again, it could just be made of slaughterhouse waste. It’s not a good food, but to it’s credit, my store sell quite a bit of it with no obvious, sudden issues. There is always a possibility that the bag you got was contaminated with something. In any account, one can only expect so much from a food that costs $14 bucks for 40 pounds. At least it’s better than Ol’ Roy.

  • Diana Risley

    I bought Sportmix active for my two mini- shelties on March 12. Only because the lady giving out samples told us that all of the ingredients come from the U.S.A.
    After being on the feed for 5 weeks, the 4 year old dog went into complete renal failure and died. The veterinarian was able to keep our 3 year old alive for 3 days then he died from renal failure. My daughter also has a mini sheltie but feeds Iams and the only time she got any of the Sportmix was for treats when she was with the other two. She is in the hospital with an I.V. and seems to be improving. Is it a coincidence that all three dogs had/have kidney issuesand the severity of the cases was determined by the quantity of Sportmix they consumed. The autopsy results and food analysis will give us the answers.
    I have been told that some meat meal comes from euthanized horses and traces of the drug has been found in dog foods. I do not know if this is the case with Sportmix. But will definitely find out.

  • ed

    These foods are very popular with hunters that trial dogs, putting enormous physical stress on the animals. It works.

  • ed

    http://www.sportmix.com/dog/premiumHighEnergyAdultChunk.tpl

    It also comes in a mini-chunk. I have a friend with 25 dogs that uses this one and the black bag.

  • http://Cohentcsn@cox.net Spencer

    I like the way you think Johnathan! Keep up the rants, i agree with you so far on the majority of these reviews!

  • Meagan

    Mike-
    Nope that My Perfect Pet is not the Hunter’s Blend food that he is feeding his hounds. I really have no idea what it is. He says its a really good food. I should just see if I can take a look at a bag of one. So weird that it can not be found on the internet. :/

  • Antonio

    But I think you all can see from the pic in my Gravatar, I like to keep my dogs as lean and healthy as I do myself.

  • Antonio

    Cathy your absolutely right about the taste stuff, but interestingly enough I’m actually in pretty good health for my age, height, and weight. I think most large companies want to make the non organic stuff taste better as oppose to the organic stuff. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out really. FDA, now one might wonder why does the Food & Drug administration work together? They both help each other bad food, helps create prolonged health problems, thereby creating a need for drugs/medicines, to help pamper those problems over a prolonged period of time. The biggest problem with both organic and non organic is the fact that food w/ a lot of salt and additives create the desire of wanting to consume more and over consumption is our biggest problem.

  • Jonathan

    Hey Mike P. You are right to point out what I said here contradicts what I said to you. My rant here was in reaction to someone that had just purchased a bag of this stuff for a tiny dog (under 15lb’s) and they acted like I was insane for recommending that Pro Pac would be better. It just bothered me really bad that they wouldn’t pay a tiny bit extra (maybe $4 bucks a month more?) to feed their tiny dog something DECENT. You know what I mean?

    I get the person going through hard times that has three big dogs and needs to use a food like this. but for a tiny dog… I mean, you could feed a little dog the most expensive food in my store and it would still only cost about $15 bucks a month. How long would a 40 lb bag of Sportmix last a tiny dog? 8 months? how could it even still be good after that long??

    But again, you are right, Mike P. I shouldn’t have jumped on you so hard before. Besides, we are all on the same side… the side of healthy dogs! :-)

  • Jonathan

    Cathy, i couldn’t agree more with your three observations. I think, in particular, number three effects me the most. I do like the taste of organic foods in and of themselves and we only keep organic milk and free range eggs in my house. But when you put a Big Mac and fries next to a field greens salad with grilled chicken, guess with one I WANT to eat? Despite everything i know about preservatives, trans fats, etc, I have an extremely hard time overcoming my base desire to eat what “tastes” good. And they do taste good, to be sure. When they create these fast foods they are pushing all of our evolutionary buttons. Salt, fat, meat, calorically dense carbs… these are all hard to come by in nature and so we have a built in drive to find these things and consume them. The problem is, in nature, the amount of these things we would be able to find would be much lower that the way they are feed to us now… but we don’t have an “off” switch. Our survivalist evolutionary urge is to eat as much as possible before the food disappears.

  • Cathy

    Antonio – It’s interesting that your ‘winner of the taste test is the non-organic chicken’. In my unofficial assessment over the past several years, I’ve concluded that:
    1. most mainstream people don’t want organic food to taste better because they don’t want to justify paying more for clean food.
    2. taste buds become less functional after years of abuse with excess salt, chemicals, etc.
    3. tastes can be addictive, whereby a familiar taste is more comfortable, even if it’s toxic.
    As the saying goes……. some people will rationalize anything.

  • Antonio

    chicken -feed

  • Antonio

    Strange enough I don’t know of a butcher close by, yet Arkansas has chicken houses all over the state. My parents neighbor actually raise all his meat naturally. I’ve ate both, the non organic chicken and the home raised organic chicken, and the winner of the taste test definately goes to the non-organic chicken, but I’m sure the long term health benefits would go to the organic chicken, even if I’m not fun of the fact those rascals will walk around eating worms, mites, and ticks of all varities, I assume this is their natural diet and would therefore be healthier than the normal chicken fed being pushed off to those birds in these large factories.

  • Cathy

    Seems like the above debate equates to ‘which hamburger is more nutritious – McDonald’s or Burger King?’ Or maybe the debate is really about which hamburger, or which dog food, is less toxic! Feed REAL FOOD and we humans and our pets will be healthier.
    Today, for my 80# dog, I purchased 8# of chicken backs from my organic market @ 49 cents per #. Also 4# of chicken organs @ $1.00 per #. This is REAL FOOD that the market throws in the garbage unless purchased for pet food or farm feeding.

  • http://DogFoodAdvisor.com Mike Sagman

    The protein content is only 1% higher. Without the soybean meal, this food probably does contain some more meat. But the protein figures don’t support the claim that this recipe contains “a lot more meat”.

  • Antonio

    Doc, I think you over looked the ingredients I posted in my comment. It was for the Hunter’s Select formula of Sportsmix not this generic formula that’s been reviewed. The ingredients to the formula I copy/pasted directly from their website boost a heck of a lot more meat compared to this generic product that’s been reviewed.

  • http://DogFoodAdvisor.com Mike Sagman

    Hi Antonio… I wouldn’t be as concerned about who makes this food or that it’s made in an APHIS EU certified facility. I’d be more inclined to ignore these less important factors and focus more on the fact the idea this product line contains a whopping 60% carbohydrates (mostly corn), the absolute lowest quality type of meat meal and even soybean meal to boost its already below-average protein content. Throw in its lack of chelated minerals and you’ve got a clearly below-average dog food recipe.

  • Antonio

    Here are the ingredients to the sportsmix Hunter’s Select Formula list below. For someone on a tight budget this isn’t all that bad a food, and if you take time to call/email the people at Midwestern Pet Foods they will tell you exactly what’s in the Meat Meal, it doesn’t contain the typical 4D and road kill type animals, if I’m correct when i last checked it was a beef/pork combo, or a chicken/pork combo, I can’t remember, but don’t forget this product is produced at the same facility was Pro Pac and Earthborn which is a APHIS EU certified facility. Anyway hate to rant too long, here are the ingredients below:

    Meat Meal, Ground Yellow Corn, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of natural Vitamin E), Ground Wheat, Chicken By-Product Meal, Dried Beet Pulp, Flaxseed, Salt, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Niacin Supplement, Choline Chloride, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Folic Acid, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Biotin, Calcium Iodate, Copper Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Zinc Oxide, Magnesium Oxide.

  • Mike P

    Jonathan , I too hate to lay out the 46 buck a bag BG every month . In a previous post you threw me under the bus when I said , ” if you can’t afford a dog , don’t get one ” Anyway while I’m employed and getting a weekly paycheck I’ll do the best I can . This site provides the info on feeding your pups the best food at what you can afford . I think that is what you believe too . That is why your so passionate and why I admire that in you . Keep up the great post ….

  • Meagan

    I think that is the food he is talking about! :) It was the only thing I found when I looked it up on google. Weird that there is only one site for it and I was not able to look at the ingredients. Oh well nice to see they are feeding their hounds such a great food. He told me it was only about 12 dollars for a fifty pound bag. Sounds crazy to me. They have bought enough to sell themselves for 15 dollars a bag apparently.

  • http://DogFoodAdvisor.com Mike Sagman

    Hi Meagan… I am not familiar with Hunter’s Blend dog food. And I’m unable to locate a company operated website for this brand. Until we can access full information on the Hunter’s Blend product line, we currently have no plans to review this product. By the way, we have reviewed a 5-star Hunter’s Blend dog food recipe which happens to be made by My Perfect Pet.

  • Meagan

    i was wondering if you have ever reviewed hunter’s blend? my friends feed it to their hounds? i have never heard of it and i could not find much information online nor get the ingredients. they both say its a great food. anyone know thanks

  • Jonathan

    Yes.

  • jessy

    wow really you feel the need to rant on every type of dog food?

  • Jonathan

    I get it now. This food has two stars instead of one because even though the ingredients are low quality, it doesn’t include all the chemical crap like BHA and ethox and synth vit. k. I tell people that this is a better food than Dog Chow now. It’s still crap, but it IS better. Two stars makes sense.

  • Jonathan

    What merits the second star for this food? It contains euthanized pets! It’s Soylent Green for doggies! Anyone who thinks that it’s okay that the dog food they are buying is $14.99 for 40 pounds should then be told they must eat McDonald’s and Twinkies every day for a year then decide if they should continue to buy the lowest price food instead of quality products. People: if you can’t afford a dog, DON’T BUY ONE. plus, the shelters are already full enough without you going out to the pet store and encouraging more puppy mills by buying the cute little “eku” “certified” malty-poo. And further more, to people with small breed dogs, it eats 2 pounds of food a freakin’ month! There is no excuse to buy the cheapest possible food when your pup weighs less than you purse. I have a 75 pound lab and I buy her Blue Buff Wilderness. you know how much that cost me? 50 bucks a month. you know how much it would cost to feed it to your “designer dog” that fits in your fanny pack? like 10 bucks a month. Really.