Unrated

PRODUCT HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED

Pedigree Butcher’s Selects Dog Food receives the Advisor’s lowest rating of one star.

Currently, the Pedigree Butcher’s Selects brand lists four canned dog food. We found no AAFCO life stage recommendations for these foods anywhere on the Pedigree website.

• Pedigree Butcher’s Selects Oven-Roasted Chicken
• Pedigree Butcher’s Selects T-Bone Steak
• Pedigree Butcher’s Selects Filet Mignon
• Pedigree Butcher’s Selects Prime Rib

Pedigree Butcher’s Selects Filet Mignon was selected to represent the other in the line for this review.

The first ingredient in this dog food is water… which (of course) adds nothing but moisture to this food. Water is a routine finding in most canned dog foods.

The second item is chicken by-products… slaughterhouse waste. This is what’s left of a slaughtered chicken after all the prime cuts have been removed.

With the sole exception of feathers, this stuff can include almost anything… heads, feet, beaks, undeveloped eggs… you name it.

Not a quality ingredient.

The third ingredient lists chicken. Chicken is considered “the clean combination of flesh and skin… derived from the parts or whole carcasses of chicken”.¹

Like most meats, chicken is naturally rich in the ten essential amino acids required by a dog to sustain life.

The next item is meat by-products, an item made from slaughterhouse waste. This is what’s left of slaughtered animals after all the striated muscle cuts have been removed.

With the exception of hair, horns, teeth and hooves, this item can include almost any other part of the animal.²

Although most meat by-products can be nutritious, we do not consider such vaguely described (generic) ingredients to be as high in quality as those derived from a named animal source.

The fifth item mentions liver. Normally, a named liver ingredient can be a nutritious component. However, in this case, the source of the liver is unknown… generic. It could come from almost anywhere.

For this reason, this item cannot be considered a quality ingredient.

The sixth item is beef. Beef is defined as “the clean flesh derived from slaughtered cattle” and includes skeletal muscle or the muscle tissues of the tongue, diaphragm, heart or esophagus.³

Like chicken, beef is another protein-rich item.

But to be realistic, meat ingredients located this far down the list are not likely to have much of an effect on the overall quality of this product.

The seventh ingredient is rice flour. Rice flour is made from either white or brown rice and is considered a good gluten-free substitute for wheat flour.

We’re always disappointed to see the use of artificial coloring in any dog food.

Coloring is used to make the product more appealing to you… not your dog. After all, do you really think your dog cares what color her food is?

Garlic and onion powders are controversial items. For example, in rare cases, garlic has been linked to Heinz body anemia in dogs.⁴

Most of the professional literature we surveyed did not provide any conclusive warnings regarding the use of garlic… especially in small amounts (as it is here).

Although we see no reason to be overly concerned, we do feel it is a mistake to include such controversial ingredients in any dog food product.

We also note the presence of sodium nitrite… a controversial color preservative. Sodium nitrite has been linked to the production of cancer-causing substances (known as nitrosamines) when meats are exposed to high cooking temperatures.

Also, 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.

Pedigree Butcher’s Selects Dog Food
The Bottom Line

It’s difficult to find reason for joy when you look at an ingredients list like the one found on this Pedigree Butcher’s Selects label.

Just the same, it’s still beneficial to estimate the amount of meat present here before determining a final rating.

The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 36%, a fat level of 32% and an estimated carbohydrate content of 24%.

Protein averages about 40% for the group… with fat clocking-in at approximately 24%.

Average protein. Average fat. And below-average carbohydrates (when compared to a typical canned dog food).

This is the profile of a wet product containing a fair amount of meat. But it’s difficult to ignore the inferior quality of much of that meat and the myriad of Red Flag items.

When Pedigree says filet mignon “flavor”… they mean it. About the only thing close to a filet mignon here is the filet mignon flavoring mentioned way down the list.

Bottom line?

Pedigree Butcher’s Selects is a meat-based wet dog food using a moderate amount of chicken and meat by-products as its main sources of animal protein… thus earning the brand only one star.

Not recommended.

For comparison, readers may want to check our review of Pedigree Dry Dog Food.

Notes

11/08/2009 Original review
05/21/2010 Review updated