The thing that you have to keep in mind is that you should only be using these reviews as a guide, not as gospel. Basically all of the reviews are based upon reading the information that can be found on the packaging, and writing review about that. All of that information can be drastically skewed by dog food manufacturers. For example, ingredients are listed on the ingredient deck in order of weight, including water. So an ingredient such as whole chicken (which contains a lot of water weight), is going to show up higher on an ingredient deck than chicken meal, even though there may be a larger volume of chicken meal in the diet. Also, some manufacturers will use several different types of carbohydrates in their diets, rather than using just one to alter the ingredient deck. This can be done intentionally to prevent any individual source of carbs from appearing high on the ingredient deck.
One other important aspect to keep in mind is whether a company manufactures their own foods, conducts feeding trials, or researches the diets they come out with. Blue Buffalo is a huge culprit of this. They have a 5 star rating on DFA because their diets are high in protein and grain free (traits which DFA seems to value highly). However, what you don’t see is that all of their diets are produced at copacking facilities which can lead to inconsistency in quality, the inability to control the quality of the ingredients that are actually used to manufacture the food, and exposure to contaminants (ie the Diamond recall early last year). Also, DFA doesn’t mention that Blue Buffalo does not conduct feeding trials, or do any type of research on their diets. These facts should lead to a lower rating for a food like Blue Buffalo, but are simply overlooked by dogfoodadvisor.
One last thing, don’t buy into the marketing machine and get all hung up on ingredients. Your dog needs nutrients, not ingredients. Its protein, fat, and carbohydrate levels that are important, not corn, soy, potato, etc.
