All of the above. I would personally consider 3 star foods ok, 4 star foods better, and 5 star foods as very good. The food gets a higher star rating when it has more meat in it (and less red colored ingredients), but that doesn’t mean there is not a good 3 star food – meaning one that doesn’t have alot of red colored ingredients listed. A 3 star food can have good ingredients and just be lower in meat. There is a large spectrum for dog foods. So a food starting somewhere in the middle of this spectrum is still recommended.

But a dog food is only really good if your dog does well on it. Some of my fosters don’t do well on 5 star foods. They eat 3.5-4.5 star foods.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by pugmomsandy.

There are quite a few 5 star foods that I wouldn’t ever feed my dogs, and a few 3 star foods that I would be perfectly happy for 2 of the 3 to eat, except that I feel mean when one is eating top of the line and the other 2 have to settle, so they all end up eating top of the line. I had to work hard to figure out what 1 of mine does best on and I prefer to recommend what I think is the best, but most of us understand budget constraints and can unbend enough to recommend some good quality less expensive foods. And I believe that all of us recognize that different dogs need different things out of their food.