you know, the dog food industry is pretty young. 1920′s or 1950′s depending on what you count as dog food.
The first thing that could be called commercial dog food was a simple dog biscuit created in 1860 by a traveling electrician (which i imagine was quite a different job in the mid 1800′s).
They were based on human hardtack, designed for a profit, and were mostly wheat and beets. James Spratt apparently took his ‘meat’ source to the grave as a secret, listing it among the ingredients as “the dried unsalted gelatinous parts of Prairie Beef”
Canned dog food became popular in the 1920′s and 30′s, and was mostly horse meat. The canned dog food was so popular n fact, horses were being raised by some farms exclusively for slaughter for dog food. In 1941 fifty thousand horses were butchered for that purpose in the U.S.
Then came both World War 2 rationing and public outcry over the horse carnage, setting the stage for the advent of kibble. In the 1950′s General Mills acquired Spratt’s US business,, and The Ralston Purina Company began experimenting with the machines they were using for their Chex breakfast cereal. Kibble’s extrusion production featuring high temperatures and moisture removal creates a stable shelf product that doesn’t go bad, but it also removes a lot of whatever nutritional value there was to begin with.
So you can see, pet food was never about your pet’s health, it was always about generating income by creating a market for otherwise unsellable ingredients, or, if you will, turing byproducts into buy-products.
Before that people just gave their dogs the meaty parts of whatever they were having for dinner, or cooked them their own doggie meals. My grandmother would cook two or three days worth of dog meatloaf a couple times a week (ground beef, egg, a smattering of veggies; no ketchup almost no salt)
Home kitchens did a lot more processing, so there was a lot more stuff like big raw bones with lots of meat on them - after all, you could torture yourself trying to do a perfect butcher job and not waste any of the meat you paid for, or you could just hack your steak off the bone messily and give it to the dog and you’ve gotten your moneys worth out of all of it.
Also, dogs hunted/scavenged a lot more. There were no suburbs, you either lived in a proper city with no dog unless you were pretty wealthy, OR you lived in the country or on a ranch with as many dogs as you wanted and they had access to a whole bunch of nature full of dog-friendly edibles.
So what I’m saying is, dog food designed by people whose first priority is dog nutrition and health? About freaking time
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