My Dog Dog Food Review

The My Dog biscuits have a main ingredient of cereal grains, for your meat loving dog. They come in pretty colours to make you believe you’re giving your dog a tasty treat, but your dog doesn’t care what colour their food is.

Surprisingly, My Dog, made by Mars, is very popular in Australia. What attracted you to the brand? The cute dog on the packet, the glamorous packaging, the affordable price, or availability in Coles and Woolies?

In the My Dog review we’ll mostly focus on the dry food, but I’ll cover the wet food as well.

Then you can decide for yourself if My Dog is good for your dog.

Where to buy

My Dog is available in many Australian retailers, both in store and online.

My Dog review (dry dog food)

What the marketing says

The slogan for My Dog is “Love them back”.

You know your dog loves you, and this plays on your emotions by suggesting you’re feeding your dog with love when you give them this dog food.

The cute dog on the bag is a Westie, and I expect they’ve chosen such a breed as My Dog is very popular with small dog owners.

With the My Dog biscuits you’ll find a chicken and a beef formula, but our first insight into these formulas not having much meat are the titles:

  • My Dog with Tender Chicken & Vegetables
  • My Dog with Gourmet Beef & Vegetables

Ignore the words “Tender” and “Gourmet”, as they are meaningless marketing words. The word with is the important word, as Australian regulations for pet food labelling state a dog food doesn’t need much of those ingredients to allow them to be used in the formula name.

That’s marketing for you.

Don’t be fooled by it.

My Dog Dog Food Review

I’ve already said the main ingredient (in both recipes) is cereal grains, so you may wonder why they’re not mentioned on the front of the bags?

The reason is we know cereals don’t sound good for our meat-loving dogs, which is why they don’t tell you what My Dog is really made from.

Let’s take a look at the ingredients…

What the ingredients really say

If you compare the ingredients of the different recipes you’ll find they’re pretty much identical. So don’t go thinking your dog’s getting a variety if you feed different recipes. They’re not.

The first ingredient and the third ingredient are grains (cereals + rice).

If your dog has itchy skin, yeasty ears, trouble having poos, or is generally overweight or inactive, then you should consider cereal grains as the cause.

I find this particularly the case with wheat, which you can bet is part of the “cereals” ingredient as it’s one of the cheapest inclusions in dog food (and makes the most profit).

Cereals made into dog biscuits don’t look great, which is why they add food colourings. Personally I wouldn’t feed any dog food which uses food colourings – we already know they’re not healthy, and they aren’t necessary either.

My Dog Dog Food Review

Dogs are primarily meat eaters. I would refer to them as a facultative or scavenging carnivore, which means they’ll eat whatever they find available, but will benefit the most from animal ingredients. Your dog loves meat, right?

Cereals like wheat tend to cause dietary sensitivities because our dogs struggle to digest them. You’ll often hear the word “allergy” used, but it’s not an allergy when they’re reacting to food which is inappropriate for their digestive system.

Meat & Meat by-products (poultry, beef) are the second ingredient, but don’t count on this being the majority of the formula. There’ll be more cereals than meat, then add the rice, and you won’t have nearly as much meat as you think.

Besides, what quality of meat?

Not the “tender” or “gourmet” meat you’ve been led to believe from the formula names.

This could be as much carcass as anything decent, which is usually the case when pet food companies use throw-aways from the human food industry. The stuff they can’t sell to us and would otherwise have to pay to dispose.

Protein may sound ok at 24%, but this isn’t guaranteed and may be less. Fat at 10% (also not guaranteed) I find concerningly low – our dogs use animal fats for energy, health, and wellbeing.


We’ve covered the main ingredients already, and I can’t find anything positive to say about the rest.

My Dog dog food contains glycerol (also known as glycerin). It’s a type of sugar alcohol, often used as a humectant (to make the food feel softer and more palatable). As a general rule, if a dog food contains glycerol, don’t buy it.

You’ll find ambiguous ingredients like “flavours”, “colours”, “antioxidants”. Ask yourself why My Dog haven’t been specific with the ingredients?

What flavours?

What colours?

What antioxidants?

You can assume these ingredients may be artificial rather than natural. You may wonder why it’s legal to label food products with meaningly ambiguous terms, but unfortunately for us as consumers this is perfectly legal.

So what do you think?

Is My Dog good for your dog?

My Dog wet food review

I’ll cover the My Dog wet food briefly, and it has to be said it looks a little better than the dry foods.

The ingredients of the canned “My Dog Classic Loaf with Juicy Lamb & Hearty Liver” are as follows:

Meats Including Lamb, Chicken, Turkey, Liver, Beef, Pork; Gelling Agents; Vegetable Fibre; Minerals; Flavours; Colours; Vitamins.

You’re bombarded with various names of meat, but it looks like you can summarise as Meat / Gelling Agents / Vegetable Fibre.

A good question to ask yourself is how much gelling agents and vegetable fibre to the meat content? And of course, what’s the quality of the meat content?

Like with My Dog biscuits we find ambiguous ingredients.

What gelling agents?

What vegetable fibre?

Common gelling agents used in pet food include agar-agar, carrageenan, and guar gum. They’re used to create the gel-like texture, and you can gauge by looking at the stuff which comes out of the can how much is used.

My Dog aren’t specific about what the vegetable fibre is either, and we can only assume they don’t want you to know.

What flavours, and what colouring agents?

I’m not sure I would feed My Dog wet food to my dog, even if it looks a little better than the dry foods.

Ingredients

Ingredients of My Dog dry dog food (With Tender Chicken and Vegetables formula):

Wholegrain cereals, meat & meat by-products (poultry, beef), rice, chicken flavour, beet pulp, glycerol, salt, vitamins & minerals, vegetables, vegetable oil, amino acid, flavours, colours & antioxidants.

Typical analysis

Many dog foods use a “guaranteed analysis” which gives us assurances of protein and fat – the stuff which matters most to your dog. My Dog dog food uses a typical analysis instead, which isn’t guaranteed. That means the product you buy might be worse than the figures stated on the packet.

Typical analysis of My Dog dry dog food (With Tender Chicken and Vegetables formula):

Protein24%
Fat10%
Crude Fibre?
Carbohydrates *48% (estimated)
* May be estimated. Read how to calculate carbohydrates in a pet food.

Calling Aussie pet lovers – join the mailing list!

2 Total Score
My Dog Dog Food Review

As yourself if food-coloured cereal grains are what you should feed a dog, as this is pretty much My Dog dog food in a nutshell. Ask yourself this: Is My Dog food good for your dog? I wouldn't say so. Would you?

CONS
  • Mostly cereals.
  • Food colourings to make those cereals look more attractive to your dog - not that your dog cares about the colour of their food.
30 Comments
  1. My parents 14 year old chihuahua has extremely poor gut health, vomiting, diarrhea and we honestly all suspect it’s from years of eating My Dog. But even after constant Vet visits and every attempt under the sun from my parents to try to improve their beautiful girls diet it is literally the only thing she will eat. Even home cooked she turns her nose up at for days and days until she gets My Dog again.
    It breaks my heart to see her sick from this slop but unwilling to try other foods.

  2. Concerning reaction from my food loving dog. Thought I’d give this a go as it was on special – chicken, with carrots and green beans. Smelt putrid and it was so gelatinous I struggled to get it out of the can. My dog who LOVES his food and has never avoided anything in his life looked at me in the eyes as if to say “really?” He tried a bit and I could tell he was trying to enjoy it cause he was starving, but he left it mostly untouched. Never acted that way before. I offered him another brand he had never tried shortly thereafter as I was in shock and wanted to make sure he was feeling okay. Sure enough, he went for the other brand straight away, drooling and all. Clearly something is not right if an unfussy dog who loves to eat ANYTHING completely avoids it and thinks it is yuck. I will never buy this product again.

  3. brought these biscuits for something new wish I hadn’t. My poor mini foxie spent most the night chucking up biscuits and to top it off had diarrhea as well. Should be taken off the market.

    • Yet people just keep lining up to buy this crap. I don’t get it. If humans chose their own diet based on the most extensive marketing and/or lowest price, we would all be on an exclusive diet of McDonalds and fish & chips.

  4. I SENT A REPLY BACK LETTING THEM KNOW I HAVE BOTH , THE TRAY OF THEIR ( QUAILITY DOG FOOD ) AS WELL AS THE OBJECT FOUND , MY ONLY THOUGHT ABOUT THEIR E MAIL IS THIS ! ONCE THEY RECEIVE IT BACK , THEY WILL JUST FORGET ABOUT IT , I SAY THIS , BECAUSE , I DONT KNOW ABOUT ANYONE ELSE , BUT IF THAT WAS MY COMPANY AND PRODUCT , I WOULD WANT TO SEE IT ASAP , THEIR SO CALLED , REPLY PAID ENVELOP HAS NOT TURNED UP & IM NOT HOLDING MY BREATH , THE PERSON WHOS NAME APPEARS ON THEIR E MAIL , “” DID NOT SEEM ALL THAT BOTHERED “”

    • That’s a standard response. It would be in their interest to ensure no similar incidents occur.

      What I’ve found happen in a situation such as this is the manufacturer will do a covert recall of any unsold products from the batch from the stores they were sold to. What they won’t do is announce the issue – it damages their reputation and profits.

      It’s unlikely you’ll get more than a refund.

    • It could be worse, instead of a reimbursement they might have sent out more My Dog.

  5. Have just opened a sachet of MY DOG 100G Beef & Liver , ONLY TO FIND ,A piece of glass or plastic in it . Tried to call their 1800 number ,ONLY to get an answering machine. IT SAYS , QUALITY FOOD FOR DOGS !!!!

  6. Reply
    Jennifer Philippiadis May 30, 2017 at 11:37 am

    No – only wet and dry and the beef and veal and a very small bit of flax oil drops over the years – short haired Chihuahua.

  7. Reply
    Jennifer Philippiadis May 30, 2017 at 4:11 am

    my dogs have always eaten this and one lived to be 20 years old! I still would rather use the best for my present dog…

  8. Our Bull Arab-cross puppy is currently eating this in wet form. I would say he prefers it over any other brand we have tried in the past. Stool is frequent but the vet believes this is nothing unusual and that we have a healthy and happy little puppy. I would recommend this brand, most definitely as all I can really go on is our experiences with it.

  9. I just remembered a little something to do with this food earlier, we had actually been buying and feeding this to Rusty I think when he was younger, I don’t remember very well or very much but I find it interesting that I had forgotten.

    He also ate another brand with tallow and what not cant find the name of it (vip natures goodness grain free :p) anyways it didn’t take him long to get sick on that food, also wellness which I remember no problem, remember him getting sick from it after only 2 weeks.

  10. I have change my dogs food from (My Dog) to (Allpaws) but he seems to be scratting more, he is also allergic to beef, so the Allpaws is chicken any suggestions why this would be

    • Reply
      Pet Food Reviews (Australia) April 26, 2016 at 9:50 am

      Hi Vanessa, he might be allergic to chicken? When a dog has been fed any food for a long period of time they can develop allergies and intolerances, and it can be hard to figure out what they are. It may be worth trying Meals for Mutts as they offer formulas aimed at resolving these kind of issues.

  11. Well my little Pomeranian just had a hernia operation (2.4k) directly because of this “my dog” food as told by my dogs surgeon. My dogs diet consists of “my dog” food, dry food and the occasional human food from the table. He goes for a walk at minimum once a day.

    The surgeon said the fiber in the cans are not souly enough for his every day diet.

    I hope this helps your dog food choice.

    Shawn

  12. I am having trouble with my little dog she loves my dog but I can only buy it beef and roasted veg she only eats the beef and throws everthing else on the floor my question is do u make only beef not aloud chicken I have may brands but she will not eat so I am throwing away the other dry all the time thank u hope u can help Sandra dunn

    • Reply
      Stephanie Tardrew April 3, 2016 at 6:38 am

      Buy some beef mince & feed your dog this…I make dog food for my two Maltese & over time they’ve learned to love it.

    • Reply
      Pet Food Reviews (Australia) December 6, 2015 at 6:31 am

      Hi Sandra, My Dog is not a food we recommend. It’s worth noting the difference between foods in their range only stems down to flavourings. Otherwise the composition of non-descript meat and cheap grains remains the same.

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