Editorial · PetScored desk
The desk.
We publish two kinds of writing. One: investigations using our own rubric and data. Two: explainers about how dog food labels actually work. No sponsored posts, no opinion-as-fact, no rewrites of brand marketing.
- 01
June 30, 2026 · 5 min read
Does green-lipped mussel work for dogs? Better evidence than glucosamine.
Green-lipped mussel is the shellfish in the pricier joint chews. Unlike glucosamine, it has real controlled support, and the largest recent meta-analysis grouped it with omega-3, the one joint category that works.
Read the article › - 02
June 30, 2026 · 6 min read
Do calming supplements work for dogs? The evidence is real but modest.
Calming chews promise a relaxed dog on a stressful day. A few ingredients have genuine small trials behind them, but the evidence is thinner than the packaging, and none of it replaces behavior work for real anxiety.
Read the article › - 03
June 30, 2026 · 5 min read
Does your dog need a multivitamin? Usually not.
A daily multivitamin sounds like cheap insurance. But a dog eating a complete-and-balanced diet already gets its full vitamin and mineral requirement, and the evidence that an extra dose helps a healthy dog is weak.
Read the article › - 04
June 29, 2026 · 7 min read
Is raw dog food worth it?
Raw feeding promises a shinier coat and better health. In the peer-reviewed record the balance runs the other way: the risks are measured and repeated, the benefits are not.
Read the article › - 05
June 29, 2026 · 5 min read
Does breed-specific dog food matter?
A bag with your dog's breed on the front implies the recipe was built for them. The regulator recognizes life stage and size, not breed, and the board-certified nutritionists agree.
Read the article › - 06
June 29, 2026 · 6 min read
Is fresh dog food better than kibble?
Fresh, gently cooked food is more digestible than kibble in controlled studies. Whether that buys your dog better health, at several times the price, is a separate question the evidence has not answered.
Read the article › - 07
June 18, 2026 · 6 min read
Puppy food: what the label has to prove that adult food does not.
Puppy food is not just smaller kibble. The AAFCO growth standard demands more than adult maintenance does, and large-breed puppies carry an extra rule that genuinely matters.
Read the article › - 08
June 18, 2026 · 5 min read
Senior dog food: what actually changes after seven?
There is no AAFCO life stage called “senior.” That single fact explains most of what is, and is not, real about the senior shelf.
Read the article › - 09
June 18, 2026 · 6 min read
How much protein does a dog actually need?
The protein percentage on the front of the bag is not the number you think it is. Here is how to read it on a dry-matter basis, and what the regulatory floor actually is.
Read the article › - 10
June 18, 2026 · 5 min read
Is grain-free cat food better? What it changes and what it doesn't.
Cats are obligate carnivores, so “grain-free” sounds more meaningful for a cat than a dog. It still tells you what is missing, not what replaced it.
Read the article › - 11
June 17, 2026 · 6 min read
What “human grade” actually means on a pet food label.
“Human grade” sounds like the strongest claim on the bag. It has a real, narrow definition - every ingredient and the finished product legally edible by a person - and a lot of products use it more loosely than the rule allows.
Read the article › - 12
June 17, 2026 · 5 min read
What “Made in the USA” means on a bag of dog food.
A flag on the bag is not a sourcing disclosure. The phrase has an FTC standard behind it, and pet food ingredients move across borders more than the label suggests.
Read the article › - 13
June 16, 2026 · 5 min read
Does your dog need different food in summer?
Heat changes how much a dog moves, drinks, and eats, but it rarely changes what food is right. Here is what actually shifts when it is hot, and what is just seasonal marketing.
Read the article › - 14
June 16, 2026 · 5 min read
Cats, water, and why wet food does more than dry.
Cats descend from desert animals and tend to drink less than they should. Wet food is the simplest way to get more water into one, which is why the format earns more attention on a cat scorecard than a dog one.
Read the article › - 15
June 15, 2026 · 6 min read
We have now scored the whole aisle. Here is the honest spread.
PetScored now covers 178 foods, 59 treats, and 35 supplements on four published rubrics. Across all of them the same pattern holds: most things are fine, a few are genuinely strong, and price and quality are different axes.
Read the article › - 16
June 14, 2026 · 5 min read
Wet vs dry dog food: what the rubric actually rewards.
Format is the first thing buyers argue about and nearly the last thing our rubric cares about. Wet and dry both show up near the top and the bottom. Here is what the scorecard is really reacting to.
Read the article › - 17
June 14, 2026 · 5 min read
The “no fillers” claim, and why it is mostly marketing.
“No fillers” is one of the best-performing phrases in the pet aisle and one of the least defined. There is no regulatory category called a filler, and the ingredients it points at are usually doing real work.
Read the article › - 18
June 13, 2026 · 6 min read
How to actually read a cat food label.
The front of the can is marketing you can ignore. Four panels on the back decide whether a cat food is honest, and for a cat one of them, a declared taurine level, is non-negotiable.
Read the article › - 19
June 10, 2026 · 6 min read
Are by-products actually bad for dog food?
"No by-products" is one of the most effective marketing lines in the pet aisle. By AAFCO's definition, a named by-product is mostly organ meat. PetScored does not penalize it, and here is the reasoning.
Read the article › - 20
June 10, 2026 · 6 min read
Chicken meal vs chicken: is "meal" a cheap filler?
A bag that lists fresh chicken first sounds better than one that lists chicken meal. Because of how the ingredient list is weighed, the opposite is often true.
Read the article › - 21
June 10, 2026 · 6 min read
Feeding trials vs "formulated to meet": the AAFCO line that decides a lot.
Every complete dog food carries an AAFCO statement, and it comes in two flavors. One means the recipe was calculated on paper. The other means dogs actually ate it for six months. Our rubric weighs them differently.
Read the article › - 22
June 10, 2026 · 6 min read
Do cat urinary supplements work? The controlled evidence is thin.
Cranberry and glucosamine urinary chews fill the shelf, but the trials are against them: a randomized study found no benefit, and the 2025 feline consensus says the same.
Read the article › - 23
June 10, 2026 · 6 min read
Do hairball remedies work for cats? Fiber yes, petroleum gel no.
The petroleum-jelly gel is the tradition; fiber is the evidence. Two controlled cat studies back fiber for hairballs, and a peer-reviewed review notes the gels have never been tested.
Read the article › - 24
June 9, 2026 · 6 min read
Do dental chews actually work? The VOHC list, explained.
Most treats that promise to clean teeth have nothing behind the promise. The one exception is the VOHC seal, and it reorders the entire dental aisle.
Read the article › - 25
June 9, 2026 · 6 min read
Does L-lysine work for cats? The controlled evidence says no.
L-lysine is sold everywhere for feline herpesvirus and cat colds. A peer-reviewed systematic review and the two largest randomized trials all point the same way: it does not help.
Read the article › - 26
June 9, 2026 · 6 min read
Does fish oil actually work for dogs and cats? Yes, and here's the evidence.
Omega-3 fish oil has the best evidence of any pet supplement. A 2022 meta-analysis found clear pain relief for arthritic dogs and cats, which is more than almost anything else in the aisle can say.
Read the article › - 27
June 9, 2026 · 5 min read
Does glucosamine work for dogs? The evidence is thinner than the aisle.
Glucosamine and chondroitin are the best-selling joint supplements for dogs. The same 2022 meta-analysis that crowned fish oil found a 'marked non-effect' for them, and recommended against use for arthritis pain.
Read the article › - 28
June 9, 2026 · 6 min read
Do probiotics work for dogs? It depends on the strain and the reason.
Probiotics are not interchangeable, and 'gut health' is not a tested claim. The real evidence is narrow: specific strains, for acute diarrhea, with modest and mixed results.
Read the article › - 29
June 9, 2026 · 6 min read
How to read a treat label.
A treat is a snack, not a meal, so the label rewards a different read than dog food. Five things decide whether a treat is honest, and four of them are easy to check in the aisle.
Read the article › - 30
June 5, 2026 · 5 min read
Is Dr. Marty dog food worth it? What the label shows.
Dr. Marty Nature's Blend is a freeze-dried raw food sold on heavy direct-to-consumer ads. On our rubric it lands at 6.2: strong nutrition, but a Value score floored at 2 and a middling Brand Trust, because no nutritionist is named and no feeding trials back it. Here is what the label proves and what it does not.
Read the article › - 31
June 4, 2026 · 5 min read
Is Badlands Ranch dog food worth it?
Katherine Heigl's air-dried Superfood Complete is marketed hard and priced high. It scores 6.2 on our rubric, a genuinely meat-forward formula held back by a Value score of 2 and a middling Brand Trust. A recall rumor going around online does not hold up against the FDA database.
Read the article › - 32
June 3, 2026 · 6 min read
Freshpet, honestly: what a fresh roll proves and what it doesn't.
Freshpet Vital Chicken scores 7.3 on our rubric, the strongest of the fresh-fed foods we have scored. Fresh and refrigerated is a format, not a guarantee of better nutrition. Here is what the label backs up, and where the marketing got reined in.
Read the article › - 33
May 21, 2026 · 5 min read
Cat food is not dog food. Here's what the label has to prove differently.
Cats are obligate carnivores, so the regulatory floor and the things worth checking on the back of the bag are not the same as for dogs. The PetScored cat rubric reads four of them differently.
Read the article › - 34
May 21, 2026 · 5 min read
We scored every cat food we could verify. Cheap and good are different axes.
The grocery-aisle foods land lowest on the composite and highest on Value at the same time. That isn't a contradiction - it's the rubric refusing to punish affordability. Here's the honest spread across the cat catalog.
Read the article › - 35
May 18, 2026 · 6 min read
We hard-failed a freeze-dried cat food. Chicken hearts were ingredient #3.
Vital Essentials Freeze-Dried Chicken Mini Patties scored 6.0 on PetScored. The rubric floored the nutrition score because taurine wasn't declared on the label - even though the recipe is naturally taurine-rich. Here's why the rule fired anyway, and why we're keeping it.
Read the article › - 36
May 15, 2026 · 5 min read
Why prescription diets only score in the sixes.
Your vet handed you an $80 bag of Hill's k/d and PetScored gives it a 6.8. Both can be right at the same time. Here's why the rubric is honest about what a therapeutic formula is for.
Read the article › - 37
May 15, 2026 · 4 min read
Wellness sold its flagship plant. Did anyone tell the rating sites?
In June 2024, Wellness Pet Company divested its Mishawaka, Indiana dry-food plant to a contract manufacturer. Wellness no longer owns its primary production facility. Most rating sites still credit it as if it did.
Read the article › - 38
May 14, 2026 · 6 min read
Why Hill's, Royal Canin, and Pro Plan rank where they do.
The three brands every vet recommends do not get punished by our rubric. They get exactly what their labels prove - strong trust scores, real nutritional credentials, and the value penalty their pricing earns.
Read the article › - 39
May 10, 2026 · 5 min read
Why “vet-recommended” usually means nothing.
“Vet-recommended,” “veterinarian-formulated,” and “vet-approved” are mostly marketing phrases. Here's what each one actually means.
Read the article › - 40
May 9, 2026 · 6 min read
The grain-free DCM concern, six years on.
What the FDA's 2018 dilated cardiomyopathy investigation actually said, what later research found, and how PetScored treats the question today.
Read the article › - 41
May 8, 2026 · 4 min read
Why we don't credit “grain-free.”
Grain-free is positioning, not nutrition. PetScored does not penalize grains, and does not credit their absence. Here's the reasoning.
Read the article › - 42
May 6, 2026 · 6 min read
How to actually read a dog food label.
Forget the front of the bag. The four panels that decide whether a food is good are on the back, and most pet parents have never been taught how to read them.
Read the article › - 43
April 29, 2026 · 4 min read
We scored America's best-selling dog foods. None got a 10.
We grade tough by design - the rubric only credits what the label can prove. The highest composite is hovering around 8; most foods land between 6 and 8 with at least one real tradeoff.
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Buying guides
Practical gear guides, kept separate on purpose. These are editorial opinion, not PetScored scores: we only score food, on a published rubric. They may carry affiliate links, which never change a recommendation.