Nutrition Fit · 30%
AAFCO fit, feeding trial language, calories, and dry matter protein/fat ranges.
Dog food methodology
Dog food scores are rules, not vibes.
Every dog food gets five sub-scores - Nutrition Fit, Brand Trust, Ingredient Clarity, Sensitivity Risk, and Value - each built from the label and the public record, then weighted into one composite. No marketing language, no editor overriding a number. Here is exactly how each one is calculated.
Brand Trust · 25%
WSAVA-style signals, recall mapping, manufacturer control, and transparency.
Ingredient Clarity · 15%
Named animal proteins, named fats, specific grains, and source traceability.
Sensitivity Risk · 15%
Population-level allergen exposure using published adverse-food-reaction literature.
Value · 15%
Cost per 1,000 kcal within category, capped by nutrition and brand trust.
Limits matter
What a dog food label can and cannot prove.
Ingredient lists are ordered by weight, but they do not disclose exact quantities or prove ingredient quality.
Wet and dry foods need dry matter conversion before nutrition panels compare fairly.
Brand Trust uses WSAVA-style inputs, but PetScored never claims that WSAVA approves or certifies brands.
Health-condition content must stay educational and should not replace veterinary guidance.
Affiliate links must be disclosed near recommendations and cannot influence scoring.
Anti-features
What this dog food rubric refuses to score.
Naturalness, biological appropriateness, glycemic load, and inflammation potential.
DCM risk, because current public evidence does not support a deterministic risk score.
Glyphosate, heavy metals, or contaminants without a defensible lab-testing program.
Source anchors
Public references used by the dog food rubric.
Further reading
The thinking behind these rules.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.