Raw or fresh superiority
Raw, fresh, freeze-dried, dehydrated, and air-dried foods do not earn automatic credit for format alone.
Dog food limits
What PetScored does not score.
A trustworthy rubric needs refusal lines. These are the dog food claims PetScored will not turn into points unless the evidence becomes source-backed and deterministic.
Pathogen safety without records
PetScored does not score pathogen safety unless verified testing, recalls, or published safety protocols are captured.
Disease treatment
Dog food pages cannot claim diagnosis, treatment, disease prevention, or medical suitability for an individual dog.
DCM risk scoring
Current public evidence does not support a deterministic product-level DCM risk score from label data alone.
Contaminants without testing
Heavy metals, glyphosate, PFAS, and other contaminants require a defensible lab-data program before scoring.
Ingredient ideology
The rubric does not assume grain-free is better, grain-inclusive is better, by-products are automatically bad, or boutique brands are automatically worse.
Medications, as a whole category
Prescription and parasite medications cannot be scored from public data the way a bag of food can, so PetScored does not score them at all. We publish the FDA adverse event record with context instead, and explain why a report is not a rate. See what we publish instead.