Editor's Note - How We Review
Wag dog food is Amazon’s new dry dog food line just released, exclusively available to Amazon Prime members for the time being. While Amazon is known for their cheap prices, fast shipping, and excellent customer service, are they capable of creating a quality dog food? Should you trust Amazon with your dog’s health? Keep reading to find out what we discovered while reviewing Wag Dog Food.
About Wag
Wag.com is a website that used to sell various pet products and pet food, very similar to Chewy.com. Amazon has actually owned this website since 2011 as part of a larger acquisition, but has largely left it to do its own thing for many years. However, in April of 2017, the Wag.com domain was closed down and it simply redirected to Amazon.com instead. Now it’s revealed that Amazon is using the Wag brand name to launch a new line of dog food – previously, Wag did not make their own dog food.
Since Wag is a brand of Amazon’s and does not have their own, information-rich website, the details on the company are still scarce. There are a few common themes among the different product flavors, however –
- Manufactured in the USA
- Each formula contains at least 35% protein contents
- No added grains
- Quality-controlled ingredients which are tested to meet high standards
Wag dog food bags are currently being sold in 5 lb and 30 lb sizes.
Quality of Ingredients
On the Wag product pages, ingredients are listed as coming from both the US as well as some imported ingredients as well, though no details on what ingredients are imported or where from. From analyzing the full ingredient list, most of the ingredients look high quality, however there is at least a few concerning items which we will get to below.
Full Ingredients and Analysis
To better understand the contents of Wag dog food, let’s take a look at the Wag Beef & Lentil recipe.
Full Ingredients:
Beef, Beef Meal, Lentils, Pea Protein, Peas, Egg Product, Chicken Fat (Preserved With Mixed Tocopherols), Brewers Yeast, Wild Boar, Potato Protein, Dried Plain Beet Pulp, Flaxseed, Natural Flavor, Salt, Choline Chloride, Dried Chicory Root, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Dried Lactobacillus Plantarum Fermentation Product, Dried Bacillus Subtilis Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Enterococcus Faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Bifidobacterium Animalis Fermentation Product, Vitamin E Supplement, Iron Proteinate, Zinc Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Thiamine Mononitrate (Source Of Vitamin B1), Manganese Proteinate, Manganous Oxide, Ascorbic Acid (Preservative), Vitamin A Supplement, Biotin, Niacin, Calcium Pantothenate, Manganese Sulfate, Sodium Selenite, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Source Of Vitamin B6), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid.
It’s nice to see high quality meats and vegetables listed first in the ingredients list, however a few negative items stand out.
First, “chicken fat” is listed a bit higher in the ingredients than we would like to see.
Second, “natural flavor” is always a concern as that could literally entail anything. There are no guidelines about what can or cannot be considered a “natural flavor” in dog food, so there’s no way to know what’s mixed in there.
On the plus side, the nutrient breakdown of this dog food is excellent, as seen below. It’s very high in protein and low in carbs which is usually a sign of a quality mix of ingredients.
Wag dog food is priced very competitively, with the 30 lb bags costing $45 for a cost of $1.50/lb. One thing to keep in mind though is you must have an Amazon Prime membership as well, though most households in the US already have one.
Dry Dog Food Product Line
Wag currently only offers a few product lines, though we expect they will expand before long. Here’s the current offerings –
Puppy Formula
Amazon currently has a puppy formula which comes in 5 lb and 15 lb bags. This is a Chicken and Lentil formula, which is interesting because they do not offer a Chicken formula in their adult dog foods yet.
Adult Formulas
Wag has 4 different adult dog food flavors which offer a nice variety for your pets –
- Beef & Lentil
- Salmon & Lentil
- Turkey & Lentil
- Lamb & Lentil
All formulas seem to have similar quality ingredients and all have at least 35% protein contents, so it really just comes down to what flavor you think your pet enjoys the most when you’re deciding what to buy.
Where to Buy
Of course, the Wag brands are only available on Amazon.com and only to Prime members. There has not been any discussion about the dog food rolling out to physical pet stores, and that seems unlikely to happen given Amazon’s preference for online retail. For now, the only way to get Wag is through Amazon.com.
One thing to note, currently Amazon is offering $5 off coupons on all of their large bags of dog food, though we’re not sure how long they will last. Click the link below to see if any coupons are still available!
The post Wag Dog Food Review – Amazon’s Dog Food Brand appeared first on Woof Whiskers.
