Many people ask me for recommendations on soft dry dog food brands sold in Australia, but I find the answer comes with considerations which are very important for your dog.
Usually we look for soft dry foods when our dogs suffer dental or digestive issues. However, soft food may not be the optimal answer – in fact soft foods can be the cause of dental issues in the first place, amongst other factors we’ll discuss shortly.
If you want recommendations for soft dry dog food in Australia I can point you in the direction of some excellent brands, and I’ll tell you exactly why they’re a good choice below.
Types of soft dry dog foods
Below are your options:
- Semi-moist dry dog foods (such as moistened kibble) – This is usually achieved with additives such as humectants or glycerin which soften a kibble.
- Air-dried dog foods – These come as semi-moist soft pieces, made by drying the food over a longer period of time rather than cooking at high temperatures like a kibble. “Gentle bake” is another term for these foods.
- Freeze-dried dog foods – Freeze drying is an amazing technology which removes only the moisture from a food and leaves all the nutrients intact. It’s not cheap to produce freeze-dried dog foods, but it’s arguably the best outcome in terms of nutrition (assuming the ingredients are good).
Recommended soft dry dog foods
I tend to avoid semi-moist dog foods as they’re artificially moistened. I’ll discuss soft and semi-moist kibble further down this page, but will start with better recommendations (which unfortunately do cost more).
The problem with kibble is cooking at high temperatures, and often poor quality ingredients. Taking it one step further to artificially moisten a hard kibble doesn’t strike me as a good solution, and you’re likely better off buying a decent dry food and moistening it in warm (not hot!) water.
Useful guide: There’s a good guide here on soaking kibble (using ACANA).
That leaves us with air-dried and freeze-dried dog foods, with your best options being:
- Frontier Pets (Freeze Dried) – An excellent freeze-dried raw dog food which you can add fresh water to before feeding.
- Eureka – An excellent Australian brand of air-dried dog food made almost entirely from animal ingredients which are great for your dog.
- ZIWI Peak – A highly regarded New Zealand brand of air-dried dog food sold worldwide.
- K9 Natural – Similar to Frontier Pets, a brand of freeze-dried dog food from New Zealand.
- Sunday Pets – An Australian brand of air-dried dog food. Not as much animal ingredients as the above brands, but still very good compared to most kibble and may be a cheaper option.
- Freeze Dry Australia – Another freeze-dried dog food available in Australia, very similar to Frontier Pets.
- Bugsy’s Air Dried Dog Food – A more boutique but very good Australian air-dried dog food.
Soft and semi-moist kibble
In Australia we have a few brands of soft and semi-moist kibble, some of which are very popular – seemingly more so for feeding toy and small breed dogs.
Many need little introduction, but you may be surprised at my brief explanations:
My Dog Semi Moist Kibble
My Dog is surprisingly popular, and I see that as a terrible thing.
Despite the reputation and glamorous packaging spattered with words like “gourmet”, it’s little more than a Mars brand made primarily of cereal grains for your meat loving pooch.
Branded as “semi moist”, it’s still a hard kibble but combined with “meaty pieces” (which probably aren’t all meat), with glycerol to make it softer, flavourings to entice your dog to eat it, and colours to make it look more appealing to you.
Does all that sound healthy for the meat-loving dog you love?
Related: My Dog dog food review.
Nature’s Gift Nourish Semi Moist Nourish
Labelled as “Just Natural”, Nature’s Gift Nourish is available at Woolworths and Coles, and I can’t say it’s any better than My Dog.
The ingredients may list meat first, but you also find wheat and rice… and then sucrose.
Sucrose is just plain sugar, and why would you feed that to your dog?
You know sugar is unhealthy, so would you feed a food high in sugar as your dog’s health main meal? Worse if they’re already suffering dental problems which have led you to look at soft dry dog foods.
Glycerine is added to make the dog food softer and also sweeter – another way a pet food company can entice your dog to eat something and give you the impression they like it.
Doesn’t sound good, does it?
Related: Nature’s Gift dog food review.
Important health considerations when feeding soft dry dog food
Many Australian dogs and cats suffer from dental and digestive issues, especially as they reach senior years. Most of the time they suffer in silence, and we rarely pick up on the signs, such as “becoming picky with food”, or not eating as much.
It’s easy to palm off a lack of appetite in senior dogs to mere “old age”, or assume their teeth are ageing and a soft dog food is better, but this isn’t always the case. A soft food made alleviate dental pain, but it does very little for the ongoing health of their teeth.
The problem, in my opinion, is commercial dog foods.
Kibble, wet mush in a can, and even really high quality dog foods like BARF can be problematic because they don’t address a key factor of your dog’s health – keeping their teeth free of plaque and tartar.
We should all check our dog’s teeth regularly ourselves, and also have at least a yearly check by our veterinarian.
Are your dog’s teeth yellow?
Can you see any plaque and tartar?
At the time of writing, my current dog is 9 and her teeth is completely free of plaque and tartar. I attribute that to a healthy diet and raw meaty bones.
My 14 year old cat has impeccable teeth for the same reason. At a recent vet checkup the veterinarian commented he had the teeth of a kitten. It’s not be chance, he simply isn’t fed the poor excuses for “cat food”.
Did you know, when your dog or cat is suffering dental pain from tooth decay, it’s better to have those teeth removed?
Thanks to having friends in the veterinarian industry, I’ve witnessed dogs and cats having their teeth removed because they have quietly rotted away without the owner realising.
According to Australian veterinarian Dr Tom Lonsdale, even with the risks of anesthesia it is often better to have these teeth removed. Our dogs and cats adapt to loss of teeth, and once fed a better diet (Tom is an advocate for raw meaty bones in this respect), their gums are tough enough to gnaw bones.
The worst thing we can do as pet parents is tackle dental pain with soft foods or even soft dry dog foods.
The alternative is periodontal disease, a precursor to all manner of health conditions and organ disease.
The easiest solution is a healthy diet and raw meaty bones (or at the very least tough meat-based chews your dog can gnaw on, or regular brushing by yourself or your vet).
