Skippy Dog Food receives the Advisor’s lowest tier rating of 1 star.

The Skippy product line includes eight canned dog foods, each claimed to meet AAFCO nutrient profiles for all life stages.

The following is a list of recipes available at the time of this review.

• Skippy Premium Strips in Gravy with Beef
• Skippy Premium Chunks in Gravy with Beef
• Skippy Premium Strips in Gravy with Chicken
• Skippy Premium Chunks in Gravy Chunky Stew
• Skippy Premium Chunks in Gravy with Beef & Chicken
• Skippy Premium Chunks in Gravy with Burgers & Cheese Bits
• Skippy Premium Chunks in Gravy with Smoky Turkey & Bacon
• Skippy Premium Chunks in Gravy 3 in 1 with Chicken, Beef & Liver

Skippy Premium Chunks in Gravy 3 in 1 with Chicken, Beef and Liver was selected to represent the other products in the line for this review.

The first ingredient in this dog food is water, which adds nothing but moisture to this food. Water is a routine finding in most canned dog foods.

The second ingredient is soybean meal, a by-product of soybean oil production more commonly found in farm animal feeds.

Although soybean meal contains 48% protein, this ingredient would be expected to have a lower biological value than meat.

And less costly plant-based products like this can notably boost the total protein reported on the label — a factor that must be considered when judging the actual meat content of this dog food.

The third ingredient is chicken. Chicken is considered “the clean combination of flesh and skin… derived from the parts or whole carcasses of chicken”.²

Chicken is naturally rich in the ten essential amino acids required by a dog to sustain life.

The fourth ingredient is wheat flour, a highly-refined product of wheat milling. Like corn, wheat is an inexpensive and controversial cereal grain of only modest nutritional value to a dog.

For this reason, we do not consider wheat a preferred component in any dog food.

The fifth ingredient is corn starch, a starchy powder extracted from the endosperm found at the heart of a kernel of corn. Corn starch is most likely used here to thicken the broth into a gravy.

Corn starch isn’t a true red flag item. Yet we’ve highlighted here for those wishing to avoid corn-based ingredients.

The sixth item is animal fat. Animal fat is a generic by-product of rendering, the same high-temperature process used to make meat meals.

Since there’s no mention of a specific animal, this item could come from just about anywhere: salvaged roadkill, spoiled supermarket meat… even dead, diseased or dying cattle.

For this reason, we do not consider generic animal fat a quality ingredient.

What’s worse, this fat is preserved with BHA, a suspected cancer-causing agent.

The seventh ingredient is beef. Beef is defined as “the clean flesh derived from slaughtered cattle” and includes skeletal muscle or the muscle tissues of the tongue, diaphragm, heart or esophagus.³

The eighth ingredient is liver. Normally, liver can be considered a quality component. However, in this case, the source of the liver is not identified. For this reason, it’s impossible to judge the quality of this item.

The ninth ingredient is meat by-products, an item made from slaughterhouse waste. This is what’s left of slaughtered animals after all the prime striated muscle cuts have been removed.

With the exception of hair, horns, teeth and hooves, this item can include almost any other part of the animal.⁴

Although most meat by-products can be nutritious, we do not consider such vaguely described (generic) ingredients to be as high in quality as those derived from a named animal source.

From here, the list goes on to include a number of other items.

But to be realistic, ingredients located this far down the list (other than nutritional supplements) are not likely to affect the overall rating of this product.

With three notable exceptions…

First, we’re always disappointed to find artificial coloring in any pet food. That’s because coloring is used to make the product more appealing to humans — not your dog. After all, do you really think your dog cares what color his kibble is?

Next, we note the inclusion of onion and garlic extracts both controversial items. In rare cases, onion and garlic have been linked to Heinz body anemia in dogs⁵.

However, the limited professional literature we surveyed provided no definitive warnings regarding the use of onion or garlic — especially used in small amounts (as it likely is here).

And lastly, the minerals listed here do not appear to be chelated. And that can make them more difficult to absorb. Non-chelated minerals are usually associated with lower quality dog foods.

Skippy Dog Food Review

Judging by its ingredients alone, Skippy canned dog food looks like a below average wet product.

But ingredient quality by itself cannot tell the whole story. We still need to estimate the product’s meat content before determining a final rating.

The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 44%, a fat level of 11% and estimated carbohydrates of about 36%.

As a group, the brand features an average protein content of 44% and a mean fat level of 12%. Together, these figures suggest a carbohydrate content of 36% for the overall product line.

And a fat-to-protein ratio of about 27%.

Above-average protein. Below-average fat. And above-average carbs when compared to a typical wet dog food.

When you consider the protein-boosting effects of the soybean meal as well as the peas and vegetable protein found in some recipes, this looks like the profile of a wet product containing only a moderate amount of meat.

Bottom line?

Skippy canned dog food is a plant-based wet product using only a moderate amount of chicken or chicken or meat by-product meals as its main sources of animal protein, thus earning the brand 1 star.

Not recommended.

Special Alert

Because we’re unable to locate complete label information for this product on the company’s website, we’re compelled to rely on older data that may no longer be accurate.

So, recipe changes and ingredient substitutions may not be apparent to our research staff or consumers.

For this reason, we recommend shoppers use caution when considering the purchase of any dog food listed in this review.

Notes and Updates