Here at Laughing Dog we pride ourselves on ensuring that all of our ingredients are carefully sourced right here on our family farm. If we cannot use our own ingredients (for example, our own farm-grown oats and barley go into our wheat free dog foods and dog treats), we source the ingredients ourselves from approved suppliers only; we meet the British Retail Consortium standards (BRC for short; this is a global standard of food safety and quality).
Not all of our ingredients are free range (the supply of free range ingredients in the UK does not meet the demand for it in the pet food industry) but we use only the highest quality of ingredients. As much as possible we try to use British; however, if this is not possible we source our high quality chicken, duck, beef, lamb, salmon and white fish from Europe. All fresh ingredients e.g. fresh chicken/lamb/salmon and meals that we use are produced from animals, birds and fish that have been passed as fit for human consumption and meet our ethical sourcing guidelines.
Laughing Dog adheres to FEDIAF (The European Pet Food Industry) guidelines.
Unlike many dog food brands in the UK, we make all our dry food ourselves. All our food, treats and mixers are made here on the family farm.
What are meals?
At Laughing Dog many of our dog food recipes are single species, e.g. our Naturally 5 chicken dog food complete is just chicken meal and chicken oil; you wouldn’t therefore find any lamb or beef in the mixing bowl. We only use meals which are made of one species so we and our customers know exactly what is going into the mixing bowl.
The meals we use are single species and are produced from animals, birds and fish that have been passed as fit for human consumption and meet our ethical sourcing guidelines. They include meat, ligaments, bone – only the tasty (and safe) parts a dog would naturally eat. Meals are a very important source of protein, calcium and phosphorous.
We do not use any dry mixed meat meal which is meat and bones made from mixed species e.g. pork, beef, lamb, chicken.
Either way – whether you use fresh meat and/or a meal, combined in the right quantities with other key essential ingredients, it will provide a complete and balanced meal.
The dry meals we use are naturally preserved which we believe is best. It is a convenient and safe way for these materials to be used in pet foods and naturally in the wild dogs crunch bones and eat the innards as these are the tastiest parts. We believe that our recipes should reflect this. But it is true to say we are using parts of the animal we wouldn’t necessarily eat as humans – this is also really important for the planet – we know there’s only a limited amount of land that’s available for agriculture and finding sustainable protein sources is becoming more of a hot topic in the dog food industry.