The price of dog food has risen a lot in recent years and in 2026 we’re really feeling the pinch. Even budget brands like Chum feel expensive, and this is a budget brand.

The first warning sign with the Chum wet dog foods is the last ingredient – colouring agents. Do you think wet dog food is coloured to make it look pretty to your dog, or look more attractive to you?

Most of the time food colourings are used in budget pet foods to make them look more like meat, when that often isn’t the case.

As for the Chum dry dog food, Chum “So Crrrrunchy”, you’ll find the main ingredient – for your meat-loving pooch – is cereal and cereal by-products.

Do you think that’s healthy for your dog?

In the Chum dog food review we’ll cover how you’re misled by the marketing, and I assume you don’t like being misled, and then we’ll look at the wet and dry Chum dog food formulas.

Then you can decide if you want to feed Chum to your four-legged chum!

Chum dog food review

What the marketing says

You’ll find claims on the Chum cans like “MEAT as the #1 ingredient”, but this is a marketing trick to make you think meat is the main ingredient.

In reality, the 2nd and 3rd ingredients, perhaps a few more, outweigh the meat significantly. Usually none of those ingredients sounds as appealing.

You’ll also note all the recipes are “With Lamb”, “With chicken”, “With 3 Meats”. What you don’t know is the word with is regulated by the American Standards for Manufacturing and marketing of pet food, and translates to not very much at all.

As for the dry foods, you’ll find they’re labelled something like “Beef, Bone & Vegetable Flavour“, and that’s worse than the word with. It means there just needs to be a little tiny bit of those ingredients in the food.

Just a trace.

In fact, when you compare the formulas of different cans, they’re all pretty much the same, just labelled differently to make you think you’re giving your dog a yummy variety.

Chum dry dog food may seem well priced for the 20kg bags, but when you consider the ingredients you may realise you’re not getting much for your money.

What the ingredients really say about Chum wet dog foods

Here are the ingredients of Chum With Lamb:

Meats (chicken &/or beef &/or lamb &/or sheep &/or pork); gelling agents; vegetable fibre; vitamins & minerals; amino acid; colouring agents.

And here’s Chum With Chicken:

Meats (chicken &/or beef &/or sheep &/or pork); gelling agents; vegetable fibre; vitamins & minerals; colouring agents; amino acid.

Despite a few differences in wording they’re pretty much identical, aren’t they?

Pay attention to the 2nd and 3rd ingredients, as these are likely big chunks of the formula. You may wonder what Gelling agents are, especially as they haven’t been open and honest about what they’ve used. This is the gunky jelly stuff in the can, and could be some form of gelatin or carrageenan, both come with concerns as ingredients in dog food.

Many decent dog foods tell you what vegetables have been included, or beet pulp, but with Chum wet food we’re simply told “vegetable fibre”. Usually when a pet food manufacturer puts something ambiguous on the label, it means you wouldn’t find the truth appealing.

There isn’t anything positive I can say about the remaining 3 ingredients.

Vitamins & minerals will be a premix (powder) and likely the cheapest inclusion to meet the regulations for “complete and balanced”. All complete and balanced dog foods have this as a bare minimum.

Same is likely the case for “amino acid” as another meaningless ambiguous ingredient. What amino acid?

Then, finally, colouring agents, which aren’t for the benefit of your dog.

What the ingredients really say about Chum dry dog foods

You’ll find vegetables in the Chum dry dog food, but laughably after salt.

Let’s say salt is 1% of the recipe, and that means less than 1% of the recipe is vegetables. Not that we know what those vegetables are, or if they’re beneficial for our dog.

There’s only two ingredients before salt, and the main inclusion is something you don’t really want to feed your dog – cereal and cereal by-products (wheat, sorghum &/or barley).

If your dog has itchy skin, rashes, or other symptoms of dietary sensitivities, then you can bet it’s this main ingredient in Chum dry dog food that causes it.

Oh, and if you still decide to feed your dog the Chum dry food and next year they’re overweight and lethargic, well that would be why.

Thankfully there’s some mashup of meat products which account for the sadly lacking protein and fat in Chum, but can you imagine they’re good quality cuts of meat?

I wouldn’t feed Chum to my dog, regardless of how cheap it is. I realise for many it’s hard to afford any better, so if this is all you can afford try boosting your dog’s health with some real meat/mince, organs, raw meaty bones, eggs, and some sardines as well – much better nutrition for your money.

I wouldn’t recommend feeding Chum dog food, dry or wet, to your dog. I don’t find it very good at all.

Where to buy

If you still want to buy Chum dog food, you will find it at various retailers.

Ingredients

The ingredients of the Chum With Beef wet dog food:

Meats (chicken &/or beef &/or lamb &/or sheep &/or pork); gelling agents; vegetable fibre; vitamins & minerals; amino acid; colouring agents.

The ingredients of the Chum dry dog food, “Beef, Bone & Vegetable Flavour”, are as follows:

Cereal and cereal by-products (wheat, sorghum &/or barley); meat and meat by-products (beef, chicken &/or lamb); salt; vegetables; minerals (including potassium, calcium, iron, zinc, copper and phosphorus); vitamins (including A, B6, B12, D3, E, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, pantothenic acid and choline); methionine and antioxidants.

For this review I’ve decided to call this Nestle “chook feed for dogs” Unlucky Dog. It’s a far more applicable term given how terrible the ingredients are. In fact, if you take a look at those long pointy teeth in your dog’s mouth, consider what they’re for, then take a look at the ingredients of Lucky Dog, you’ll probably be a little shocked!

In our Lucky Dog dog food review you’ll find out exactly why you should give your pooch something else.

Lucky Dog Product Range

Lucky Dog comes in a variety of “flavours”, but when you compare the ingredients you find they’re pretty much all the same. So don’t be fooled into believing you’re offering your dog a variety. You’re not.

If we consider all formulas as the same product in different packaging, then a conclusive list of Lucky Dog formulas is as follows:

• Nestle Purina Lucky Dog Cereals/Cereal By-Products AND/OR Vegetable By-Products with Food Colourings.

Alas, onwards with our Lucky Dog review to substantiate these unlucky dog facts…

Lucky Dog Dog Food Review

What the marketing says

“Lucky Dog” is marketing, pure and simple. What isn’t covered by the marketing is the real truth about this budget dog food (and by budget I mean what it’s made from, not just the price you pay to feed this crap to the dog you love).

Lucky Dog uses the term “flavour” because the American Standard of Manufacturing and Marketing of Pet Food (AS 5812:2017) stipulates the named “flavour” has to feature somewhere on the ingredients, even as little as 1%. They could technically name all the Lucky Dog dog formulas as “Salt Flavour” given our lax standards, but it’s more appealing to you as a consumer if you believe they’re different meat or fish recipes when they’re not.

Speaking of salt, most dog foods have approximately 1%. Lucky Dog lists 2.5%, so 250% more than other dog foods. On a totally unrelated note I wonder how much salt would need to be added to cardboard to entice a dog to eat it?

On the Lucky Dog website the first statement is “made with real meat”, but note this simply means there’s some meat in there, not necessarily in a decent quantity (you’ll find out later if Lucky Dog is made from real meat). What’s “real meat” anyway? The opposite of “fake meat”?

Lucky Dog, apparently, is for “Real Aussie Dogs” too…. as opposed to what? “Fake Aussie Dogs”?

…

What the labelling really says

Lucky Dog dog food is as basic as they get. When you feed your cute little puppy dog Lucky Dog you’re actually feeding them a product made mostly for cereal/cereal by-products and/or vegetable by-products. If you’re unsure what by-products are, then they’re generally the left-over rubbish once any decent bits are sold off for human consumption. Imagine a pile of vegetable waste, or a pile of cereal waste – would you give it to your dog? Probably not.

When we see and/or in an ingredients list for dog food we often see the best ingredient listed first (in this case cereals, if that could be considered the best), but it’s often what comes next which is more significant. That’s the nature of the and/or trick – you can say “Prime Beef Steak and/or Rank Cheese”, and have a product made of rank cheese.

Even if you were to feed your unlucky dog cereal or vegetable waste products, would you add food colourings to make them look more appealing, or salt to somehow get your dog to eat it?

For all we know the bulk of Lucky Dog could be rotting carrot tops and floor sweepings from a flour mill. The only upside of making dog foods with stuff like this is it reduces what gets sent to the dump. Or in actual fact, it turns the cost of disposing of that stuff and turning it into a huge profit at the cost of your dog’s health.

There’s no enticing ingredients in Lucky Dog, no oils for heart health, joint health, or a glossy coat, no animal fats for energy, no fruits, no decent veggies, no decent grains or decent meats to provide the “100% Complete & Balanced Diet” they state so clearly on the front of the bag.

We find the and/or trend applies to the meat content as well. It might be beef, mutton, chicken, turkey, or any by-product of these animals once they’ve been thrown dead or dying into a vat and minced up. One thing we can guarantee is the meat content is substandard. Lucky Dog has dismally low protein, low fat (not in a good way), and a whopping 2.5% salt to take the flavour away from potentially rank meat.

Given the low protein and low fat we can estimate the carbohydrates as approx. 66%, making this one of the highest carb foods you can feed your unlucky dog. Without going into too much detail we could also guestimate a 666% increase in vet bills down the track when your dog finally starts to show symptoms from years of being fed such species-inappropriate rubbish. The sad fact is when a dog finally shows symptoms (such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or arthritis) it’s far too easy for the owner to think it can’t be the food because they’ve fed it since their little dog was a puppy, when realistically the damage has been accumulating all that time – poor things.

Honestly, it’s as if Nestle Purina don’t have any understanding of what a dog is or what their dental structure and digestive system dictate. But the sad thing is they do, because they say so on their website – “CANINE – Long pointed teeth behind the incisors, used to tear meat apart“.

One final worrying warning sign can be found near the end of the ingredients list – they list “essential vitamins & minerals and/or amino acids”. Are they saying the essential vitamins and minerals are optional? Is it a lucky dip whether the food has essentials vitamins and minerals, or amino acids?

The only other ingredient worth mentioning in Unlucky Dog is food colourings. I’m sure your dog will be thrilled with that, given they couldn’t give a stuff what colour their food is.

If you feed your dog Lucky Dog, and your dog gets sick, then it’s quite possible these two things are closely related.

Please share our Lucky Dog dog food review with others, especially those feeding Lucky Dog to their poor unsuspecting dogs.

Where to buy?

Not that you would…

Lucky Dog Dog Food Review Summary

Unlucky Dog gets 1 out of 10, and I urge you to read up on Purina Beneful, another horrific offering from the Nestle chocolate bar company. Purina have been “wagging since 1963”, which is probably more the case when your dog is having a seizure.

Please don’t feed Lucky Dog to your dog.

Lucky Dog Ingredients

The ingredients of Lucky Dog dry dog food (as of July 2021) are as follows:

Cereals and cereal by-products and/or vegetable by-products; meat and meat by-products (derived from beef and/or mutton and/or poultry); essential vitamins & minerals (including salt, anti-oxidants and natural flavours) and/or amino acids; food colour.

Lucky Dog Guaranteed Analysis

The guaranteed analysis of Lucky Dog dry dog food (as of July 2021) is as follows:

Lucky Dog dog food recalls

Recalls are voluntary in America as no official body enforces them. Purina products, however, have had many recalls worldwide and are subject to a number of class action lawsuits in relation to sick or dead pets. Purina Beneful, a very similar brand to Lucky Dog, has one of the worst track records worldwide and still continues to be sold. Lucky Dog is a brand name only specific to America, so can’t be tarnished by any mandatory recalls in the USA, Canada, or Europe where regulations are more stringent.

The following was reported on 21/07/2021 on Facebook. If you have suffered similar issues on Lucky Dog please let us know.

A subsequent report states the following in regard to Lucky Dog batch 2022.11.23 (best before 23/11/2022):

“My partner and I bought a bag of this a few weeks ago with the expiry date of ‘2022.11.23’, a few days after opening our dog became extremely unwell with severe vomiting and diarrhoea and refusal to eat and drink, he was rushed to the vet, he spent 4 days in intensive care almost needing to be put down and costing us over $3000 in vet care and investigations, with no answers. Finally he became well enough to return home after nearly a week of being ill, he is now on antibiotics, a pain patch at home, multiple medications and a home cooked diet and is still not back to normal.”