Video The 1 Best Dog Food For Boxers

Deciding which dog food to feed your Boxer in order to provide the very best nutrition is one of the most important aspects of dog ownership, and many of us get it wrong in the beginning.

While the majority of Boxer owners still feed kibble and other convenience foods, the best dog food for Boxers, by far, is a fresh, natural, home prepared raw diet which supports vastly better health than processed, shelf-stable products.

Reading: Best dry food for boxers

Rather than asking “Which brand of kibble should I feed my Boxer?” or “Is wet or dry food better for Boxer dogs?”, or getting bogged down in marketing ploys like “grain free” and “large breed puppy” formulas, a better question is “How can I feed my Boxer properly?”

I am not a vet. This article is intended for general informational and educational purposes. I encourage readers to view my full disclaimer. Boxer Dog Diaries is reader powered. I may receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase via links I share. Thank your for your support.

This post will tell it to you straight.

Unlike most of the other articles your search pulled up, we have no dog food to sell you, no affiliations or conflicts of interest and no agenda other than the health and wellbeing of this breed we love.

We are in the business of information and this information is our sole offering.

Our guiding motivation is to empower you as a dog owner by sharing what we’ve learned (often the hard way!) so that we can all lay the groundwork for the best possible health and vitality for our Boxers, lifelong.

They deserve it, right?

Table of Contents

What Food Is Good For Boxer Dogs?

Your choices when feeding a Boxer boil down to:

Kibble
Canned
Home cooked recipes

Pre-made commercial raw dog food
Home-prepared raw

As confusing as it can be, and as much as the dog food industry would like to convince you otherwise, there is actually only one right answer when it comes to feeding your Boxer dog (or any other breed).

In fact, every species on earth has its natural, optimum diet which its body is designed to consume.

Humans are the only animal removed enough from our natural state to create infinite variations in what we eat and drink and think it’s normal (and then wonder why we have so many “unexplained” health problems).

Every other species on earth eats a uniform diet, meaning every member of the species eats the same thing — with some allowance for local availability and variation.

And for dogs, that is a raw meaty bone-based diet.

Whatever you’re currently feeding your Boxer, make sure you use a slow feeder to guard against deadly bloat.

Something simple like the Outward Hound Fun Feeder works great,

or you can convert your Boxer’s existing bowl into a slow feeder by inserting an OurPets Spiral.

How To Choose The Best Food For Your Boxer

It’s worth breaking down what a dog needs nutritionally, so that you can assess any proposed diet to see if it measures up.

An optimum diet for your Boxer dog must:

Be biologically appropriate i.e. raw, not cooked and protein-based not full of cheap carbohydrate fillers
Match the way dog’s bodies are designed to eat i.e. plant and meat matter consumed separately, not combined in “recipes” which are a human invention — dogs eat “mono meals” of one food type per sitting
Avoid chemicals, preservatives, artificial colorings, “palatability enhancers”, antimicrobials and other non-food additives that create a toxic load on the body which, over time, is disease-producing
Derive its nutrition from whole foods rather than synthetic vitamin and mineral supplements and genetically modified ingredients
Involve plenty of raw meaty bones, which are the centerpiece of the canine diet, essential for dental health and the single most health-promoting canine food

Contain natural levels of moisture i.e. it must not be dehydrated or the dog will exist in a state of constant dehydration
Be fresh and free of contaminants including rancid fats, salmonella, storage mites, mold, mycotoxins
Use high quality meats

When you assess all your food choices according to the features of a healthy canine diet, only a fresh, home prepared raw diet satisfies the criteria.

Even store-bought raw dog food makes some mistakes that are best avoided by home preparing your Boxer’s raw food yourself, as you do your own meals.

Your Boxer’s meals will be much easier and quicker, because there’s never any cooking involved.

Just a little trimming of fat and weighing and you’re good to go.

Benefits Of Feeding Your Boxer Top Quality Food

Your raw fed Boxer’s condition will leave you in no doubt as to the benefits of providing him with his natural born diet — the one dogs ate for literally a million years throughout evolution and to which their physiology is perfectly adapted.

Among the health problems you can avoid by ditching a processed diet like kibble in favor of a fresh, natural raw diet are:

Tear stains
Anal sac blockages
Deadly bloat or gastric dilatation-volvulus (GDV)
Itching
Yeast overgrowth
Paws that smell like Fritos
Gas
“Allergies” including so called “food allergies“
Red eyes and eye discharge
Ear “infections”
UTIs
Boxer colitis
Boxer acne or chin irritation
Pancreatitis
Diarrhea and stomach upset
Obesity or skinniness
Hives
Skin problems
Cancer
Paw gnawing and licking
Excessive shedding
Acid reflux or air licking
Bad breath
Dirty teeth
Gum overgrowth i.e. gingival hyperplasia
Dry, crusty nose
Hair loss

But how do you raw feed your Boxer and make sure he’s getting all the nutrients he needs?

How To Feed Your Boxer Correctly

We’re here to help you get started with raw feeding your Boxer.

Or perhaps you’d like a more step-by-step guide?

The lessons come direct to your inbox and you’ll have the ability to ask questions and get help troubleshooting your Boxer’s specific situation.

Raw diets don’t just involve meat, you can supplement with whole foods like:

Raw eggs

Fruit like overripe bananas

Fish like sardines

Got an eight-week old Boxer and want to start him off right?

Why Pre-Made Raw Dog Food Is Not A Good Choice For Your Boxer

Pre-made raw patties or grinds are a step up from kibble, but they are far from first rate nutrition for your Boxer.

The problems with pre-prepared raw include:

Fat overconsumption — because it’s not profitable for them to remove it, raw dog food makers just grind the fat in. Since raw food is made using farmed meats, this results in a fat content much higher than the lean game meats dogs evolved eating and for which there is no biological precedent in a dog’s body. Deceptive labelling practices then express fat content as fat percentage by weight, rather than percentage by calorie, which is what matters. Dog owners have to do the conversion in order to discover the true fat content. One boutique raw dog food assessed by Boxer Dog Diaries marketed itself as 14 per cent fat, but, when converted, was actually 62 per cent fat. According to integrative vet Dr Karen Becker, dog food deriving more than 31 per cent of calories from fat is high fat. Signs of fat overconsumption are common in the pet dog population and include scooting, itching, gas and diarrhea
Inclusion of inappropriate ingredients e.g. a dog’s natural diet consists of lean muscle meat, edible bone and a little offal with occasional fruit and perhaps some greens/grasses. Many ingredients in modern dog foods are of questionable value. Carbohydrates are cheaper than meat, but dogs’s bodies are not meant to eat carb-heavy diets
Inappropriate combinations of ingredients, namely the mixing of fruit in with meat. Dogs in natural settings always eat plant and meat separately. They are facultative carnivores, which means they can maintain themselves on plant matter, but only eat plants when their primary food, meat, is unavailable. Recipes that mix it all in together are a human invention. As plant digests much faster than meat, this combination creates digestive conflict, delaying the passage of plant matter through the digestive tract with the production of toxic by-products that don’t occur when dogs are fed plants separately to meat

What Brands Of Kibble Are Best For Boxer Dogs?

The short answer is that you don’t want to be feeding your Boxer kibble, regardless of brand.

Boxer Dog Diaries can’t, in good conscience, recommend any brand of kibble to you as a Boxer owner.

Certainly, some brands are worse than others in that they use lower quality meats and may have poorer track records in terms of recalls due to contamination with salmonella or aflatoxin (a carcinogenic mycotoxin or toxin produced by mold)

The reality, though, is that no brand of kibble — no matter how high end — can overcome the issues inherent in the product as a consequence of how it’s made.

To highlight a few of the problems with kibble: it’s cooked at high temperatures which kills beneficial enzymes and bacteria, creates carcinogenic compounds and destroys nutrients, necessitating the addition of synthetic vitamins and minerals to meet nutrient baselines. It’s also treated with chemicals to delay the growth of mold and extend its shelf life.

Even on a tight budget, feeding kibble to your Boxer is a false economy.

Look at proper feeding as an investment in your Boxer’s health: its either spend money now on good food, or spend money later on vet bills (and heartache).

Got More Questions About Your Boxer’s Food?

You may be interested in the following resources answering specific food-related questions:

What do you feed a Boxer with a “sensitive stomach”?
Is grain free best for Boxers?
Should Boxers eat large breed puppy food?
Why your Boxer is a picky eater
Supplements and your Boxer
Can a Boxer eat peanut butter and other human foods?
Raised or floor-level bowls?
Should your Boxer drink tap water?
Foods your Boxer should never eat
The danger of (cooked) chicken bones for your Boxer

Other Essential Aspects Of Your Boxer’s Care

Optimizing your Boxer’s diet will go a long way to ensuring he enjoys the maximum possible lifespan, free of disease and discomfort even in the later years.

But it’s important to get the other core elements of your Boxer’s care right.

At Boxer Dog Diaries, we are so passionate about this that we wrote a book devoted to it.

Supercanine: How To Raise A Healthier Dog Or Revitalize A Sick One encapsulates all the things we wish we’d known or been told in that first vet appointment.

Misinformation abounds and there are many aspects of dog ownership where the common wisdom (and, sadly the practices of conventionally-trained vets) will often undermine the health of your Boxer, such as:

Vaccine schedules for Boxers
When to neuter/spay your Boxer
Worming
Flea/tick treatment
Drugs like the steroid prednisone, the antihistamine Benadryl and the sedative Acepromazine
Dog daycare, off leash dog parks, puppy school and dog socialization
How often to wash your Boxer
How much exercise is right for a Boxer (and his joint health)

Conclusion

The best food for your Boxer is his natural diet: fresh, lean raw meat, raw meaty bones and a little offal.

All kibbles unfortunately provide sub-standard nutrition that might be convenient in the short term but which does not serve your Boxer’s health, long term.

Raw feeding owners and vets tell of the dramatic transformations and resolution of health problems when dogs are transitioned from highly processed dry dog food to their biologically-appropriate diet.

You will too!