From Stone Age Scraps to High Tech Kibble: A Brief History of Dog Food

Ancient Algerian cave painting of a dog and their hunting party. photo: AdobeStock

Commercially produced dog food is the norm today, but it wasn’t alway so. How did our ancient ancestors feed their canine companions? Who started putting dog kibble in cereal boxes? And why are those biscuits called Milk Bones anyway? 

Dogs have lived alongside humankind since our earliest days on earth. Researchers have found evidence of the human-canine bond as far back as 15,000 years. Dogs have been discovered buried with their families in ancient cemeteries all around the world including in Skateholm, Sweden, the Iberian Peninsula, and Danger Cave, Utah. 

Researchers analyzed some 4,000-year-old dog remains from Iberia and  determined that the dogs of that time lived on a diet similar to that of their human companions: vegetables, animal proteins, and grains like wheat. This practice of sharing the family meals with dogs continued largely unchanged for thousands of years.

One of the first written accounts of a dog’s recommended diet appears in Roman author Marcus Terentius Varro’s book Res Rustica, Farm Topics. Says Varro, “The food of dogs is more like that of man than that of sheep: they eat scraps of meat and bones, not grass and leaves … You should also feed them barley bread, but not without soaking it in milk …". Written in 37 BCE, the book goes into great detail about the care of many other animals domesticated at the time, not just our canine friends. 

Similar advice can be found in a variety of records over the generations, with writers often recommending canine diets that included some combination of bread, milk, and meats less palatable to people like bones, organs, and fat. Unless dog owners were well to do, these meals were typically made up of leftovers and table scraps. In 1844, Frenchman Nicholas Boyard wrote that dogs should be fed whatever was left at “the bottom of the stew pot.”

Literary references and common sense tell us that for many generations dog owners fed their dogs whatever was available and not needed for human consumption. In fact, it wasn’t until 1860 that dog food became a product all its own.

An Ohio electrician named James Spratt was in London that year, plying his trade and seeking other business opportunities, when he noticed sailors tossing some of their hardtack biscuits to eager dogs begging on the docks. After returning home to the U.S, he started a company producing a dry, long shelf-life product similar to the sailors’ biscuits but marketed for dogs. He called it the Patented Meat Fibrine Dog Cake, although it consisted mostly of grains and beetroot, with the meat source remaining a mystery.

Spratt’s business was successful, targeting higher-income people who could afford such luxuries with claims of convenience and superior nutrition. He marketed his product through the American Kennel Club, placing an ad on the cover of the January 1889 AKC Journal. He also obtained testimonials for his dry dog cakes from prominent AKC members like William J. Dunbar, who stated, “My greyhound, Royal Mary, winner at Altcar of last year’s Waterloo Plate, was almost entirely trained for all her last year’s engagements upon them.”

In 1907, American inventor Carleton Ellis, came up with the idea for the now-iconic bone shape for a dog biscuit, devising his recipe as a way of using up excess milk from local dairies. The palatable and visually appealing cookie was a hit, and it was soon mass produced by the F. H. Bennett Biscuit Company in New York’s Lower East Side. In 1931, the Bennett company was bought out by the National Biscuit Company (aka Nabisco) and the tasty dog treats began being sold under their now famous name — you guessed it — Milk Bones. 

As the world became industrialized and people moved to cities, horses became more plentiful and less valuable. Kept in less than ideal conditions and worked to death in the absence of humane laws, horses became a source of cheap meat for dogs. The practice of feeding dogs with horse and other meats not desired by humans was likely common for some time on a small scale, but after World War I there was such a glut of unwanted horses that the process became commercialized. Aspiring New York businessman Phillip Chappel took over an old packing plant in Illinois in 1922 and set up a dog food canning business. He called the dog food Ken-L Ration, a play on the term K-Ration, the packaged meals that had been served to thousands of soldiers.

Although commercially produced biscuits and canned diets were sold for many years, dog food as we now know it didn’t really enter the mainstream until after World War II. Many items were in short supply during the war, including metal, so the dog food canning industry took a hit and Ken-L Ration fell out of favor. 

Enter Ralston Purina, later acquired by General Mills. The producer of popular breakfast cereals like Chex and Cheerios, the company found a profitable market for the byproducts of its human-grade food as well as a way to package its new dry dog food without using metal, relying instead on cardboard and paper containers similar to its cereal packaging. Early Purina Dog Chow came in bite-size pieces known as “checkers,” but by 1956, Purina began using an extrusion process, in which raw ingredients were ground, shaped, cooked, and cut into the small bits we now call kibble.

Over the next two decades, extrusion technology took off and dry dog food became big business. But this didn’t happen without some behind-the-scenes help.

In 1958, a group of pet food industry lobbyists calling themselves The Pet Food Institute launched a campaign to promote commercial pet food as the only decent option for the dog-loving public. As you can see, their efforts were quite successful. Many modern pet experts still advise against feeding dogs “people food” and would scoff at the homemade diets that kept our canine family members in good health for thousands of years.

Today, we may be starting to come full circle with some people touting the benefits of a raw canine diet, and others making their own homemade dog treats or meals. But one thing’s for sure. Whether it’s mass-produced kibble or a rare T-bone steak, the most important ingredient in your dog’s bowl tonight is love.