Commercialized dog food as we know it today is a fairly recent phenomenon: when it was first made available for sale in the US in the 1870s, it was not only expensive but primarily marketed to elite dog breeders and sportsmen. American families were used to making their own “dog stew” out of their own scraps, so it wasn’t until the growing concern with nutrition during the early part of the twentieth century that dog food began to appear on every pet owner’s shopping list.