Well, if you're construing it broadly we have references dating back to Late Republican Roman for specialty dog food. We get our first recipe in an Early Imperial book about farming, where specially making food is recommended to increase the dog's life, health, and ability to work. We also have references to Roman bakers selling bread for dogs. Humans transmitted knowledge of what dogs liked and was healthy even before that. And after Roman times, through the Middle Ages, we find European recipes for dog food and recommendations on what they can and cannot eat.

So the operative word in your question is not "dog food" but "buying". At what point in history would you be giving him specialty food for dogs? Well, if you were a good conscientious owner... always. The concept predates the concept of an 'American'. Of course, not everyone was so conscientious but that's true today too. However, prior to the mid-19th century you would buy or grow regular staples and then prepare them into dog food.

Long before commercialization, people traded in dog food on a small scale local level. We know they traded in things like beer or bread and there's no reason to believe they excluded dog food. We also know that European bakeries were producing special breads for dogs in 17th in Spain. Annoyingly, the first reference treats this as a fact we're supposed to just know, so it could have been a centuries old tradition or relatively new. But this was a more local economy. You're probably more interested in the store experience.

Well, the first commercially available dog food was not dog food but dog treats. An American inventor named James Spratt was doing business in Liverpool. While there, he noticed that the dogs would prefer to steal hardtack. HAaving a eureka moment, he began to experiment with different recipes, testing them on his own dogs, and then subcontracted out a baker to produce them in bulk. Spratt proceeded to sell them to English gentry on the basis that dogs liked them. He called them dog cakes and would stage demonstrations offering the dog a dog cake against some traditional treat like a bone.

Spratt was successful, so successful he gave up his career (making, repairing, and selling electronics) to focus on making dog cakes full time. He began to expand into other dog food related ventures, creating the first commercially available dog food. Soon, he moved to London where he set up a factory. There he really expanded into true commercial production, with colored packaging (some of, if not the, first in the world) and shipping out to stores. He also erected some of the first billboards in England. Spratt promised such exotic ingredients as buffalo and a variety of other "American-y" ingredients meant to invoke a sense of wilderness and naturalness. (The more things change...)

Spratt was helped by the nature of his product. Dog food is durable and this was before widely available refrigeration. This meant he could ship it farther than most people could ship other types of food. Ironically, this means commercial dog food actually predates most commercial human food. Commercially produced and distributed dog food predates commercially produced and distributed milk or bread, for example. Of course, as soon as Spratt's product hit the open market other people began to produce dog food of a similar model. Spratt attempted to defend his innovation but was not granted a patent or exclusive rights on the grounds that dog treats and food had pre-existed his industrialized version of it.

Some of these competitors were successful, others weren't. But Spratt began to do things that sound pretty familiar to us today. He produced informational booklets, had independent third parties put seals of quality on his product, and claimed his ingredients and processes were healthier for dogs. He continued to stage demonstrations where dogs chose his food over his competitors (though he may have cheated a little) and asserted dogs preferred his brand. He got endorsements and bragged about supplying the Queen of England. They donated money to kennel clubs and dog charities and bragged about it. And, of course, his competitors did similar things.

Spratt's dog cakes had been relatively pricey when they'd been a luxury product for the gentry. By the time they'd filtered down into dog food and he had his London factory, it had become much cheaper. Additionally, the Gilded Age saw a great increase in income across the board meaning that average people (and an increasing middle class) had more money for such goods. Before long, the same companies were making dog shampoo and special feed for chickens and similar products, having become true pet food companies.

But back to dog food: There were luxury versions but a pound of basic dog food a day would cost about $30 a year in Boston, or about three weeks wages for a common laborer. For some comparison, three weeks pay for a Boston laborer today is about $2,000. Another way to look at it: it was between 1-4% of the income of an average middle class family. But while the commercial dog food market experienced huge growth in the 1860s, traditional methods of feeding dogs predominated.

The 1870s, however, brought about three movements that would help dog food grow to dominant market share. Firstly, commercial production of food in general increased which meant more people became accustomed to buying packaged foods like milk or molasses. This had positive downline effects for packaged dog food. Secondly, America underwent a period of particularly intense love for dogs. The 1870s saw a sharp uptick in concern for dogs, interest in kennel clubs, and the beginnings of animal welfare concerns. This was not invented by the dog food companies but they did everything they could to sustain it, even helping in the creation of celebrity dogs to promote food.

(Cont.)