By Steven Hwang and Cassandra Abernathy ( October 19, 2018, 1:58 PM EDT) -- Sixty-eight percent of households in the United States — or approximately 85 million families — own a pet, according to the 2017 to 2018 National Pet Owners Survey conducted by the American Pet Products Association. Of those, 60 million households own one or more dogs totaling nearly 90 million pet dogs in the United States[1] — a number two and a half times the population of California.[2] Because most pet owners treat their pets as members of the family, it is no surprise then that what they feed their pets is as important to them as what they feed their family. Accordingly, the pet food arena has exploded into an enormous industry with sales totaling $29 billion in 2017.[3] ...