The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the booming pet care industry is creating new marketing issues for pet food companies. With the world becoming more health conscious, manufacturers are balancing their lines between cost, nutrition, and taste.

Industry experts describe pet food as a complex and changing market in which some customers think nothing of paying $1.25 an ounce for gourmet jerky treats from Omaha Steaks, while others complain about spending $11.78 for a 50-pound bag of Wal-Mart's Ol' Roy dry dog food.

As specialty pet-food makers gain market share, the nation's largest manufacturers, including Nestle Purina PetCare Co. of St. Louis, face a challenge: They must appeal to more health-conscious shoppers without alienating the masses.

In order to please every type of pet owner, companies are organizing their lines of dog food based on consumer types.

Purina has its own categories for pet owners. To appeal to all of them, Purina kept its less-expensive offerings, such as Alpo, and its traditional ''chows'' on the market, but it also conducted high-profile launches of brands such as Purina One and Beneful.

Beneful, which sells for slightly less than Purina One, is between Purina's premium and super-premium categories. Purina said Beneful, a $200 million brand, was the most successful dog-food launch in a decade.

Of course, television advertising campaigns might have something to do with it also. But I think there's a lot more information available to pet owners, particularly found online on message boards and websites. When my wife and I adopted our first dog, Max, we didn't know anything about dog food. We thought that "Eukanuba" was the best food out there, because that's what we saw on television commercials. But then we learned that most dog owners, at least here in Southern California anyways, buy Nutro Max, including the rescues we've adopted our dogs from. So, that's what we feed our dogs.