Which puppy food?

We are currently looking into which brand if dog food would be best for our bitch puppy when we bring her home. The breeders we are in touch with either use Royal Canin, Wagg or Raw (all pregnancies are very early stages hence number of breeders).

Unfortunately we just wouldn't have the time, knowledge or freezer space to be able to prepare raw. We've heard it's not advisable to do this is it's your first dog also

We're thinking about wainwrights dry food once fully grown as it seems to be well balanced and have good reviews from independent sites.

In terms of puppy food we were thinking about wainwrights grain-free dry food but then perhaps mixing it with a wet food (maybe natures diet). Any advice on mixing foods or puppy diet would be much appreciated in terms of quantities to mix.

Also how long should you feed a dog on puppy food for? I've seen different timing on different forums/ sites.

Finally, do different flavours have different nutritional value e.g
Lamb over salmon.

Any advice will be much appreciated

 

Keep pup on the food she's on at the breeders for a few weeks - and transition slowly to your new choice. Ultimately it really is down to personal choice, and what your pup will happily eat, of course. The manufacturer of your chosen food will recommend how long to feed the puppy version for.

Coco has wet & dry mixed (only because OH thinks dogs should eat wet food). As a 30kg adult, he has 200g Skinners Field & Trial (duck & rice) and one tin of Winalot in jelly, split into 3 meals. Plus training treats. There is no science behind my choice of food - purely convenience, price and Coco enjoys it. Well, OK Skinners gets reasonable review for quality - not top, but certainly not bottom.

 

I don't know Wainwrights, as it's not one I looked at (is it the PAH own brand?) , so I can't comment on that.

Things I would say: you need to have a think about what you're after in a food and why. I'm having a bit of an anti-grain-free-brigade movement at the moment, because I cannot find any evidence to support that grain free is better for our dogs than the equivalent alternative carbohydrates that are used to bind the kibble. The claims that grains cannot by digested, or digested efficiently, by dogs is rubbish; I found a study that stated that, across a range of flours from different carbohydrate sources (I'd have to find the study again to say which ones precisely, but I've mentioned it elsewhere on the forum), that all of them were digested at equal to or greater than 99% efficiency. Which is good enough for me to say "they're digestible". Not are grains the culprit in the majority of food allergies; another study I referenced in the same rant clearly showed that beef and chicken were vastly more likely to cause allergies than any sort of grain. Plus, the nutritional profile of quinoa is hardly the same as that of barley.

I'm not saying that there is anything necessarily wrong with grain-free food, but I wholeheartedly object to large corporations putting unfounded ideas into people's heads in order to turn a bigger profit, and, without any evidence to support grain-free being best, that is precisely what they are doing.

There was also at least one person on that thread (apologies, I forget who) who said their vet had recommended against grain-free food for their puppy.

Anyway, moving on....

Why mix two foods? Each type of food is designed t be nutritionally complete, so it doesn't make any sense to me to mix them. If you were, then you would have to calculate the amount of food you'd be feeding for each, if you fed them alone, on a single day, then divide that by eight for how much to feed at each meal. So, let's say, for simplicity, that you should be feeding 200g a day of the dry food, if that's all she was eating, and 400g a day of the wet food, if that's all she was eating. So, that means each day you'd feed half of each when using both (100g dry and 200g wet), and then divide that amount by four to give you 25g of dry and 50g of wet at each meal.

It varies between manufacturers. My puppy was on puppy food until 6 months, then swapped to junior. She'll go onto adult at 18 months. Some foods don't have a junior range, so you'd stay on puppy until you switch to adult. Generally, you want your puppy to stay on food with the suitable calcium/phosphorous balance that puppies need, until their growth plates have closed. Which for Labs is generally around 12-18 months.

Yes
You'd have to look at the nutrients list to see, but there are normally sight fluctuations in protein and fat levels, as well as some of the vitamins and minerals. For example, if you plan to feed a salmon oil, as may people do, you may need to give slightly less on a salmon-based food, as the food may already have more of the "omegas" contained in it than a non-salmony alternative.


For me, when I was choosing foods for my dogs, I had a few things to consider: Firstly, can I get it where I live? For most people living in civilisation, that's not so much of an issue, with the wonders of home delivery, but I live in places (in Europe) where home delivery is not an option. I still have the food sent from the UK, but there are only certain companies who will deliver to here, and then I have to meet the courier in a lay-by, like some dodgy illicit exchange
The most important thing for me was then choosing foods with one single protein source so that, if the dogs ever developed symptoms of allergies, I could rule that out very quickly. Remembering that it's the proteins that are the most likely culprit when it comes to canine allergies. So, if this is important to you, have a look at the ingredients list and see if you can see anything ambiguous in there, such as "animal fats", or similar. If they contain these, and your dog develops an allergy, how will you know if it's from the protein source on the main label, or from one of the unidentified sources in that "catch-all"?
Of course, that may not be important to you, but my point is, back to my original statement, you need to have an idea of what are you looking for in a food, and why.

 

I use Orijen large breed puppy dry. The dogs LOVE it like candy and it's an excellent food/company. So far it has never had any type of recall and it's highly recommended due to the ingredients. Might give it a try.

 

Our breeder was using Royal Canin, and gave us a bag when he picked Joey up. Would highly recommend the brand. The bag is finishing up, and we recently bought SavourLife (I think it might only be an Australian brand) biscuits. We have been slowly introducing it to him, by mixing it with the Royal Canin biscuits. He seems to be loving it...but then again it could just be because he is a lab and they'll eat anything

 

"Which food" is a difficult question to answer so I'll just chip in to give our experience with Wainwrights, which is what we feed Jess.

Jess had digestive problems when she was a puppy, and was also really fussy about what she would eat - she came with Chudleys puppy food but point blank refused that for days until we tried something else. For quite a while we had her on a Royal Canin Gastro-Intestinal food (prescribed by the vet) but I wanted something puppy-specific for her bones.

Wainwrights Salmon and Potato puppy food was recommended by a friend who'd had similar difficulties with her collie. I wouldn't say Jess adores it - she still refuses it sometimes, but I think she's just a fussy eater. But she processes it very well and seems to be in good health. She's small for her breed (and litter) but I think that's genetic - she looks healthy and glossy.

When I researched dog foods Wainwrights was not actually my first choice - I'd have preferred a food by a dog-food specialist than one produced/sold by a mass retailer like Pets At Home. But we've found it to be a good food.

I transitioned Jess to adult food at about 13 months. At first I tried Skinners Salmon and Rice, but it made her poops a bit sloppy again (even with a slow introduction of the food) so I just put her back on Wainwrights adult, and again had no problems at all - back to perfectly pick-upable poops every time! But I still think Skinners is a very good food, so ultimately I think it's just a case of finding a food that works for your dog, which for some dogs is very easy and for others is a bit more of a challenge.