Hi! We’ve picked up a lovely black lab puppy at the weekend, he full of energy but also very relaxed at being left alone. No crying at night and has only had one wee in the house and takes himself to the garden now when he needs to go! We’re very lucky! I’m a bit concerned though about his food intake. The breeder was feeding him on an adult mix and giving him 4 soaked handfuls a day, I did vaguely ask why she chose an adult mix and she just said she’d used it with all her litters. He ate well the first two days and since then we’ve started mixing it with a working dog puppy food but now he’s much less interested in food. I’m only putting a small amount in and soaking it but he’s only eating about half his breakfast and dinner and leaving his lunch altogether ( he sniffs it and walks off). He’s not very food orientated and doesn’t take treats either so we can’t bulk his intake up with treats. We’re picking his bowl up after 30 minutes and he’s not getting any other type of food/snacks/treats throughout the day. I tried going back to purely the adult mix this afternoon but he wasn’t interested at all. He sleeps in about 2 hour blocks then has a 40-50 minute play before sleeping again so his energy levels seem ok but I do think he’s starting to look a bit slimmer already. I’m going to try chicken stock over it tomorrow but any other ideas would be welcome...
Kibble for puppies is very important as it has a different mix of nutrients, designed to support the rapid growth that you'll see. For a lab puppy, you should be on puppy kibble for approx 1 year and then move on to adult kibble but that depends on the brand. We had to try a few different brands of kibble before our pup was happy, which is Pooch & Mutt. Make sure your kibble is high in meat based products and not just filled with mixed grains. Check the first five ingredients that are listed in order and you should be seeing lots of meat/fish there.
He’s doing a bit better with his puppy food now, I think we might have tried to start changing him too soon when he first got here. He definitely prefers the smell of the adult mix but we know how important the puppy food is and have no intention of keeping him on the adult mix, we’re just changing over a lot more gradually so it might take a few weeks
