I am getting an 8.5 week old Male Yellow Lab Puppy on June 5, 2017. Breeder is currently feeding liter Purina Puppy Chow 4x/day. I do not want to upset the apple cart by automatically changing to another brand on June 5. Further, I understand that the first day at home will be a drastic change and acclimation period for my puppy as well as for my wife and I. However, I will be with the puppy most of the time. This is not my first rodeo with a puppy. Although it has been 5 years since we lost our GR to bone cancer at 8 yrs old, I believe in reaching out to others for refreshing and prudent advice to make June 5 as smooth as possible for all. The daunting task of navigating the best puppy food and treats for my little one is very important to me but moreover what is best for him to live a long happy and healthy life. There are so many brands of puppy food and treats for training, it has created an mind boggling exercise for me to select the best of the best whether buying locally or ordering online via Amazon. I just want to make the best decision for my puppy to be. I would certainly appreciate any and all help or advice that anyone can provide me. My main concern is knowing that I am making the right decisions in the best interest of my new puppy. Regards, Pistol Pete.
Hi Pete and welcome to the forum - and to the wonderful world of Labs. The generally accepted advice is to keep your puppy on the food that he has been on for a couple of weeks at least, to allow him to settle in. As you've mentioned, it's already a big shock to him leaving everything he's ever known and that in itself can cause digestive upset, so keeping his food constant is just something to help out a little. Once that time is up, of course you are free to change to whatever food you want. You'd generally want to fade from the old food to the new over the course of a week to ten days, again, to minimise digestive upset. As to what food? Ask ten people, you'll get ten different answers. For me, I choose to feed a kibble with one distinct protein source and one carbohydrate source. This means that, should any of my dogs (I have three) develop anything that looks like an intolerance or an allergy, it is very easy for me to isolate the protein and carb sources from their food. My latest puppy came on a food that listed all sorts of animal-derived ingredients without specifying their source. That was enough to make me want to change it. But, of course, most dogs never develop any allergies or intolerances, so you may consider this to be overly cautious. There is no right or wrong. I'd advise that you should choose an appropriate large-breed puppy formula to start with, as this will give the correct balance of nutrients for your puppy. Other than that, it's really determined by what suits your puppy, what you can afford, and what is available to you, either locally or by the wonders of the world-wide web. I'm guessing you're in the States from some of the language you have used? Obviously, different foods are available in different countries. If you haven't seen it already, I'd heartily recommend The Happy Puppy Handbook as a great resource for new - and returning - puppy owners
well everyone recommends Origen which I would say is top tier, but it can be very pricey. considering labs are ravenous beasts, your wallet will be hurting. Instead, I opted for maybe "second best" which is very similar in protein content which is Blue Wilderness. Less expensive than Origen. Sparky has been happy with it. If you are in the US, I would recommend ordering from chewy.com.
Hi Pete , good advice so far, but wanted to bid you welcome , and enjoy your puppy, they grow up so quickly !
Hi, our puppy was also on Purina Puppy Chow when we brought her home and we were not happy with that, but left her on it for about a week while she settled in. We spoke to our vet about foods and what to look for and we started researching large breed puppy foods from there. There are tons of options on the market, so really it's about finding something with quality ingredients at a price that works for you. Warning - the transition off puppy chow was a smelly 10 days but read online that it's very common!
I have done the same for Cooper as "kateincornwall" above. He also came with a Purina food but, slowly, I switched him over to Fromm. At some point Cooper got tired of the different Fromm's and I switched to Orijen.....mucho $$$$$.....but very good. NOW and for a long time Cooper is on Blue Buffalo Wilderness. He looooves the Salmon or Duck or Beef so I buy the large bags from Chewy (they ship free if over $49) and it comes FedEx in a couple of days. I am now settled on Blue Buffalo Wilderness and Cooper is a very healthy male that loves his food! Just make sure when you switch the food make sure you do it over a couple of weeks (after the two weeks on the same Purina) and do it 25/75 (new/old) for a few days, then 50/50 for a few then 75/25 and then 100%. As Fiona says above,their tummy's are very delicate at that age so do it slowly and watch his poo's! Very important. What a wonderful thing to have a little puppy enter your lives. You have a great adventure ahead of you.
Hi Pete, for such a young puppy I would always advise that you use some of their daily kibble ration for training treats rather than introduce something new to their tummies with so much change taking place. Puppies are usually very amenable to just the kibble - it's all food to them. You can introduce tasty treats as the pup gets older and environments and training becomes more challenging - hold on to the good stuff until you really need it
Welcome to you from Mags, Tatze and Mollie from Manchester UK Tatze is my pet dog, a black Lab and she's four years old. Tatze means 'paw' in German. Mollie is my fourth Guide Dog puppy, a black Lab who is eight months old. I give the pups kibble only for treats until they are five months old, then I introduce fish cubes, which are excellent nutritionally and don't add too many calories. The dogs love them and five months is just about the time that they start to need the higher value treats for recall. For Kongs I use food from their allowance, soaked and frozen. Food wise I would keep them on their puppy food but at 12 months old I'd move on to Skinner's salmon and rice. Tatze is very healthy and glossy on this, it's half the price of other foods and just as good.
Interestingly @Boogie my girl really didn't do at all well when I tried Skinners - the only food I've found to date that she has reacted to.
I didn't change food but I did decide to rotate three different foods when Oban was 2 years old. I kept the breeder's food, a maintenance food. This website, link below, helped me learn to read labels, understand ingredients and make my own decision as to how to add a new food. In Canada there are not umpteen million choices of food so that did make it a bit easier. http://www.dogfoodproject.com/
Hi and welcome to the forum. When Bailey was tiny he came with Beta puppy food - not good at all, so we did a slow transition to a couple of others over the course of the next several months - Bailey just was really fussy about what he was eating - he would rather not eat some! I then tried Taste of the Wild with Salmon and he loved that - for about 4 months. He then started getting picky and not eating again so I then changed to feeding him raw. Still experimenting with vegetable mix to go with the raw food but he loves it and now he will clear his bowl in one go - which he has never done before, his breakfast for example could last all morning and halfway through the afternoon! Now he loves his meaty bones, minced chicken and a range of different vegetables. Not bad considering I'm a vegetarian!
Samantha, what veggies to you feed Bailey? Are they raw? Cooper likes red, yellow and orange peppers (probably because they are on the sweet side), green beans. But he does not like carrots or brussel sprouts!! I would love to know what vegetables you are giving Bailey. I have semi-started feeding him raw...I finally found a place that has meaty bones...very expensive but I think raw would benefit Cooper....he is always hungry (as most Labs are) and sometimes he gets more treats than he should....obviously my fault. I have also fed him chicken wings and pork+beef minced meat(what we call ground pork and beef or hamburger) I have not been able to find a butcher shop where I live so am tied down to supermarkets. I must look for the minced chicken you mention....I know we haves minced turkey. Thanks in advance. Glad Bailey is happy now!
Hi @Yvonne At the moment we are using frozen peas (microwaved for a minute to cook them) they are quite sweet and he loves these - we also use cauliflower, broccoli, Brussel sprouts (Bailey loves these), sweet potato, sweetcorn and butternut squash. He used to like carrots and green beans but he's gone off them. To be honest I throw in any vegetables that we are having with our meal. They are all cooked - or if using frozen veg then microwaved for a minute. He also loves baked beans - as a treat he sometimes gets a spoonful of those in with his other food as well. I buy the mince at a local pet shop - Kennelgate - not sure if they have a USA branch. But they are the only pet shop around that sells raw mince. I sometimes get a chicken and lamb or chicken and tripe mix but Bailey seems to prefer the plain chicken one (for now ). He does not like minced beef at all, he will literally turn his nose up at that, but loves beef bones. I am lucky that I have an old fashioned butcher near me that loves dogs, so when my OH goes in for his weekly meat ration there is a bone or two thrown in - rib bones are for pence each and a friend of mine is a butcher so once a month I get some marrow bones for Bailey for free. I also get some frozen fish chunks, that I defrost and put in with chicken once a week. I just think he gets something good from each thing and he seems to like it, so by trial and error I am getting there and he has put back on the weight he lost - he was getting too skinny (he's a lean boy anyway) - he lost nearly 1kg within a month when he was refusing to eat, which was when we swapped to full raw feeding and experimenting with different veggies. Weighed him today and he's put back on the 1kg within a month - so happy with that. (we had taken him to the vet during the period he was loosing weight and mentioned it to them and they said his weight was fine and they were not concerned about it - I however was!). The best bit is seeing Bailey eat like a Labrador....before he really had no interest in his food but now he really goes for it
