Finding the Best Puppy Food
You found the best puppy for your family, and now you’re looking for the best puppy food to start him off right. There are a lot of different brands available these days, in all types and prices. Be sure to bring him home with a small bag of what your pup has already been eating, so you can transition him gradually to the new food you select. You will add a bit more of his new food in every day, and less of his old food, until he is completely switched over.
You will also want to decide what manner of food to feed your pup. Canned and dry, kibble, the selection seems endless. You might want to offer a bit of each type, to be sure your pup will eat. If your puppy is still eight weeks old or less, you may want to go with canned or moist food, since he won’t have his permanent teeth yet, at that time. His puppy teeth weren’t meant to chew hard food, so canned would be the best puppy food for him, if he’s still young enough not to have his adult teeth yet. Most dogs also accept and devour canned or moist food more readily than dry food, too. If your pup is a bit lean and needs more weight on him, the canned and moist foods will help that quite a bit. Make sure that he has been wormed, too, or do it yourself if you’re not sure. All that food will not help him gain any weight if he has worms.
The grocery store has some high-end dog foods, but if you’re really finicky about what you feed him, you can find the healthiest foods at a pet shop or your veterinarian. Grocery stores have many more top-of-the-line foods now than they used to, so don’t be afraid to look there, too, if it’s closer to you than the pet shop or veterinarian office. You may find some of the same foods that are priced more reasonably at the grocer, or at a mass retailer like Wal-Mart.
Some of the more digestible foods also have the most research behind them, which is valuable because it’s geared exactly to where your dog is in life, and formulated accordingly. A few high quality dog food brands are Nutra-Max, Nature’s Recipe and Iams. Many vets sell Iams and recommend it as the best puppy food, and you can now find it almost anywhere. Purina One and Purina Pro Plan are newer additions to the high-end dog food line, but they have a lot of research behind them as well. Purina spends millions of dollars on pet food research, so don’t be afraid of that brand when you look for good food for your pup. Science Diet is another brand that has a good reputation, although some dogs seem to develop some type of sensitivity to its ingredients.
Feed your pup a “puppy” formula for about a year, until he’s fully matured. The manufacturers may advertise this so you’ll spend more money for a longer period of time, but there is also solid reasoning behind providing the extra protein that a growing dog needs.
Once you have found a brand that your dog eats well, and that you have good results with, stick with that food. Your puppy will get much more nutrition from the best puppy food you can find, and he may get an upset stomach if you are always changing feeds.
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