Any Doggie Nutritionists Out There?
I'm about to get an OES puppy and i'm wondering if there's really any advantage/reason to feed it a food that's specifically designed for puppies. You guys seem to know soooo much, so I thought I'd ask you. Please don't just say "yes you need to"; I can imagine people will say that. I want to know why/how it's different. I currently feed my dog nutrisca by Dogswell, which is a grain-free food with lots of actual meat in it. I was thinking I might just feed the puppy the same food, but I wonder if there are additional things puppies need. I also toy with the notion of cooking for the dogs when the puppy comes, so any help with vitamins/minerals I'll need to add to the food would also be helpful. Thank you! |
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Not really sure about the scientific data on feeding a puppy food that is just for puppies. Now they have special food according to breed  . I did feed my pups Orijen puppy and slowly switched over to orijen adult. They did great. I think pups need more calories and proteins for their super fast growing body. I'll let the other experts chime in here. I am a firm believer if the food works for your dog and you get nice formed poops and no tummy trouble, that's what you should feed.Home cooking is not as easy as it sounds. You need to know a bit about dog nutrition to be sure your dog - especially a puppy - is getting all the vitamins, proteins etc they need to be healthy and to develop a healthy immune system and helathy bone structure. Keep us posted on your puppy and send some pix! Welcome to the forum! |
| Not a nutitionist by any means, but one thing you'll want to keep in mind is the length of time you feed puppy food. What you want in a large breed is slow and steady growth - it's better for the dog orthopedically - you want to avoid food that encourages rapid and dramatic growth spurts, as the dog is more vulnerable to injury and so on during these stages. That's why there's been a trend towards 1) getting puppies off the puppy food pretty quickly. My rule of thumb is about 5 mos old at the latest. And/or 2) feeding large breed puppy food. Alternately you can probably get them off the puppy food a bit earlier yet (but I'd want to feed puppy food till probably about 4 mos old) and onto a good adult food. Some vets seem to be recommending that the puppy stays on puppy food till a year old. I'm not sure what their justification is and most OES (and other large breed) breeders I know would completely disagree with this approach. First step is to talk to your puppy's breeder and see what he or she recommends. Most have a pretty clear outline of what they like to do and why they do it, and they know the line your puppy comes from, which can be very helpful. Kristine |
| Ditto, Kristine. My vets recommend moving a large breed dog from puppy food to adult food by 6 months of age, for the reasons Kristine mentioned. Laurie and Oscar |
| Not a nutritionist but we sell kibble where I work. According to all the reps from each line, the puppy food is mostly a marketing gimmick but has some benefit. On your bag somewhere it will say that this food is a growth(puppy or very active dogs) food, an All Life stages(for pups through seniors)food or a Maintenance food(for the inactive, senior, overweight etc). The big advantage for feeding a puppy food is that you can feed a tad less and a tad less often than an All Life Stages(ALS)food. With an ALS food you generally need to increase the food amount, which can be too much for a little tummy to hold without providing an additional meal. We feed Ripley Innova LB puppy and feed him at least 3 times and generally 4 times per day. Puppy(growth) food has more calories per cup than ALS food which has more calories per cup than Maintenance food. The advantage of a Large Breed puppy(growth) food has something to do with the Calcium to Phosporus ratio which needs to be in a relative 1ish to 1ish ratio with total percent of both combined not to exceed roughly 2.5%. This ratio helps to regulate a steady but slow growth. We feed our youngest Boxer puppy food to help keep weight on her as she is so active and as with a puppy don't have to feed as much. |
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