Best dry food for a puppy?

[millitiger]

We've just taken possession of a lovely 10 week old whippet puppy and as it has been about 11 years since a puppy was in thr household we're a bit behind on best foods!

He came with a bit of dry food but content didn't look great so we are weaning him onto Clinivet puppy food as that seemed best at local Countrywide.

He is an absolute gannet but I would like to make sure he is getting the best diet we can do so cost not too much of an issue (within reason!).

Recommendations for good dry food much appreciated

 

[druid]

My new springer is doing fantastically on Orijen puppy.

 

[Antw23uk]

There is no such thing as good dry food. All commercial dog food is pants. Put him in a RAW/ BARF diet ... he will love you forever for it

We feed ours Natural Instinct and at five months old now I cannot wait to start introducing bones (she did have a cheeky raw turkey neck the other day and LOVED it)

Oh and pics please

 

[AmyMay]

We have our pup on Fish4dogs.

 

[PorkChop]

There is a great sticky at the top of the page - depends how much you want to spend - mine are on raw now but I used to feed skinners but tbh the difference between feeding raw and dry for me is a deal breaker.

 

[druid]

There is no such thing as good dry food. All commercial dog food is pants. Put him in a RAW/ BARF diet ... he will love you forever for it

We feed ours Natural Instinct and at five months old now I cannot wait to start introducing bones (she did have a cheeky raw turkey neck the other day and LOVED it)

Oh and pics please

Not everyone can afford or wishes to feed raw. There are some great premium grain free dry foods such orijen which are a good compromise. For the record I personally feed raw to my older dog but as pup came with a bag of orijen he is finishing that and then weaning on to raw. I don't think it helps anyone to be evangelical about raw feeding - it doesn't suit everyone.

 

[Spot_the_Risk]

Raw is good if you're dedicated and organised but doesn't work for everyone. We use Oscar pet foods, have also fed Field & Trial duck, and their puppy seems pretty good for the price too (it's a wheat free if that is important to you).

 

[gunnergundog]

Millitiger......what was the food the breeder weaned the pup on to? To be honest, at ten weeks, I don't like to change them too much....unless they vote with their paws, which some of mine have when they realise the others are getting raw. TBH there is sufficient change for a small one with the change in water alone, let alone coupled with the stress of losing siblings and living in a new environment without changing grub as well.

The stickie at the top has some good advice on good foods....basically, go for those with higher meat content, lower (or ideally) no cereal content, no additives, no colourings, no e=numbers!

 

[Annette4]

Ours (whippet and corgi) are on Skinners, it's the only thing the Corgi maintains his weight on while still having what he feels is a decent meal (he ballooned on half the RDA of fish4dogs).

 

[PucciNPoni]

Not everyone can afford or wishes to feed raw. There are some great premium grain free dry foods such orijen which are a good compromise. For the record I personally feed raw to my older dog but as pup came with a bag of orijen he is finishing that and then weaning on to raw. I don't think it helps anyone to be evangelical about raw feeding - it doesn't suit everyone.

AMEN!

 

[Wiz201]

Arden Grange is good, Teddy thrives on puppy/junior version, and Amber has the senior version which has all the vitamins and minerals she needs as she's getting older, not that you can tell lol

 

[Cinnamontoast]

My new springer is doing fantastically on Orijen puppy.

Top choice, closely followed by Acana or Wainwright's Fishmongers. Fish4dogs has too much filler in for my liking.

There is no such thing as good dry food. All commercial dog food is pants. Put him in a RAW/ BARF diet ... he will love you forever for it

I don't think that's at all true and I feed raw! There are excellent dry foods out there, as evidenced by the sticky above. Not all commercial dog food is pants by a long way. Yes, the supermarket ones are, but more people are now researching the base ingredients before settling on a food nowadays, the message about crap food, great advertising is finally sinking in-partly.

 

[lusese]

I'm sorry that I resurrect the old topic, but it's just that I myself once encountered this issue, and spent a lot of time to find really useful information,
I don't believe there is such a thing as "the best food" for any dog.i would suggest you do your research and then pick a food you feel comfortable with, that is easily available and within your price range. You want to find a food that has no corn, soy, or wheat in it. Also, avoid by-products. By products can be anything including beaks, feet,etc.Look for meals(ie chicken meal, fish meal, etc).Canidae is what I feed and my dogs do well. Innova is also a very good food.Also, don't get anything with animal digest in it...yuck!You want to find a large breed puppy formula because you don't want him to grow too fast (too much protein like agilitydog said) Meat as the first ingredient is better than anything with corn as the first ingredient imo.I feed Fromm, but it is more expensive, and not really readily available to most people.Royal Canin is expensive and also not of good quality.Having just looked at the ingredient list of the French Bulldog version, it has rice and wheat as the first two ingredients - they are just fillers. It's got animal fat in it - no mention of what that animal is. For a dog that is prone to skin problems it is not good.
A good quality food has the named meat source at the top of the list of ingredients and is clearly labelled - no ambiguity. The purchaser should know exactly what it contains.
Here is an article https://petapproves.com/best-puppy-food/ about the domination of the big four pet food companies and the poor quality of some of their products.There are a lot of useful videos on this topic on Youtube, I will leave here one of them, as many often have similar questions.Good Luck.

[video=youtube;1UlN8RO8FjU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UlN8RO8FjU&t=1s[/video]

 

[Nayumi1]

While I am an advocate of the raw diet there are times where it doesn't work for the dog. The dry food I use is Arden Grange which I highly recommend.

 

[dougbthom]

AMEN!

I'll throw in my 2 cents worth as well. We have had German Shepherd Dogs for better than 45 years and have been "raw" feeders for about 18 years now and wished we had done the raw feeding for much longer than the 18 years. The difference in our dogs since switching to raw are like night and day to put it bluntly. Over the years we saw many many various types of cancers and lost many dogs. Over the last number of years we have experienced very little as far as cancers go. We attribute this change mainly to diet and vaccinations kept to a bare minimum ( puppy shots only). If we had to feed kibble, it would be Orijen without question. Hope this helps. My intent here was NOT to preach but give an honest assessment of our experiences. Good luck!

 

[cremedemonthe]

I'll throw in my 2 cents worth as well. We have had German Shepherd Dogs for better than 45 years and have been "raw" feeders for about 18 years now and wished we had done the raw feeding for much longer than the 18 years. The difference in our dogs since switching to raw are like night and day to put it bluntly. Over the years we saw many many various types of cancers and lost many dogs. Over the last number of years we have experienced very little as far as cancers go. We attribute this change mainly to diet and vaccinations kept to a bare minimum ( puppy shots only). If we had to feed kibble, it would be Orijen without question. Hope this helps. My intent here was NOT to preach but give an honest assessment of our experiences. Good luck!

Same experiences as mine and for nearly as many years, been feeding mine 14 years on raw, not expensive as others make out if you know where to buy. Would never go to commercial food of any kind to feed my lot, wish I had done it many years before I did.