# Puppy Food to Start With



## TGBTG7701 (Jan 10, 2017)

I am getting a standard female puppy in a couple of weeks and wondered what food would be a good choice to try? The person I am getting the puppy does not feed the quality of food I feed. I know from experience a lot of dogs love the cheaper foods, they are like junk food to use, it taste good to them, but I do not feed it. My vet sells Hills Science diet, as does a lot of vets I have seen, but I know there are other brands that I can get that will do well. I was sold on Merrick until I found out they sold, so what other brands should I look at? 

Thanks,


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## Streetcar (Apr 13, 2014)

Even if you are not wild about what your breeder feeds, it is advisable to bring puppy home to start out on the same food. She will have such huge changes it is better to avoid giving her a tummy ache and/or diarrhea to start her new home life. You can gradually change to a new food.

If the food she is eating now has grains, I would gradually upgrade, starting with a higher end food that has the same grains as long as she is doing well on her starter food, beginning maybe about a month in at her new home. Add in a small percentage of the new food and gradually work up to fully feeding that new one. See how she does, and if she has loose stools, don't worry, just go back to her original food. Then try another new food.

In other words, baby steps . Since she's a Spoo, you do not want to rush her growth, so immediately putting her on some super high-powered food could do her ill, not well.

This is the program I personally would follow. Others will have different ideas, of course . I gave up my food snobbery after the premium foods I fed my cat did not prevent near life-ending urinary problems. And many he would not eat, so I tossed them out.

Now he gets mid-quality kibble geared for urinary health, a daily treat of premium kibble, and whatever and as much canned as he will eat . Anything, and frankly, it's mostly from the grocery store and made by brands that will give heart attacks to many posters. But he will EAT it, and that is what counts.

My Toy Poodle does better on a grain-containing kibble than one which is not so, though right now we are trying a fish-based one that doesn't have grain (but does have potatoes) after I finally confirmed for myself that he doesn't tolerate chicken. It's also not super high in protein, another issue area for us.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

I agree with Streetcar, no abrupt changes and make sure that the food you gradually switch to is appropriate for large breed puppies.

When I was feeding kibble I use Blue Buffalo large breed chicken and rice and my dogs generally did very very well on it, but now each of them has some ingredient sensitivities and since there are three dogs with each sensitive to different things I could not find a commercial food that would work for all of them I have started home cooking.


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## mithril (Dec 2, 2016)

I have had and seen success with Fromm Gold Large Breed puppy. I did a lot of research before choosing it for my own "large" breed pups whose mature weights are around 50lbs. I chose this food based on the ingredients and the calcium to phosphorous ratio which is important when raising a larger breed dog. For my adult dogs, I feed Fromm Gold Adult.


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## Nicofreako (Aug 19, 2013)

I agree about Fromm. I have been feeding it for 3-4 years and my dogs do very well on it.


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## Mfmst (Jun 18, 2014)

I agree to continue with the breeder's kibble for awhile and expect that your new puppy may be too excited to really tuck into her food. I did a lot of unnecessary kibble changing, thinking that Buck didn't like his food. We are back to his original kibble, Infinia grain free turkey and sweet potato which was finally rated 5 star, by Dogfoodadvisor.com The only problem is that it is only available in feed stores and is made by a subsidiary of Purina. He likes it and it is very affordable. We do a meal of raw also.


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## Crlamb (Oct 8, 2016)

mithril said:


> I have had and seen success with Fromm Gold Large Breed puppy. I did a lot of research before choosing it for my own "large" breed pups whose mature weights are around 50lbs. I chose this food based on the ingredients and the calcium to phosphorous ratio which is important when raising a larger breed dog. For my adult dogs, I feed Fromm Gold Adult.


I am glad to see that you have had success with Fromm Gold Puppy because that is what my breeder has requested I use for my pup. I get my pup in 1 week. I am also in the DFW area! I've seen a lot of people from Texas on this website. Pretty cool!


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## BentleysMum (May 22, 2016)

At first I was contemplating between Orijen and Acana. I went with Acana because I thought the % of protein might be a little too high for my tpoo. He gets two walks a day, dog park every weekend, decent size house to roam around in, but don't think he's that active.

After slowly switching him over from his breeders kibbles to Acana, I noticed he wasn't too into the food. So we slowly switched him over to Now Fresh, he seems to like it, will prob keep him on it until it's time to switch to adult kibbles.


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## snow0160 (Sep 20, 2016)

I've tried Fromm gold large breed puppy, orijen large breed puppy, and now he is old enough to be on Acana regional grassland. I highly recommend Fromm for pups with stomach issues until you find out what works for you. The reason I say this is because the Orijen reverse potty trained Lucky. I know orijen has the best and freshest ingredient as all champion foods are wonderful but it might not work due to the high protein. Dogfoodadivsor is great for checking reviews but more specifically recall history. It is also good to know some of the info on it is a bit outdated. 


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