food

Question
I adopted a what is now a 3 month old boxer. The humane society was feeding her puppy chow and I did the same for a month or so. I begain to notice she was scratching kind of bad I'm thinking the puppy chow might have lead to dry skin. I have changed to natures recipe I got from my local petsmart, can u tell me if this is a recommended brand of food for her. It is puppy-lamb and rice  

Answer
This time of year skin issues are common, because in many parts of the country furnaces are running constantly and the air is dry.  Adding fish body oil to the diet can help with dry skin, and it's good for the heart (among other things).  With scratching, you do want to check for fleas or mites, of course, though at her age I'm guessing she's been to the vet fairly often, and they should be checking for that.

I don't know anyone who's fed Nature's Recipe, personally; looking at the ingredients, it looks so-so - lamb meal is the first listed ingredient, which is good, but then that's followed by three grains (though they are whole grains, which are better than grain fractions).  Compare that to Innova puppy, which has turkey, chicken, and chicken meal as the first three ingredients.  (Of course, it could be that the meats in Innova weight the same as the lamb in Nature's Recipe - but given the other ingredients I wouldn't think that would be the case.)  

A good site to research dog foods is www.dogfoodanalysis.com - they have information on just about every brand of food their is, with ratings of each and an explanation of why they're rated as such.

Good luck with your puppy!