Regarding dogs growth

Question
Sir i have a 4 months old German Shepherd female. I feed her a lot but her growth is not like other German shepherds. She looks like 2 months puppy. what can i do for her height and growth and i want her to be a vegetarian so what diet will be best for her. Even i am giving her Pedigree Professional range.  

Answer
I understand why you want your dog to be a vegetarian, but dogs are not horses (or people) and were not designed to eat a diet of nothing but grains and vegetables. It is not healthy for them as they are carnivores that were put here on earth to keep rodents and other small animals from over-running the world.

First, have your puppy checked over by a veterinarian to make sure that she doesn't have a health issue, such as a liver shunt, which might be stunting her growth. Next, you need to change her dog food to something more nutritious. Due to a puppy's normal rapid growth, it needs to be on something with higher protein and fat levels than it will require when it is an adult, and at some point, a puppy will most likely be eating twice as much food as it will once it is done growing. I usually start cutting back on the food as a puppy enters adolescence at around 6-8 months, depending on the dog and its physical condition at that time.

The first ingredient of a good dog food must be a specified meat MEAL (ie. chicken MEAL, lamb MEAL... meaning all water has been removed from the meat). If it is just chicken/beef/lamb, etc., that ingredient contains 70% water; when that water is removed during processing, that ingredient will then fall lower on the ingredient list, often then making the first ingredient a grain since ingredients are measured by raw weight, not processed weight. The primary ingredient of any dog food should be a meat protein, not grain.

I would prefer to only have one grain in the food, but two is okay. I don't want more than two grains, if possible. Corn is a good source of Omega fatty acids, and my dogs do well on it (although I don't feed it to old dogs with arthritic issues.); it gives great shiny coats. I like the idea of multiple protein sources.

There should be NO by-products, dyes, ethoxyquin, menadione sodium bisulfate (source of vitamin K) in the food, and I would prefer if there was no added salt. I like having enzymes and probiotics (yogurt-like micro-organisms) in the food, and I think kelp helps keep red out of black coats, which my dogs have.

Good luck with your puppy.