safest food for our pug puppy

Question
we will be getting a female pug puppy soon best and safest food for her as pup and adult? thanks bob arnold

Answer
Hi Bob,

Congratulations on your impending puppy!

The best food your your puppy is a "puppy food" diet. She should receive the puppy food for her first full year.

To get "the best" puppy food, you need to read the ingredient panel on the puppy food package. Once you read a few, you'll see that many foods with pretty packages and sweet TV commercials really aren't a very good quality food at all.

Of the supermarket brands, Newman's Own Puppies formula is probably the best, but it's a canned food. Small dogs tend to have tooth and gum problems as they get older, so keeping your dog on a dry food, or dry mixed with some canned food is probably best.

Try to avoid a pet food that contains corn gluten meal, this is a cheap waste product (filler) from the human food industry that provides incomplete protein for dogs. Some dogs develop food allergies from a corn or wheat based diet. A grain should not be the first ingredient listed on the package.

When reading packages,  look for named sources of meat such as beef , chicken or lamb, rather than just "meat". Just "meat" is a generic term indicates a mixture coming from a number of sources, a sign of a very poor quality food. The same goes for the kind of fat contained in the food, it should also be a named source of fat such as chicken fat, or beef fat, rather than " animal fat". The food should be preserved with Vitamin E or C, also called "mixed Tocopherols".
Artificial preservatives (BHA, BHT or Ethoxyquin) artificial colors and added sweeteners (such as corn syrup, sucrose, ammoniated glycyrrhizin) should not be in any puppy/dog food either.

There is some disagreement whether whole meat is preferable to meal. Meal has been rendered, but it is also dried, so if a meal is listed as the first ingredient, there is greater likelihood that the food contains more meat than grains. When whole meats such as chicken, lamb, turkey, etc. are listed as the first ingredient, there may actually be much less meat due to the weight of the moisture in the meat. Both whole meats and meals are considered acceptable as long as they are identified and not generic (e.g., not "meat meal" or "meat and bone meal"). By-products may be OK if the company specifies that they are human-grade organs such as liver and kidney, but otherwise they usually signify parts not considered fit for human consumption.

Here is a "dog food comparison wizard", where you can compare dog and puppy foods by the ingredients they contain:  http://www.naturapet.com/tools/comparison.asp

The very best foods can't be found at a supermarket, look for these "super premium" puppy foods at larger pet stores, such as Petsmart or PetCo, or local animal feed suppliers  or pet stores:

Canidae All Stages Of Life
Wellness Supermix Puppy
Wysong Growth Formula
Innova Puppy Formula
California Natural Puppy Food
Blue Buffalo Life Protection Formula puppy
Eagle Pack Small & Medium Breed Puppy Formula

The bottom line is buy the best puppy food (and later on dog food) that you can afford.

I hope that's helpful to you.
Best of luck,

Patti