Feeding Prepared Dog Food and Puppy Food

If you have decided that you will feed your dog or puppy
prepared dog food or prepared puppy food, then your next
decision is what type of food should you be feeding your puppy?
You will need to do some research on the prepared puppy foods
available if you decide not to pursue feeding puppy a raw food
meal.

Become a label reader. The higher priced puppy foods will
usually come from a company that is or has conducted extensive
research on providing the best nutritional food to your puppy.
So a rule of thumb is that the inexpensive stuff is not going to
be as good as the more expensive puppy foods.

Do not buy any puppy food or dog food that lists a starch or
sugar in the first four ingredients. You want a premium puppy
food that lists a protein source as one of the first two
ingredients. (As a note based on recent studies into human
nutrition, do not have that source be soy-based.)

Providing carbohydrates in the form of green vegetables when
puppy feeding is quite all right. Even raw foods advocates add
some non-starchy vegetables to the dog food they mix. So this is
an ingredient you may expect to find on some puppy food labels.
However, animal nutritionists have found dogs derive no
nutrtional value from carbs such as sugar and starches even if
many dogs foods are 50% or better carbohydrates. Carbs are less
expensive than protein sources, generally, and are used as
fillers in dog good.

As canned puppy and dog food can be as much as 75% water, we are
mostly discussing dry puppy food mixes. Canned preparations are
not cheap so you are paying a lot for water. Best to use a
premium dry puppy food and add to it.

A suggested menu is the dry puppy food with a little canned dog
food, which is mostly meat, and moistened with a little warm
water. Usually, canned puppy food will have enough fat for the
puppy as well. A couple times a week, you might replace the meat
with some cottage cheese or a cooked egg. Some trainers who have
raised dogs for a very long time even suggest adding a
tablespoon of yogurt with live culture a couple times a week.

Less than six months, feed three times a day when puppy feeding
and then go down to two times a day. Give your puppy about 15
minutes to eat his food and then remove and refrigerate it. At
the next feeding warm it up before feeding puppy. The 15 minutes
goes to your puppy training efforts as you can read in other
articles.

As your puppy develops over the next few months up to his first
birthday when he should start on dog food as appropriate for
him, keep an eye on him. Be aware of over feeding your puppy and
beware of him growing too fast. It is possible for a puppy to be
growing too fast and this can impact his health, so double check
his growth with your veterinarian.

Copyright 2005, Sandra Dinkins-Wilson