Food help please

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Hello all, I have read a few threads on here and it seems that my Science Plan recommendation from vet is not particularly a good one. A lot of you seem to favour Fish4dogs or Arjen (?) and there seems to be another popular one - will refresh my memory when I go back to that post.

Anyway just as some background my puppy wouldn't eat at all well for the first couple of weeks, she was then really poorly on Sunday and we followed vets advice on starving her and re-introducing food. Since then she is absolutely ecstatic about her food, very jumpy and bouncy when the bowl comes out and when finished is constantly looking for more.

Packet says at 1kg feed 55g and at 5kg feed 180g - she is about 3.5kg and before this week I was struggling to get her to eat 80g. I am now weighing out about 140g and splitting it between three meals, I also take a bit out for treating her. Every meal time she looks around for more and then goes into garden/dining room/kitchen to nose around the floor for more! It is so weird when previously I couldn't get her to eat so now feels like I am not giving her enough to eat! Is this normal behaviour I suspect it probably is! the minute the fridge door opens she is up, if I am cooking she stands in front of the cooker smelling the air.

So am I feeding her enough? What worries me is that the packet says to cut down from 4-9 months to about 120g. I wanted to know would she still do this if and when I change her food to a better brand and what brand would you recommend for a 14 week puppy.

Another thing to add is poo - makes me absolutely heave I have a very weak stomach, and whilst I shouldn't be selfish here I find her poos at the moment very easy to deal with, nice a firm no runny or squidgy bits (boak) so food choice would need to preferably take this into account

Thanks

Arjen? Is that a cross between Orijen and Arden Grange?

There are loads of choices of good foods. The two above are good, as is Fish for Dogs, Skinners, JWB, Nature Diet, Burns, Wainwrights etc. You need to find one that suits your budget and is easy to get hold of.

Science Plan is not the best in the world nor is it the worst. It is one of the most expensive, though.

I don't weigh food out, I go by looking at my dogs, if they seem to gaining weight I vut back on food, if they are loosing weight I add more.

I'd like to raw feed my dogs ideally, but we don't have enough freezer space. I use Nature Diet trays, they both love them and they're very shiny.

I'm a nature diet mixed in with JWB here... people often ask me what I feed her on as she is soooo shiney, like Dooin's dogs. And her poos are solid

poo was a consideration for me too twice (max 3) per day and firm and non smelly

i feed mine james wellbeloved.

My pup was on BETA when he was little. He was already on it when we got him and it's the cheapest. No upset stomachs or anything. From 6 months ish he was on BETA for bellied and a cooked meal (economy mince, a form of carbs, 2 veg, gravy) for tea. Works great for him

Lots of good foods out there, my favourite for puppies is Orijen, but feed the lower amount on the guide and feed 4 times a day.

Mix with nature diet works well.

Orijen is a great food.

I don't rate Hill's

we used to feed naturediet but a few months ago we had a few problems with it - changed smell and texture and several packs that were off.

i looked into alternatives and we now use nature's harvest. it is a similar food to naturediet and i actually prefer it. we haven't had any problems, apart from one blown pack, and it seems to suit our staffie who has colitis and allergy problems even better than naturediet.

I know exactly what you mean wrt the Nature Diet, ceres, and I was only just thinking this morning that I was sold to the concept of Nature Diet as it was basically brawn and fit for human consumption. You certainly couldn't say that now!! They did have a hiccup some time ago (where something in production went a bit wrong) and they haven't been able to get back on track yet I don't think.

The food is still really good for dogs though, if you can overcome the potential for peeling back a lid on ponging food.

I feed Fish4Dogs. Poos firm. (Puppy only 9.5 weeks old as you know Spam). Have nearly finished swapping over from Burns which the Breeder fed.

I think it was ShineOn who recommended it and maybe Midori/Minimu? Shine also mentioned that on the Fish4Dogs website you can join the puppy club for £1 (then have to wait for card to be sent) which gives you a very good discount on the puppy food - a 15kg bag is £38 instead of £56 ish so that was a big pull for me as I was deciding between Orijen/Acana and Fish4Dogs as they seem fairly similar.

Thanks everyone, I really wanted something I didn't have to order online as we are notoriously disorganised with our own food! I went for JWB in the end at I could get that at pets at home and it would easy for my husband to administer when I am away next week, I didn't want the faff of wet food or a bit of this mixed with a bit of that as he would forget.

I might add something to the JWB later on but for now just going to gradually switch her over from the hills over the next week.

Can't believe the difference in price as well!

Mine is fed on JWB (mainly because the cat was fed on it and did incredibly well on it - even at over 10 years old her coat still shines). Had about 4 months of squitty poos because of the state we got him from the rescue kennel in but now he's firm, solid and, while it's never going to be pleasurable to pick up, you're not frantically rubbing each blade of grass clean in order to placate the residents of Am I Being Unreasonable.

Also helps we've got a Kennelgate round the corner so I can pop in there and get it! Tend to send hubby in on payday to buy the ridiculously sized bag - dog's brain then almost implodes at the sight of it coming in the door and decant it into a smaller storage tub I can actually lift out of the cupboard over the course of a month.

I don't weigh ours - I've got a tuppaware box with a line marked on in pen of the recommended quantity for his size and I adapt from there depending on if he's looking a bit lardy or not.

Also a priority factor for us was if it'll fit out of the holes on the Kong Wobbler we use to keep him occupied when we want a bit of peace/to pop out to Tesco and return without Laytonia Jones and the Raiders of the Kitchen Bench.