High Quality Puppy Food

[EsmetheWitch]

The day is fast approaching when Dpup will arrive and I'm looking for opinions on the best food to give her.

I plan on raw feeding in the next few months but, being realistic, I think a kibble-type food will be the best type to start with. I plan on portioning it out and using it for early training and it should be less time consuming.

I've been reading lots of labels but I'm getting a bit confused by it all. Does anyone have any recommendations for a great puppy food?

Millies Wolfheart is an excellent food. Grain free, high quality UK sourced proteins. Because it is a good quality food it doesn't need a puppy version you can feed it from weaning onwards.

Look at Allaboutdogfood to see all the labels in one place and reviews on foods.

Millies is only available to order online, but delivery is fast (2 days) and very reliable. they have a Facebook group you can join for advice, and excellent customer support.

meant to say, a lot of raw feeders use millies when they cant feed raw (holidays/out and about etc)

If you have bought her from a good breeder, trust the breeder to have chosen a good food and stick with it. If they're good enough to buy a dog from, they're good enough to choose a good food.

The breeder uses a mix of Royal Canin and Nature's Recipe. She is giving us a weeks worth of food.

She was quite dismissive when we mentioned we would raw feed so I think we may have slightly different ideas on nutrition.

If it's a med - large breed pup, personally, I'd keep it on kibble until it reaches six months at least. They need a lot of balanced nutrition to support the massive growth during this time and I'd prefer someone else to work that out rather than me be a bit hit and miss with it. Just my personal preference though.

I agree with you. I just will not have the time to make up every meal myself.

So you think stick with the breeder's food? There's nothing better out there?

I will have a look at Millie's Wolfheart, thank you for the suggestion.

Look at the low rating for Royal Canin on the website linked above.

The site will help you see expensive isn't always the best when it comes to dog foods.

We've used Millie's Wolfheart with our puppy since he came to us at 8 weeks. Would definitely recommend it.

We use Lily's Kitchen, which has been fantastic so far - also grain free, very similar to Millie's Wolfheart. You need to order big bags online (Amazon is cheaper than Lily's kitchen website), but you can buy small bags/wet food/treats in Waitrose.

There is better than Royal Canin, it's true - it isn't one of the very best foods but it isn't one of the worst either.

I'd always recommend keeping the pup on whatever the breeder feeds until after all vaccinations and the intensive worming has been done. Puppies leaving the litter and coming to a new home have a lot to cope with and in my opinion, changing food during that time is asking for trouble.

I always ensure vaccinations and worming are done on alternate weeks too - so their little systems aren't too battered by chemicals. I worm them at 3, 5 and 7 weeks; then they go to their new homes at 8 where they'll be vaccinated. On week 9 they should be wormed again, vaccinated with their second dose in week 10 followed by another worming in week 12. Then the worming schedule changes and that's when I'd consider changing food if I wanted to.

I feed Simpsons Premium and am really, really pleased with it. It's made some fabulous puppies

That's a good tip about vaccinations and worming. The last thing I want to do is stress her unnecessarily.

Having done some more research I have decided I will use raw food but only after she has finished her vaccinations.