Nutrition

Feeding Your Puppy

Your puppy will have been fed Hypro Premium Puppy kibble, we suggest continuing with this food, or a puppy specific kibble for the first year of your dog's life. Currently the puppies are being fed 3 times a day, morning, noon, and evening. At each feeding they get 1 cup of kibble. My suggestion regarding the amount of food a growing puppy should eat is: watch them. Your puppy will have growth spurts and then times where their growth is slower. Watch and observe their behaviour. If you find that your puppy is constantly hungry and searching for food then you may want to increase portion size, or maybe add an extra feeding to their day. At other times, if you think they are gaining a bit too much weight then slow down a bit, maybe reduce the evening feed by ¼ of a cup.  Each dry food company has a feeding guide stated on their pack of food, this is a guide only, observe your puppy and adjust based on their needs.

The puppies also enjoy a bit of mince on occasion. Once a week a special extra can be added such as yoghurt, eggs, rice, pasta, cooked carrots, etc. for a treat. Dogs also love their bones – tough be careful and always supervise your dog when feeding bones. Bones such as beef brisket, lamb ribs, etc. are fine to use. Whilst your dog is still a puppy stick to small animal bones. Avoid any weight bearing bones, especially those of larger animals (beef legs) as these are very hard on your dog’s teeth. NEVER feed your dog cooked bones, as they become brittle when cooked and can often splinter and get lodged in the dog’s throat – a very expensive vet bill. Many of the chew toys made from hide can become lodged in the intestines of growing dogs, so avoid these.

By six months of age 2 meals per day are sufficient. Make sure that your pup always has a thin layer of fat covering the ribs. From around 9-12 months of age (at which time your dog would have reached its maximum height and length), it is VERY important not to let your dog start to become overweight, as this can predispose them to metabolic conditions as well as hip dysplasia and joint problems. While I have done everything I can to reduce the role genetics can play in hip dysplasia, it is now up to you to ensure you do not put unnecessary pressure on their hips by carrying excessive weight. I cannot stress this enough, as an overweight dog is a prime candidate for hip dysplasia, even if their genetics are of high quality.

If you decide to change your puppy’s diet at any stage, do so very slowly and gradually. If you decide to move to a grain food, ensure the grain is not in first place on the list of ingredients and that it is a healthier grain such as brown rice. Ingredients are listed in order of most, percentage wise, to least, as such always choose a food which lists meat as the first ingredient – I like to avoid meat-by-products as that is too ambiguous.

Some other kibble brands we can recommend include:

-       Taste of the Wild

-       Meals for Mutts

-       Canidae Pure