 Barked: Fri Apr 1, '11 5:09pm PST |
 | |  | | Yes it is very daunting, food selection. My pup Chase, just received a vet visit yesterday, he is 6 months at 102 lbs. and the vet advised he was ready to come off "Puppy food."
When I received him as a small pup, he was being fed Iams Smart Puppy for large breed dogs; I realized this probably wasn't the best for him but figured I would change to a more premium brand once he was ready to transition from "Puppy food" as I didn't want to put him through multiple transitions if not necessary.
Knowing I was about to transition to another food last night, I did hours of research and was amazed at what I found; apparently nutritional content out weighs formulas targeted to specifics breeds or types (I was originally only evaluating formulas targeted to large breeds.) In retrospect that should have seemed obvious; to make a long story short I decided I wanted to go with a a dry food that was more in line with what a dog what eat naturally, so I went with the "grain free" type (most of which are rated 5 stars, and pricey.) The choices you were considering are actually very good foods and you probably can't go wrong with them, however in my search I decided on an "all stages, grain free" food that didn't break the bank as badly as some other high quality brands of the same type. I decided on "Taste of the Wild," and since he is coming off of Iam's (which is mostly chicken based" I selected their "Wetlands" formula was is based on duck as a primary meat content. If price was no concern I probably would have selected Solid Gold's, "Barking at the Moon" or Blue Buffalo's Wilderness formula (both which are grain free.)
In a nutshell, I learned a lot; there's no need to use a specific "puppy blend" or "breed/type" targeted blend as long as the nutritional content is there and it's a rated for all stages. You can't go wrong with most of the premium brand grain free foods if you want to feed your dog the best of the best (outside of a raw diet.) It's also pretty healthy to switch foods (as long as you do it at a very slow pace, %20 new type to start gradually getting to %100 over 7 days) as it is good to expose your dog to different types of healthy nutritional content (as humans, eating the same meal everyday for our entire lives would be a drag, and seriously cause us problems if randomly we ate something new after decades of the same diet.)
I am not a vet, or a canine nutritionist so please take this post for what it was worth. Hope this is helpful to others considering foods for our loveable Saints  |  |  | |  |
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but I would definitely get her off of the SD! My vet won't even sell it. Says its got way too much corn for his taste (his wife is a K9 nutritionist)
