New puppy, food and quantity question.

We are getting a new puppy (Jack Russell/Rat terrier mix ) next week, I just dont know which brand of food to select for feeding him/her or how much... I have always been a cat person, so dog territory is new to me! he/she is 7 weeks old.

Most good cat foods make a good dog food....

I would get a moderate to high protein( 25-33%) food...

Gigi eats wellness core (NOT FOR PUPPYS right on the bag)

Nutro makes a variety

Solid gold

Royal canin

where do you shop

at seven weeks I still feed wet food or moistened dry .. this one should be with mom for another 3-6 weeks

Feed what it is eating for about 2 weeks before any changes ... or mix in pumpkin

I give my papillon Comet, Iams Dry Puppy food, although the vet would prefer me to use Science Diet Puppy food.
I gave him beneful for a week, and it made him sick to his stomach. But he loves Iams!

I recently adopted a puppy for my mom's birthday (she was one of my sister's foster puppie's she had had since birth raising for the shelter where i work)

We put little Flowerbelle (beagle) on Nurtro small bites puppy food. It's good stuff! She also gets Nutro canned as well.

I've fed Chicken Soup for the Puppy/Dog Lover's Soul and have had great results.

opps none of us suggested amounts....

at that age likely 3/4 cup moistened split into three or four meals... work from there some take in more other s less

For the money Canidae is about the best you can get. Their food is all life stages so you do not have to get puppy food. Really there is not much point to feeding puppy food since it has a higher caloric content which most pups don't need anyway.
How sure are you of the mix? I ask because the amount depends on final adult weight and if you are not sure what you have it is has to know how much to feed the puppy.

Originally Posted by 2dogmom

For the money Canidae is about the best you can get. Their food is all life stages so you do not have to get puppy food. Really there is not much point to feeding puppy food since it has a higher caloric content which most pups don't need anyway.
How sure are you of the mix? I ask because the amount depends on final adult weight and if you are not sure what you have it is has to know how much to feed the puppy.

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Many of us DO NOT think much of Canidae ... it looks good to the um I read the whole dog journal crowd .. just obervation and personal experience

I do not read the wholedog journal, so I do not know what the wholedogjournal crowd thinks. I do hang out on a lot of dog forums and have never seen one that does not recommend Canidae as the best value for non-performance (read pet) dogs.
Nutro is overpriced IMO and has some drawbacks as far as the ingredients go. For example even in their "high end" (read "more expensive") Natural Lamb Meal and Rice they list a generic type of fat (poultry fat) rather than specifying whether it is from chicken, turkey, etc. They throw in whatever they can get. They list corn gluten meal, a cheap by-product with no nutritional value which simply binds the kibble. Nutro adds menadione sodium bisulfite complex to the kibble supposedly for Vitamin K activity. Normally however vitamin K is produced in a dog’s intestinal tract, so a dog who is getting a nutritionally-balanced diet doesn't even need it. What is worse, menadione interferes with this natural production of vitamin K, and has been proven to be toxic to liver and kidneys. It is not approved for long-term use in food. Because testing of this ingredient is currently incomplete, manufacturers are allowed to continue using it until a final decision is made. Why Nutro does though makes me wonder.
Nutro got a black eye among breeders a few years ago for being less than forthright about changing their formula. http://www.woodhavenlabs.com/nutro.html Most of the breeders I run into on dog forums say they used to feed Nutro.
But I think the thing that turns me off the most about Nutro is the "less poop" marketing ploy. Take a look at this graphic: http://www.ultraholistic.com/stool.shtml
I mean, tell me the food is better, not that the convenience of less poop is a selling point! This less poop harangue is getting to the point where we see a lot of people on dog forums complaining about anal gland problems. Dogs need a firm stool with enough bulk to naturally express the anal glands, and somehow we have gotten to this "less poop is better"- to the point where some people seem to think that the optimum is reached when everything you feed the dog gets digested and nothing comes out the other end. Despite what Nutro says about their Ultra Holistic, it isn't that good. As along as I am on a rant the word "holistic" is a red flag for me. It is not regulated or defined by any agency or advisory board so anyone can use it as a buzzword. Sorry for the Nutro rant-I used to feed it myself so I guess it is like with an ex-smoker.
After the recall poisoning disaster with Royal Canin I would not dream of feeding any of their products to my pets ever. It's one thing to accidentally put contaminated Chinese wheat gluten in the food, put deliberately adding vitamin D to the point where it becomes toxic? Do they not have any animal nutritionists on staff?
http://www.royalcanin.us/recalled.html
Chicken Soup is ok, I just don't want to spend my $$ on royalties to the "Chicken Soup" trademark.
Canidae (at least the Lam Meal & Rice) is specific about the meat sources does not list grain fractions of the same grain. Anyway, I guess I don't see what is wrong with Canidae. I don't care for the fact that they use the "holisitic" adjective, but at least they don't ram it down your throat like some of the other brands that sounds like some kind of hippie subculture. They have decent ingredients, and at about $1/lb are priced lower than many brands that do not have as good nutritional value. What do people object to about Canidae?
For whatever it is worth, it gets a 5 star rating on this site.
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/
The site unfortunately is not very detailed about how they rate the foods.

This site is kind of the ultimate resource on dog foods and has more detailed explanations about what the ingredients mean.
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/

If you want to know more about individual ingredients, this site has a handy comparison wizard. It was created by Natura so that you can compare their product lines for dog and cat food (including Karma, Innova, Mother Nature, EVO, California Natural and Healthwise) with some of their competitors' brands. At any rate, what it does it list the ingredients and then offers a short explanation of each ingredient if you click on it. Kind of handy I think.
http://www.naturapet.com/tools/comparison.asp
And finally be aware that the jury is out on whether high protein (such as Evo, which is up over 40 %) is good or bad. Some will say it is good because it is closer to the dogs; supposed natural diet. Others will say high protein is linked to kidney disease. Personally I have not seen anything that is absolutely convincing either way.

Originally Posted by 2dogmom

This site is kind of the ultimate resource on dog foods and has more detailed explanations about what the ingredients mean.
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/


And finally be aware that the jury is out on whether high protein (such as Evo, which is up over 40 %) is good or bad. Some will say it is good because it is closer to the dogs; supposed natural diet. Others will say high protein is linked to kidney disease. Personally I have not seen anything that is absolutely convincing either way.

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I DONT FEED LAMB as there is only one type of animal ( dog or cat that I would) ... PM me if you want to know why....
for the money yes chn soup is likely the BEST buy, ingrediants similiar to other "holistics... I HAVE done the research try about 20 years worth lol boy have things changed ...
REMEMBER I feed RAW and homemade with canned and some dry ( cat mainly )...lol..
That tool is a good one but it is JADED toward them I have found a few inacuracies in it when compared to things like the AFFCO manuel ...
the poultry fat issue is a LAWSUIT thing..
a big maker NOT Nutro got sued because the fat the used was labeled chicken and actually when analysised had .001% turkey .Got to love the sue happy world we live in .. so it just states while IT IS chicken fat there is a turkey possibilty ...
High protein in dog s is like in cat s YES jury is still out, personally feeding a kidney girl 50% raw the last two years ..
I dont believe it is the amount but the QUALITY and DRY FOOD cant get the quality of wet and is WAY less than raw ...
I use the grain free wet s and one dry as a treat...
Royal Canins ingrediants dont always make me happy but the research they have done NOT so with many of the "higher ends" ...
I HATE the word HOLISTIC...lmao.. it means body mind and spirit HUMMMMMMMMMM ....
I have tried it( canidea) with different animals and all went back to other things and MANY MANY folks unlike you went back to Nutro
I also have the vitamin K issue answer ...
I know ALOT about ingrediants .... try dealing with kidney and liver issues by DIET alone... I will in a pm detail the ingrediants of any food for you...

Less poop mean s more is going into the dog and thus less out in the yard... if you eat a third less yet poop 40 less 7% more is in you or 7lbs per 100 not wasted

Yes I WOULD love ALL MAKERS to stop changing ingrediants WITHOUT notice... I have seen nearly every maker in the last few yrs do this ...

yes i have read the dog food project and it is merky .. some great basic info but the scoring and other things need detailling work

Canidae is the food recommended by my "dog guru" friends. This group includes people who show their dogs and people with nationally ranked flyball teams. And several breeds. And nutrition nuts.

I'm old enough to remember the days when it was considered okay to feed your dog table scraps. None of us knew anything about what was in the dog food. Gravy Train was a treat for the dogs.
So pet nutrition has come a long way since I was younger. It has a long way to go too.

Originally Posted by Mom of 4

Canidae is the food recommended by my "dog guru" friends. This group includes people who show their dogs and people with nationally ranked flyball teams. And several breeds. And nutrition nuts.

I'm old enough to remember the days when it was considered okay to feed your dog table scraps. None of us knew anything about what was in the dog food. Gravy Train was a treat for the dogs.
So pet nutrition has come a long way since I was younger. It has a long way to go too.

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I beleive that the pendulum is swinging back to "table scraps" only more balenced ... I think youll find trainers breeder and agilty dogs on "crap" and doing well.. funny aint it for all our knowledge the schools of thought are all over the map??? opps back to topic ... Most of us are old enough to remember puppy food or adult as choices

I think there was a backlash on a lot of dog forums thanks to the recent scandals. The tenor of it was "those pet food companies have been telling us it's bad to feed the dog table scraps when in fact it's probably safer than commercial pet food these days." As a matter of fact we even joked around about us humans being the "tasters" for our pets-if we ate it first and were ok then that was the best proof we had that it was safe for our dogs.

Originally Posted by 2dogmom

I think there was a backlash on a lot of dog forums thanks to the recent scandals. The tenor of it was "those pet food companies have been telling us it's bad to feed the dog table scraps when in fact it's probably safer than commercial pet food these days."

As a matter of fact we even joked around about us humans being the "tasters" for our pets-if we ate it first and were ok then that was the best proof we had that it was safe for our dogs.

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I taste all dry foods coming into the house ... I will try buscuits too no canned anything for me