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Choosing a dog food for your puppy is an important task.
Today, we offer a guest post about the best food to feed your puppy written by W. Chandler. Consideration was provided for the editing, review, and publishing of this guest post. Enjoy.
Best Dog Foods for Your Growing Puppy
Bringing a puppy home is an exciting time for any new owner. Along with new toys, treats, and puppy proofing their home, new puppy owners are also tasked with finding the right food for their new pet. While veterinarians may provide pet owners with samples of kibble or recommendations, these food are often overpriced and are just as nutritious and balanced as other less expensive brands.
When considering a puppy food, new owners should only look into buying dry dog food. Dry dog foods generally contain better nutrition than wet dog foods, and they are also better for a puppy’s teeth which may soften if only given wet dog foods. Top dry puppy food brands include:
Pedigree Puppy Food
Pedigree Puppy Foods contain complete nutrition for a puppy’s growing needs, and comes in either Pedigree Puppy or Pedigree Little Champions formulas. Both types of puppy food are designed to provide the nutrients needed to ensure the healthy growth and development a puppy experiences rapidly.
Iams
Although Iams puppy foods are generally more expensive than Pedigree or Purina puppy foods, they are still a healthy and economical buy. Iams puppy foods come in three distinct formulas: Iams Puppy Large Breed, Iams Small & Toy Breed, and Iams Puppy Original for medium size puppies.
Purina Puppy Chow
Purina Puppy Chows are some of the most well-known and readily available puppy foods on the market. These puppy foods offer balanced nutrition needed to promote healthy bone, brain, and vision development, and come in multiple formulas to fit different breed needs. Purina Puppy Chow formulas include Complete and Balanced, Soft and Crunchy Bites, and Large Breed.
Owners should always compare labels when looking at puppy foods. If fillers or products such as cornmeal are some of the first products listed in the ingredients, then the food may not offer all the nutrition needed for proper growth and development. Always make sure a puppy food has good balance of protein and fiber, and has special nutrients, such as DHA to get the most out of each dollar spent, and to make sure that your puppy receives the nutrition needed to grow into a happy and healthy adult.
Photo Courtesy of Grant W. Laird/Flickr.com
About Lorie Huston, DVM
Lorie Huston is a veterinarian, pet health and pet care expert, professional writer, blogger, social media and blogging consultant, and SEO strategist.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
These are the best foods to feed your puppy??!! I woiuld like to know if your guest looked at the ingredient labels of these 3 foods. I pulled this information from the three companies’ website this morning. Pedigree: Chicken By-Product, Meat By-Product; Iams: Chicken, Corn Meal, Chicken By-Product Meal; and Purina: Whole Grain Corn, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken By-Product.
There are much better, high quality foods available that are affordable that will provide a much better diet for your new puppy! I agree with the author that owners must read the labels to deternime the quality of the food.
The author should probably note some more specific fillers to steer clear from and describe why she is recommending these foods. The first ingredients in Pedigree, for example are by-products and there is artificial color added. Purina’s top three ingredients are corn, corn gluten, and by-products. These are things you definitely don’t want to see!
Always bear in mind that advertising for dog foods is notoriously misleading and always, always read the back of the bag. There are some great guides on the internet about dog food ingredients, and you don’t have to spend a fortune to feed your dog healthy food. Websites like dogfoodanalysis.com offer some great information based on ingredients alone.
Holly and Ronette, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I will ask the author if he would like to come by to reply.
I would never feed my puppy Purina products as they are full of corn, by-products, fillers, and coloring. My 5 month old German Shepherd gets only fresh cooked (boiled) chicken, sweat potatoes, mixed vegetables, rice, eggs, cooked hamburger, and a high-quality kibble. A little more spent on good nutrition is well worth it in the long run to have a healthy dog for the future.