How to Feed Your New Puppy
The time has come for you to collect your four legged crazy and no doubt how you will feed your puppy will have given you some food for thought.
Your breeder should provide you with a puppy pack that will contain the puppy registration and microchipping documents, details of his vet and vaccination records and any health tests that will have been carried out.
You will probably have a 4 week free insurance pack, information on how to feed the puppy for the first few weeks and a supply of the food that the puppy has been raised on. However, breeder's puppy packs can vary so it will be worth you liaising with them before you collect pup to find what food to buy so that you can make sure you have this ready at home.
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Changing Foods
You may have already researched how to feed your puppy and looked at types of food. Your choice may be different to the food that the puppy has been raised on. Although a lot of breeders will have given their litter a selection of foods because they are aware that the new owners may have an alternative food they prefer to use.
If you are going to be feeding something different then it is imperative that you do not change the puppy’s food while he is still settling in. This may mean you will need to buy more of his usual food to get him through the settling in period. But it is important that you make no changes to his diet whilst he is getting used to his new surroundings and new family as it will put more stress on his very immature system.
When you think he is happy in his new home and he is eating comfortably, you can start to introduce a small amount of the new food. If pup has no side effects then start building up the new and reducing the old until he is on the new food totally. Remember as well, that although we are focussing on a new puppy here, you may have a new adult dog, but the same rules apply as their tums can be upset by quick changes too.
Species and Breed Appropriate Diets
Always remember that you will need to research food to ensure that they are suitable for your breed of dog as some can be predisposed to health issues that can be affected by the food they are given. For instance, some breeds are susceptible to forming bladder stones due to them not being able to process uric acid. These breeds need to have offal excluded and be fed a low purine diet so you would need to check that any kibble, wet or other dry foods you might choose are suitably manufactured. So do your food research on your chosen breed.
If you have decided that a raw feeding regime is for you, then you should have made good headway into the ins and outs of feeding this diet by the time you collect your pup from the breeder. If you need further information there are Facebook groups that have an enormous amount of information in their files. Expert owners on these groups, that have fed raw for years are only too happy to help. Search Facebook for 'Raw Feeding' and you will find various groups. You will also see breed related raw feeding groups as well which will deal with the do's and don'ts of that particular breed.
The book “The Barf Diet” by Dr Ian Billinghurst is a good place to start or continue your learning on species appropriate feeding. However, remember that there will be generalisation in this book and you will need to adjust any feeding regime, raw or otherwise to suit your particular breed.
Conclusion
We are bombarded daily with adverts on TV, websites, Facebook trying to sell us foods for our canine companions. You therefore won't be surprised to learn that so many new dog owners get totally confused with what foods are best for their dogs.
Rule of Thumb - feed your dog the best quality food you can afford. Ensure that you check the ingredients to make sure that there is nothing in there that might not be suitable for your chosen breed. Checking the ingredients is vitally important. If it doesn’t say, call the manufacturer and ask. If they don’t know, don’t use it. Look out for “animal derivatives” and avoid where possible. You don’t know what goes in it and it is likely to be of poor quality. The same applies to any treats that you feed as well.
You will get great satisfaction in knowing that you have done your best for your dog by researching their foods and also be in a very good position should any food allergies arise and you need to start working out what the cause is.
Check out my list of quality foods but I will leave it to you to ensure that any of the recommended products are suitable for your breed or particular dog.
