puppy food

wow didn't realize it was that long i thought around 10-12 months would be fine but didn't really consider the growth plates as an issue,thanks!
 
i never though of that either,i just bought a 40 lb bag of native # 3 ,i dont even have a dog yet. but i am getting ready ...
 
Holy shit! I only fed my pup, puppy food for the first two months...maybe! That is what a vet told me!
 
I fed my dog puppy food til he hit 5-6 months. GSP get rather good sized dog by then, he barely wanted to eat the puppy food, so i got him young adult food and he chomps away on that.
 
puppy food doesn't just make a dog big. It is formulated to help the dog grow, but it is mainly for, in large breed dogs, to help them develop properly. If you fed your dog nothing but adult formula it could grow too fast and put on to much weight further leading to health issues as an adult.
 
Depending on the food you feed, read the feeding guidelines. The guidelines not only tell you how long to feed puppy food for, it also tells you how much!
 
My GSP was getting fairly large for her size. When she was 8 weeks old we took her to the vet and she weighed like 8 lbs. When we took her back at 14 weeks she weighed 28 lbs. SO she gained 20 lbs in 6 weeks. She doesnt look fat, but I thought it might be the puppy food, so I switched to adult food.

Now it seems she is maintaing her weight better and is starting to fill out. She will be 5 months the second week of March.
 
Just did some research on Pro Plan, which is what I feed my dogs. From what I have read on the internet people say that Adult food does not contain the nutrients and protein that Puppy food does, and that is why you must feed puppy food longer.

I disagree. The only difference I see between the puppy food and the adult food is puppy food has a little bit higher content of fat. Other than that, all of the vitamin, fiber, and moisture are incredibly similar. Even protein is a 2% difference.
 
great post. I was curious about this too. When I got my pup from the breeder, she was eating adult food and seemed to like it jsut fine, so we kept at it. With our vet visits, she (the vet) said the pup was healthy and fine, didn't bat an eye that the pup was on adult (eukanuba performance). Didn't make any suggestion to swap to pup food.

Been wondering recently if we should swap to pup food though for two reasons:
1) just to lower her protein intake a bit. more hoping that would slow down her energy a bit if that was possible at all.
2) see if she'd want to eat less shit on our walks. She has a cup of food, then we go for a walk after and she's picking up sticks, leaves, grass - chomping away like she wants more.
 
preformance

Dcup said:
Just did some research on Pro Plan, which is what I feed my dogs. From what I have read on the internet people say that Adult food does not contain the nutrients and protein that Puppy food does, and that is why you must feed puppy food longer.

I disagree. The only difference I see between the puppy food and the adult food is puppy food has a little bit higher content of fat. Other than that, all of the vitamin, fiber, and moisture are incredibly similar. Even protein is a 2% difference.
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i fed pro plan performance to my pup that has everything you need i like that feed for hard working dogs, pups, just to many good things about it
 
With my lab I had to switch her to dog chow a little earlier than expected, she refused to chew her puppy chow and started choking as a result...otherwise the vet said around a year would be ideal
 
only a pointer said:
i fed pro plan performance to my pup that has everything you need i like that feed for hard working dogs, pups, just to many good things about it
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Yep. Just got home from the Pheasant Fest. Talked to a couple of guys in the Purina booth. They said feed "performance" from day one. It has been tested and re-tested on dogs of all ages, ands works for all the same.
 
Dcup said:
Yep. Just got home from the Pheasant Fest. Talked to a couple of guys in the Purina booth. They said feed "performance" from day one. It has been tested and re-tested on dogs of all ages, ands works for all the same.
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ive tryed lots dcup and i keep coming back to it best there is just hate the price!But i dont feed it in the off season i just use the chicken and rice shredded blend
 
I think if you compare the analysis and ingredients of the Puppy formula to the Performance formula on various dog foods you will find they are quite similar. I know that is the case with NutriSource. Last year my pup didn't like the Puppy formula because the kibbles were so small so I swtiched her to the Super Performance. The analysis and ingredients were identical except the crude fiber was 4% on one and 5% on the other. I continued to feed the Super Performance through the hunting seasaon and now at 15 months have her on the regular chicken & rice adult formula. Just make sure that any adult dog food you feed contains everything that a puppy needs.

I have found that feeding a performance formula year round doesn't work for me. My dogs don't get as much exercise during the off-season and have a dendency to gain weight on the performance. I cut back to the regular adult and on one dog to the weight management formula.
 
We switched our gsp pup off of puppy chow to a high performance around 7 months of age. She is almost 9 months now and is bigger than our 2 1/2 yo gsp. Our older dog is not a small gsp either. This is the first time I have switched dog food that early. With my labs, I switched around 2 years old
 
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