Feeding Your New Puppy!
We get questions frequently about feeding puppies. Feeding your new puppy is really quite simple…In general, a measured amount of high quality food at regular intervals will best serve your puppy’s nutritional needs as well as your housetraining effort! This also helps you to know your pet’s appetite and reinforces bonding with your puppy. A good thumb rule is the younger the puppy the more frequent the feedings. A large or medium breed puppy may do well with three feedings per day while a toy breed may need 5 or even 6 feedings. Consulting the feeding directions on the bag and matching the quantity to the weight range will usually give you the total amount to be fed PER DAY. Simply divide that amount by the number of feedings to determine how much to give them at any one time. DO NOT FREE FEED! (This applies to adult dogs as well) This practice ultimately leads to fat dogs! Also keep in mind that many loose stools are due to the feeding of more food than the puppy can digest so this is a sign of overfeeding. If your puppy is experiencing loose stools the solution may be to simply adjust the amount of food you are giving them! Then give them a couple days for stools to return to normal. Of course if it doesn’t resolve or you see blood in the stools please consult your veterinarian!
Do I need to feed a “Puppy” food. Several of our foods are formulated for “all life stages”. These are acceptable foods for puppies as well as adults. However, others that are “adult” foods are not appropriate for puppies. Foods formulated for puppies typically have a higher density of nutrients including protein and fat to support growth as well as other key nutrients like the omega fatty acid DHA which is a key component of the puppies mother’s milk. We recommend feeding a food labeled for puppies until about one year of age!
