Open Forum → What type of Dog food should I give my puppy?

I been giving him blue buffalo (puppy) however I read many many bad scary reviews.

Is blue buffalo OK or is something better?

almost any dog food has at least some scary reviews from some owner in a panic at some time or another. In general give dry food, not wet. Of course you can add water to dry food, I mean don't buy tinned food.

There is a site you can find by googling "dog food analysis" and it rates dog foods according to their published ingredients. If you find a 4 or 5 star food stocked locally just get that. Don't bother with grain free unless the dog is showing any allergy signs already.

Dogs get bored with the same food but they also get the runs if you swap foods quickly, so be cautious about changing.

It isn't crazy nor expensive to buy raw chicken wings and give him a chicken wing topper every few days (depends on the size of the dog). He'll enjoy that, and eat the soft bones. You can also go to a butcher if they still exist and ask for some small marrow bones.

If you want to really spend a lot of time on the food thing, you can read about BARF (bones and raw food) or RAW food diets personally I don't think it is worth it but some owners swear by them.

I was always told to not feed fowl bones to dogs because they may splinter in the intestines. Is that just and old wives' tale?

cooked, yes. But raw are very soft.
breeder of my dog recommends and does the chicken wing toppers thing, has for years. If you've a pathological worry on salmonella I suppose you might avoid this but when I see what he eats given half a chance, I think his guts are a lot stronger than mine!

I see. That makes sense. Thanks!

Scary reviews on BB? I don't see why. Not a dog but I now feed my cat BB Basic. Most BB has real meat as the top ingredient. While not bad, they don't even use meat by-products. Basic is about the same except that it contains fewer ingredients.

IMHO - BB is about the best food you can feed to a dog.

Taste of the Wild, Orijen and Fromms are probably the 3 best, high quality kibble. Blue Buffalo is also not a bad choice. You might want to go with grain free. Dogs don't need grain, they just poo it out, making for bigger poos. Who needs that?

»www.dogfoodadvisor.com/d ··· dom-dry/

Another option is raw, either commercial raw (there are a bunch of brands) or regular raw. I do a combination of both.

I have an Italian Greyhound, 19lbs. He gets Honest Kitchen Dehydrated raw and raw. HK for breakfast, raw for dinner. He eats chicken legs/thighs/breasts/back, turkey wings/necks, beef meaty ribs, chunks of beef, chunked beef neck bones, pork chunks, chunked pork neck bones, chicken gizzards, heart of any kind, and raw ground dog food made from beef, liver, kidney, heart. Pretty much any raw meat available, bone included, and is esential for a PMR (prey model raw) diet. The rough guide is 80% muscle meat/10% bone/10% organ, 5% which is liver. This is achieved over time, not in every meal. Oh, and he gets raw chicken feet for treats (along with cheese and other standard treats, USA sourced). I would also feed him wild game (like venison) if I had a source for it. Don't know any hunters though.

RAW bones are fine to feed, NEVER cooked bones. Bones should be of appropriate size for the dog, ie, large enough to force chewing. You wouldn't give a chicken leg to a German Shepard, for example. Raw can also be fed frozen to force chewing rather than gulping.

Keep in mind those recalls you read about are almost 100% recalled because of potential salmonella infection to HUMANS. Dogs, unless they are immune compromised, almost never get salmonella due to their short gut.

Only cooked bones are bad, raw is fine.

Blue Buffalo. It has came highly recommended and the main ingredient is meat, not corn

Ask your vet...

Vets tend to push whatever company is currently displaying their bags of dry food in the waiting room. Around where I am it is typically science diet.

Also vets tend to be very conservative with food and say that pet food companies spend a lot of money to calculate a correct balance of minerals and so on, so don't muck with that, don't supplement. You can't do it right yourself. They also care a lot less about additives and preservatives. I don't really think they care too much about some of the larger mass produced foods and what went into them.

I don't think you are going to get a lot better with random people online... Sorry - but I don't thing there is a hell of a lot of difference. People will push what they think is best not knowing anything but the breed of dog... There are a lot of foods out there for pets that are 'crap' by a sector of people that keep pets alive for a long time without any huge issues that can be tied to just food. Far more issues with inbreeding and purebreds imho.

He can get the same info stopping random people on the highway and asking what he should feed his puppy. There vets that may push what they have and others that say - you can do this but I think xxx is better. And we don't have any idea what type of vet he has...

You can make this type of answer to practically any internet question. It adds zero to the discussion, however.

It is ridiculous to compare "stopping random people on the highway" to answers by those motivated enough to answer a question that they themselves have researched in the past - sometimes extensively.

We give our dog Wellness Core. Sometimes he does get a little bored with it, but if we put just a little of the recommended dosage of a quality fish oil on it, he eats it right up!

IMHO it might be better to avoid cheese for puppies as most dogs and cats are lactose intolerant and it's not uncommon for some dogs to be allergic to it. I'd say best to avoid in a puppy.

Name any dog food and I'll find bad reviews for it. Then what will you feed him ?

I can remember our vet commenting on how "fit" our black lab was as well as how good her coat was. They asked if we fed her Eukanuba (sp?), one of the expensive brands. We told them, "nope, we feed her Purina Dog Chow" !!

When I had a question similar to yours I started at the following link, visiting several of the sources listed:
Dog Food: Ratings of Sources

Thank you for everyone's input.. I will stick with Blue Buffalo

I disagree - a lot of the questions on the website are pretty specific where information needed a general person would not have. Stopping people on the street would be almost useless - at least to get to a helpful answer.

To me this a lot more general, a bit more important than 'what is a crossover cable and do I need one?'

If you ask a vet - 'I am feeding my dog xyz food - what is your opinion of the food?' and the answer is 'anything but what I sell sucks and will make your dog sick and die prematurely' - or anything close to this - they should not be a vet and your business should be taken elsewhere.

In the same vein - is your dr a bit more informed to give exercise.or diatary advoce specific to you than straangeras on the internet or hiway? I don' t see how I could take a strangers advice for thing directly affecting my health over a drs.... but I guess that is only me.

Could be, for a puppy. My dog is 4 years old and loves cheese. We give him his epilepsy meds in a small ball of cheese. He thinks it's a treat.

You could say that about any treat or food though. Some dogs will react to something, most won't. Trial and error.

^^^ This.

100% true. I wonder how many people know that vets have virtually NO training in animal nutrition, and the little they do have is from major food manufacturers. They are skewed to recommend nothing but kibble, and some of the brands are crap, Science Diet being one of them. If they stock it, they get a kick back from selling it, so they push it.

Blue Buffalo is fine.

I would hope that everyone would realize that but I'll bet it's not the case. Some probably think they sell/recommend it "because it's the best".

My aunt is a vet and she feeds her cat BB. So do I. The reason most vets have Science Diet is they get it pretty much free so it's close to 100% profit for them, according to her.