Puppy food question from a newbie:)

[skelaki]

Hill's Science Diet Puppy Food | Review and Rating
Dog Food Reviews - Science Diet Nature's Best Puppy Original (Archived) - Powered by ReviewPost
Dog Food Reviews - Science Diet Nature's Best with Beef Puppy (Archived) - Powered by ReviewPost
Above are links to reviews of a few of the Science Diet puppy foods. There are much better foods out there. You'll notice that SD's first ingredients are not proteins. Also, corn and soy (the first two ingredients in the regular puppy, as well as adult, food) are the main causes of food allergies in dogs.

We feed raw (combination of homemade, premixed, and freeze dried) but if I was to feed kibble i would check out the above sites and choose something grain free that rated 4 stars or above. JMHO

[cleosmom]

First off, congrats on your new family member and thank you for rescuing from a shelter. You are correct that with him not eating right when bringing him home was a bit of adjustment period.

I must side with the others, SD is not a food you want to feed to your new pup. It likens to feeding your kids mac and cheese all the time. Alright periodically, but not on a permanent basis.

As a rule of thumb; you want a specified meat (turkey, beef, chicken, pork, lamb) or specified meat meal as the first ingredient. Corn is "alright" in a food so long as it's further down than the first five ingredients and is ground, not whole kernel and certainly not a gluten. I would aim for foods that are made and sourced in the US.

As you have a retriever mix, I would suggest checking locally about puppy kindergarten when he is old enough and follow up with obedience after he graduates

[JLB001]

Congrats on the new puppy!

If switching dog foods you might want to look into Buffalo Blue. I feed my Sophie this ever since I took her in last year. I like it for her since the main ingredient is meat. Using abetter quality dog has reduced the amount of daily pooh plus her coat is crazy shiny.

[titaniummd]

For avoiding the smell of poop, I have found that the ultra premium genre of food is best. Going even further, avoid things like lamb which seem to give some of the worst odor emanating from your baby's dog pile. Hahaha. I gave my dog food by Timberwolf but switched to Dick Van Patten's line when supplies ran low.

Whenever you're introducing new dog food, you need to taper in the new formal with the old formula over the course of a few days. An abrupt change or switch can be very messy.

[TinaMcG]

Originally Posted by titaniummd

For avoiding the smell of poop, I have found that the ultra premium genre of food is best. Going even further, avoid things like lamb which seem to give some of the worst odor emanating from your baby's dog pile. Hahaha. I gave my dog food by Timberwolf but switched to Dick Van Patten's line when supplies ran low.

Whenever you're introducing new dog food, you need to taper in the new formal with the old formula over the course of a few days. An abrupt change or switch can be very messy.

Lamb-based puppy food doesn't do that here.

[titaniummd]

Originally Posted by TinaMcG

Lamb-based puppy food doesn't do that here.

Ok. It does our BICHON. Tears from my eyes from the stench.