Mar 08 2009
Puppy Training Tips: Feeding Your New Puppy
What should you feed your new puppy?
Here are some puppy training tips on what you should feed your new puppy. It is usually best for you and for puppy if you stick to feeding your new puppy the same dog food that his previous owner fed him, and be sure to ask how often the pup should be fed and how to prepare the food.
When I first brought my Golden Retriever pup home I fed her three small meals a day, and I had to soak the dry food in warm water till it became a mush before she’d eat it. Generally, for small puppies it’s recommended that they have three small meals a day. Be sure to take puppy outside after she’s eaten so that she can relieve herself. It’s a natural reaction that happens around 20 minutes after eating, so be prepared. After a few months the meals can be reduced to twice a day–morning and night. Then (depending on the breed of dog) after about six months or so one meal a day is sufficient.
What Brand of Dog Food to Buy?
There are a lot of different varieties of dog food on sale these days, most having selections that cater to puppies, full grown (over one year old) dogs, and mature or older dogs. Then, with the more expensive brands, you get to choose according to the type of dog (toy, medium, large) or their breed.
My recommendation, if you want a healthy, happy dog, is to choose one of the more expensive brands. I don’t think it’s entirely necessary to go for the most expensive brands but it is not very wise to choose the cheaper, ’supermarket shelf’ brands either. Good nutrition is a key to healthy dogs. If you skimp on money when it comes to buying dog food you may well end up incurring more costs with your vet visits.
Dry Dog Food, Wet (canned) Dog Food, or a Combination?
I’ve done both. For a long while I was giving my older dog Dry dog food mixed with some canned dog food. He really liked the canned food and would finish that off right away, and sometimes would tend to leave the dry dog food. In looking over the ingredients of the canned dog food, I realized that the dry dog food was actually a better balanced dog food and could even be a complete diet in itself. I felt bad, after I stopped feeding my dog the canned dog food and it took a while for my older dog to adjust to only eating dry food, but he did and he’s been quite a bit healthier since. My recommendation would be to stick to dry dog food and not give canned dog food to your puppy.
If you want to give your dog meat a simple solution I came up with which they love is to boil up some chicken liver and give that to them as well. Chicken liver is pretty healthy meat, and fortunately where I live, the butcher gives it to me for free as no one else buys it. So, I have a free source of healthy meat to supplement their dry dog food with. There are different trains of thought regarding feeding dogs cooked meat versus uncooked meat. Proponents of the uncooked meat crew say that’s how dogs ate in the wild, and thus it must be best for them. Others say that cooking meat first helps avoid the dogs getting a taste for fresh blood. You could research other sites that discuss dog training if you want to find out more on t his particular point, as I’m not a great proponent of either. Probably, if you were living in a city environment that point may not be so important, but if you are living in a country region it may be more important to make sure your dog didn’t develop a love of fresh meat. I don’t have any strong feelings one way or the other. For me, its easy to throw the meat into a big pot and boil it, then put it into containers, or freeze enough for one meal in ziplock bags. I find it keeps much better when it’s cooked and it’s less smelly and messy to work with. The dogs are happy with it, so that’s what I’ve stuck to.
Stay tuned for more puppy training tips on feeding times and overcoming feeding problems in some of my next posts. And be sure to enjoy your puppy! They’re a wonderful animals.
