Need advice, Vet recommended Purina

[Hogfan]

Well, my puppy just went to its first vet visit and got his first set of puppy shots, and also a dewormer. He recommended that we feed him Purina Pro Plan large breed puppy formula and even gave me a bag. I have done research and know that supposedly that is not a highly rated dog food. I've read about Canidae, Solid Gold, Innova, etc. being very good brands. My problem is that we only have one Petsmart here in my area and other stores like Target and Walmart. Neither of the mentioned stores carry any of these brands. I've been back to Petsmart to make sure and the best kind of dog food they carry according to dogfoodanalysis.com is the 3 star rated Nature's Recipe. That is what I'm currently feeding my puppy. Not sure on what to do. I'm currently not in the position to order a good brand online because of the high shipping fees among other things. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[gmacleod]

How about just adding extra meat to his diet? The only thing 'wrong' with Nature's Recipe is that it has rather limited meat content. It's not that it has low quality ingredients otherwise, so you don't have anything really nasty there (and it's a mile better than Purina).

Anyway, if the only thing wrong with it is that it needs a bit more meat - then that's something you can fix pretty easily just by adding some. Fresh meat would be best, but even a high quality (grain and vegetable-free) canned food would do it.

 

[Hogfan]

Thanks for the fast reply. What meat would you recommend? Would I simply just boil it? Also, as far as canned food goes, there really isn't a good brand. Does that even matter? What should the canned food contain? Sorry for all the questions. Now that I'm becoming more informed about dog food I want to make sure he gets the proper nutrition. Thanks.

 

[gmacleod]

The meat can be pretty much any type (though it should be reasonably lean - so if you give hamburger, try to keep the fat content down around 20% or less). Ground or diced chicken, turkey, lamb, pork, beef - whatever is reasonably easy to get and happens to be most reasonably priced at the relevant time. Meat that's on sale because it's approaching the use-by date is perfectly fine for the dog. You could also give the occassional meal of canned oily fish, such as sardines or mackeral (not tuna). None of it even strictly needs to be cooked at all - but if you prefer to do so, just brown it lightly. Just adding a cupful or two daily will make a great improvement to his diet

In canned foods, what you'd ideally want is something that is meat and water (or broth) and as little else as possible. The aim is for increasing the meat content of his overall diet, so something that's diluted by more grains or vegetables is less helpful. If you just can't get anything that's not diluted that way, then one that includes vegetables is preferable to one including grains. He's already going to be getting plenty of grain from the kibble

 

[ELubas]

Your baby is so cute I add meat and I will do hamburg or chicken (boiled) As they got older (six months or so) I will do organ meats like heart and liver. With my baby pups I did mostly chicken and hamburg and they seemed to fare well. I never used canned because frankly in the long run fresh meat was cheaper. Good luck with pup!

 

[caruse]

Timberwolf Organics ships free...just an option....Barbara

 

[Hogfan]

I will look into Timberwolf......thanks for the info. In the meantime I'm going to add some meat like suggested until he finishes his bag. There is a Petco 2 hours away that carries a couple of Solid Gold products. I might have to make that drive....this board is so helpful!!

 

[kayboxer]

Evangers also has a good canned meat. It only has meat and water in the ingredients. I use that sometimes when I have run out of real meat and haven 't had time to cook it. They love it. Can you order online? That is what I have to do where I live, we don't have any quality food stores here. We have one pet store that I will NOT buy from (it's dirty and they sell dogs and other animals).

 

[caruse]

Evangers is good, I agree...I use Merrick dry and wet and sometimes the wet Evangers too....Barbara

 

[AdamsBunch]

We used to boil chicken, brown tofu, and cook hamburger meat when Champ was sick and they both loved it. But then we found Nutro at Petsmart. The dry food is excellent quality and the wet food is very meaty without fillers and that nasty fat that pedigree wet food has. The boys love it.