Time to switch from puppy to adult food?
 

Hey yalls i got myself a 5month 1 week yr old pitbull/rotty cross(boy), he was the runt and is quite smaller than his 11 brothers and sisters(even still). Right now he is prob around 15 pounds, where as his biggest brother is just over 35 pounds lol. Ive had him since he was about 5 weeks old because he was too small and couldn't be by the other puppies because they were picking on him and he was really weak. He needed to be fed special formula and kept an eye on him so I babysat him, and got attatched to him within one night so i got him for keeps.


He is a great pup, dosen't chew stuff my stuff, learns tricks and house training very quickly, dosen't nip anymore, walks on the leash very well and off the leash wont go more then about 20-30 feet away from me and best of all loves to cuddle!!!!

Now that you know Sammy a little bit mayb sum1 can give me sum advice on this. I go am currentyl feeding him Purina Beneful: Healthy Growth for Puppies...its the blue one from Wal-Mart. My problem is that they only have small bags like 1.7 kg's of the puppy stuff and the $/kg is way higher wen buying low. That was fine before but now he goes through one in about 3 or 4 days so this is gettin a little ridiculous. They have monstorous 17 or 18kg ones for adult there tho. So my question is would it be ok to switch to the adult stuff already or should I just go about buying multiple bags and just suck up the cost expense?

personally if you are looking for something that can be fed to a young dog that is price effective I would look into "Summit" at any of the feed stores, some pet stores carry it as well. You can buy 25lb (i think thats the size). This food is a life time diet and can be fed to puppy or adult. That or I would switch over to Purina or Iams at the least and use their adult food. The Beneful adult formula does not have enough nutrition for the still growing puppy.

thank u very much, I checked into this "Summit" and its holistic dog food?

Someone advised me to get holistic dog food from a butcher but I talked other dog owners and they said that holistic costs WAYYY more then normal dog food and isn't necessary.

also what exactly does it mean when it is holistic? its like raw meat or sumtin?

i'm on purina too...bute make sure you use a higher grade one like the proPlan series. I've got mine on it and you can totally see the results compared to pix of his littermates on run-of-the-mill craps

At the age of 5 months, I wouldn't make the switch to adult food yet. Puppy formulas are a bit higher in protein & fat, which is what they need for growth, whereas the adult food is formulated for maintenance.

I think if you compare the ingredients list of a more holistic food versus Purina, you will see the obvious difference as well as understand the difference in cost. ;)

IMO, paying the extra for better food is worth it.

unless your dog is growing too fast, you dont need to switch to adult formula until after first year.

some larger breed dogs tend to absorb the nutrients too fast, and what you get is bone to muscle problems growing at different rates.

Thank you everyone for helping me relize things I wasn't aware of.

Ya I was just told by the person I got him from and she dosen't think beneful is a very good food either....Now that I think of it, I can't even remember why I liked Beneful it was probably the commercials lol.

I did some research about this Purina Pro Plan and it seems like a great dog food and is known as "Purina's best dog food", but on the reviews there seems to be quite a bit of ppl complaining about it giving there dogs gas and diahrea...which I was told is normal when u switch dog food neways? My lil guy farts quite a bit already and they r VERY stinky so this should get interesting once I switch it up lol!!! I am gonna drive to abbotsford on the weekend to go the Pet Smart and pick up a bag of Purina Large Breed Formula Pro-Plan for Puppies. Wow they even have special ones for the larger breeds, thats cool.

http://www.viewpoints.com/Purina-Pro...g-Food-reviews

http://www.rateitall.com/i-24985-pro-plan.aspx

Holistic is just an advertising thing. It isn't raw. Summit is a kibble. It can be found at most animal feed stores for cheap (like 25 to 30 dollars for a 30 pound bag) It has more real meat, and less byproducts. It also is a life stage food. I like summit as it's a basic ingredient food without by-products, but it cost effective.

the nice thing with a 'all life stages' food is that it still gives the pup enough nutrients to grow but not so much that the growing will be too fast for the bones and joints.

Here's a good site for independent dog food reviews: http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/

Purina Pro Plan is rated as 2 out of 6 stars. It's definitely better than most of the stuff you find at grocery stores, but nowhere near as good as the truly premium dog food.

Now, I don't believe dogs must eat 6 or even 5 or 4 star dog foods... but still, something to consider.

I've just started feeding my dog Purina Pro Plan Selects... mainly because I got several 2.7kg bags for $1 each after using $7.50 off coupons when PetSmart had the bags on sale for half price already. She seems to be fine with it...

You can get some coupons for Purina pet food here: http://www.save.ca/purina_en/

u just saved me $16.15.

GOOOOD MAN!!

if you're trying to avoid diarrhea you should taper the food. same amount of food, but 90% old 10% new. then next meal 80/20, 60/40, 30/70/, 10/90, 100% new. thats what i HAVE to do as sibes have really sensitive stomachs. i havent had any problems with gas n farts. i dont even want to imagine what his farts would smell like especially in my small place haha

best of luck though

i should mention i'm not on the shredded...i'm on the proplan puppy. the green bag. smells great, but tastes really bland. (i always try the puppy food myself first)

usually for puppy to adult food, it's done near the end of the 1st year to 1year old, that's what the vet says... they need to grow and build strong muscles while young and then you switch em over.

for our dog, we've been using Technical Natural Blends (holistic) puppy and now adult...he only craps once a day (less by product)....Technical is also owned by Royal Canine

^ agreed. i went to the petstore on hamilton in yaletown. great people.
i went to PJs pets on no.3 road first, and they said some bullshit about how if u feed your dog high protein or all protein now, they'll have to be on a no protein diet later. bullshit.

basically, no grain diets are recommended if your dog can not tolerate grains. ie. if u feed em grains, n they poop soup out. I've picked up a caifornia blend (?) to help rid diarrhea. it's good as it only has 4 ingredients.

but now, for longterm feeding, i've made the switch to royal canin. It has grains which is ok as my sibe can and does digest it. I inquired about orijen as it is up to 80% pure protein, 20% vegetables n fruits. but she said that it's overkill. not required if he can eat grains.

they're great at the store because they werent pushing the more expensive orijen diet food. i picked up a $1.99 small bag of orijen to be used as treats to supplement his protein intake.

hope this helps ya.

I feed my dog Royal Canin, my dog seems to like it a lot better than IAMS. I would recommend that you stay with your puppy food as you stated earlier than your dog is "under" weight, and it is correct that puppy food is higher in protein and fat. You could also try a raw diet, but it is a little more pricey, and it requires you to prepare SOME of the food which can create hassle. I personally am doing a mix of raw/dry food...