Feeding your puppy

To start with, we strongly suggest watching the video "Pet Fooled": 

https://www.petfooled.com/pet-fooled-part-1.html

Please see our "Links, Articles, and Info" page: https://sites.google.com/site/arctictexanlabradors/articles-and-other-cool-stuff , for more links on pet foods and finding the right food for your puppy! 

Our puppies are started out on solid food around 4-5 weeks old, depending on their growth and development, as well as the dam's inclination to continue nursing.  Our dogs are all on a raw food diet which we will carefully go over with each family before the puppies leave us.  We recommend using a probiotic for gut health for the life of your puppy!  By about six weeks of age, they are fed 2-3 times a day, and are usually on this schedule when they go to their new homes. They will generally be eating around 12-16 oz. of food total, daily, when they leave us between 9-12 weeks.

Supplements and healthy fats:

Probiotics - gut support for overall health and vitality

Diatomaceous Earth - gut support for parasite prevention

Boiled, pureed pumpkin or sweet potato - gut support for loose stools or constipation

Coconut oil - available at most grocery stores; we love the health benefits for both dogs and humans alike!

Nupro Silver - probiotic + joint supplement, to support healthy formation of young joints as well as ease the symptoms of aging joints

Salmon oil - full of antioxidants, and Omega 3s

We find that most of these are available at locally owned pet stores, including Pet Zoo/Animal Food Warehouse, Alaska Mill & Feed, Underdog Feeds, and more.  We encourage our puppy owners to shop locally as much as possible.  

If you should choose not to continue with this particular diet, we recommend against switching straight from raw to kibble.  Our puppy owners' experiences with this have showed us that this is a recipe for tummy troubles.  If prey model raw feeding is absolutely not something you can adjust your lifestyle for, there are several very good quality brands of manufactured/storebought raw and semi-raw foods to choose from, which are quite convenient and no-fuss.  Some are comparable in price to higher-quality kibbles, although there are certainly some that even more expensive.  Please research this extensively before taking your puppy home. 

We recommend steering clear of most popular brand foods, including Iams, Eukanuba, Pedigree, and Science Diet. We advise to avoid Purina Puppy Chow, Beneful, and equivalent "junk food" kibbles entirely. What we look for in a good, high quality, meat-based dog food, raw or cooked, is:

1. Meat (NOT meat by-product) first and foremost on the ingredients list; preferably multiple different sources of protein (red meat, poultry, fish, egg).  At least 5 of the first 10 ingredients should reflect real meat ingredients (if not more!).

2. Avoid corn, wheat and soy as grain sources; rice, oats, barley, and quinoa are far less problematic with Labs. There are grain-free foods available as well, which we no longer recommend as the primary source of nutrition.  Be aware that not all grain-free foods are high quality- some are just as full of unnecessary carbohydrates as corn and wheat based foods!  Legumes, lentils, chickpeas, tapioca, potato, sweet potato, brown rice, and many other foods can quickly shove meat down farther on the list, rendering them barely healthier for our dogs than those foods containing the more allergenic wheat/soy/corn grains.  Legumes are also devoid of taurine, a vital B vitamin found in meats.  Legume-rich diets are currently implicated in development of taurine-associated DCM (Dilated Cardiomyopathy, aka Congestive Heart Failure).  Studies are ongoing and new information becomes available on a regular basis; we recommend following these studies and news closely as understanding grows on this important health topic.

We do ensure that our breeding dogs are free of common food allergies and have had excellent outcomes so far in producing healthy puppies without allergy issues; however, as in humans, allergies are not always inherited directly and can crop up at any time in any given dog.  Labradors appear to be particularly prone to wheat, corn, and soy sensitivity (if not outright allergy), so our general recommendation is to avoid these unnecessary, barely nutritive ingredients from the start.

3. For those who do choose dry kibbles, protein to fat ratio should be around 23-26% protein to 12-16% fat. Some Large Breed puppy foods have much higher protein and fat content (30/18-ish) on the basis that large breed dogs need more of both protein and fat to fuel their growth; however, there is also the risk of large breed puppies gaining too much, too quickly, which can lead to growth issues in puppyhood and/or joint problems as adults. The jury is still out on this issue; therefore we recommend doing some research to decide whether a large breed puppy food is appropriate or not.

Whatever you do, please PLEASE do not choose a food based on price alone, or fancy labels. You may be feeding grains and fillers rather than quality, authentic meat ingredients. Dogs are carnivores, and meant for most of their calories to come from MEAT. Keep in mind though, that expensive does not necessarily equate to quality, either. Also, canned foods have a very different protein/fat content than kibble. If canned food is used as a supplemental feeding and not the main source of nutrition for your puppy, this is not quite as important.  When choosing a brand of canned food to use, we again caution not to judge a product based on price alone (be it cheap or expensive), but take the time to check out what’s IN the food and whether it is nutritionally appropriate for a young puppy.

We recommend feeding puppies at least 2 meals a day, which should continue through the dog's lifetime.

Your puppy’s physique will be the best gauge of whether they are eating enough, getting enough fat in their diet, etc. The recommendations on dog food packages are merely generic recommendations. Puppies have a roly-poly physique through around 12 to 16 weeks; by 5-6 months they should be developing more of an adult body type as they approach adolescence. If your puppy is looking too thin for more than a day or two (you can see the last rib or two outlined), feed a little bit more, and maybe increase the fat supplementation (extra squirt of coconut or salmon oil). If your puppy is consistently looking plump and roly-poly, try decreasing slightly for a few days. You will quickly get a feel for what constitutes a healthy look for your particular puppy and his/her build. Maintaining your puppy in a consistent state of overweightness will void your hip guarantee, as this is proven to be detrimental to joint development.

We HIGHLY encourage new puppy owners to NOT take our word for it, to research topics thoroughly by reading books, searching online, talking to other dog owners/breeders, etc. and thereby educate themselves and become the expert on their own puppy/dog. There are about as many different ways to raise a healthy, happy puppy as there are dog owners with opinions on how to achieve that goal. ;) 

As always, please let us know if you have any questions!