If you have ever accidentally walked down the dog Food aisle, you know how overwhelming it can be!

Lucky for you, Lake Pine Animal Hospital is here to help simplify this process and get your puppy set up for feeding success.

Higher quality ingredients with better sourcing and specialized diet formulas lead to better health for our puppies. And every bit as important as what to feed your puppy is understanding his special nutritional needs. All puppies are different, so if you have any concerns or questions about your puppy’s food, feeding schedule, or nutritional health, always consult your veterinarian at Lake Pine! Choosing the right diet is a vital step to making sure your growing puppy is meeting their nutritional needs. Here’s a shortlist of some diets that we recommend that have met (or exceeded) AAFCO standards and are specifically tested and formulated for dogs under a year of age.

Hill’s Science Diet Puppy

  • Large Breed
  • Small breed
  • Healthy Advantage
  • Various Protein choices

Royal Canin

  • Small Puppy
  • Medium Puppy
  • Large Puppy
  • Breed Specific

Purina One

  • Purina One + Healthy Puppy
  • Purina One + Large Breed Puppy
  • Pro Plan Large Breed
  • Pro Plan Puppy
  • Pro Plan Small Breed
  • Includes Sensitive Skin and Stomach

Are more expensive diets better for my dog?

At Lake Pine Animal Hospital, we recommend that your pets don’t BEG. But it’s not what you think, BEG actually stands for Boutique, Exotic and Grain-free diets. Now, you might ask yourself, what are those, and how do they pertain to my pet?

BEG diets are those that contain higher levels of protein and attempt to mimic foods that would be more optimal for an ancestor of our domesticated friends, the wolf. Since BEG foods are primarily grain-free, Lentils, chickpeas, and Fava beans became a replacement, in turn raising the protein levels.

Why are high protein or beg diets bad for my dog?

Unfortunately, dog food companies have marketed grain-free Diets as the best you can offer your dog. This is not true for most dogs, and we ask that you choose a high-quality brand with research and feeding trials to back up their diets! BEG foods have been known to cause heart problems such as Dilated Cardiomyopathy or DCM for short. DCM is a condition in which the heart becomes enlarged and has trouble pumping blood effectively.

Feeding guide

  • 6–12 WEEKS: Growing pups should be fed puppy food, a diet specially formulated to meet the nutritional needs for normal development. Large breed puppy food should be fed to puppies that are expected to exceed 40 ponds at their adult weight. Feeding adult food will rob your puppy of important nutrients. Four feedings a day are usually adequate to meet nutritional demands for puppies up to 3 months old.
  • 3–6 MONTHS: Sometime during this period, decrease feedings from four to three a day.
  • 6 MONTHS: Begin feeding twice daily. Each puppy food comes with a suggested amount to feed, based on the age and size of your puppy. This is a starting point, and the total amount can be divided through the day. If the puppy always finished the food quickly and does not seem overly distended, they can have more with each feeding. Spaying or neutering lowers energy requirements slightly; after the procedure, you may find you’re your puppy requires fewer calories
  • AFTER AGE 1: Most owners feed adult dogs two half-portions a day.

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