How to Decide What is Suitable Nutrition for Your New Puppy  

Dogs are an important part of many people’s lives. They are pets, friends, and companions. We live in a society in which many people isolate themselves and live lonely, sedentary lives, for many of these people dogs are their only respite. Unsurprisingly, dogs are one of the most popularly owned pets in the world, followed by cats. If you are investing in a puppy, whether it be for companionship or just because you want a pet, then you’ve come to the right page and you must continue reading.

In this article, we will tell you how to decide what your puppy’s nutritional needs are, and how you can make effective decisions with regard to their nutrition. It is very important that you do give this very serious and careful consideration. Many people, when it comes to their puppies, buy grocery store tinned food that cannot sustain their puppies, and later in life, their puppies experience nutritional deficiencies. It is important to always invest in the best food for your puppy, but we will come to that later.

So, here is how you can decide what suitable nutrition for your new puppy is, and how you can make the right decisions for them nutritionally.

Buy the Best Food

Many people skimp out on their puppies’ food and end up feeding them poor quality food. Puppies who are fed poor quality food often develop nutritional deficiencies or do not live as long as they potentially could. Unsurprisingly, dogs are best friends to many, which is a sentiment shared by paramountpethealth.com, and is why you should always buy your puppy the best quality food. Yes, puppy food can be expensive, but it is well worth it. You wouldn’t feed your children junk food their entire infancy, would you? No? So don’t feed your puppy junk food out of a tin.

How to Feed Your Puppy

When it comes to feeding your puppy, this is the place to be. Yes, we are going to tell you everything you need to know, so you needn’t fret. You must always remember, for starters, that when you are feeding a puppy, you are not feeding an adult dog. Because of this, you must ensure your puppy’s food is full of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals to ensure they grow up to be strong and healthy. Puppies require food commercially marketed to puppies – you cannot feed a puppy adult food. With that said, you can feed puppies food that is marketed to dogs ‘of all life stages’.

• You must also feed your dog an appropriate number of times each day. Here’s how to do that:
• Between two to three months old, your puppy should eat four meals a day without compromise;
• When they are between three to six months old, they should eat three meals a day, which you can space evenly throughout the day;
• Between six months to a year old, and up to twenty-four months for large breed dogs, they should eat two meals a day, which is something they should continue to do into adulthood, only with adult food.

Weaning

Puppies will, after week four, begin to wean away from their mother’s milk, or substitute milk. Once the weaning process has begun, it can generally take around three weeks before they are completely transitioned away from milk. Veterinarians recommend that, in order to get your pup accustomed to solid food, that you wet your puppy’s food until it becomes like a soup. 

With that said, puppies are notorious for playing with and messing around with their food, so you will need to encourage them to eat out of the bowl rather than to destroy it. You could do this by dipping a finger into the food and then allowing your puppy to lick it off of your fingers.

Balanced Diet

It is very important that your puppy has a completely balanced diet, which can be found by buying your puppy high-quality food as referenced earlier in our article. With that said, you can also prepare a balanced diet at home for your dog. You must ensure your puppy has a balanced diet so that they can age properly, mature, and that their body and brain can grow.

Puppy food which is designed to sustain a balanced diet can be recognized by these features:

• The food that you buy for your puppy should have complete and balanced nutrition on the label;
• On its label it should also say that it meets and is in line with pre-established nutritional requirements of puppies, as set into place by the American Feed Control Officials [‘AAFCO’];
• It should also say that it offers balanced and complete nutrition in accordance with AAFCO feeding trials.

When you feed your puppy food with those labels on the bag, then they will get all of the nutrients that they need, which are:

• Your puppy will receive proteins, which help their tissues to develop and grow;
• Fats, like proteins, are essential for helping your puppy to grow. They keep their skin and fur healthy, as well as developing their brain and vision;
• Carbs, as with humans, give your puppy energy and keep them happy;
• Vitamins and minerals, perhaps the most important part of a puppy’s diet. They help your puppy to grow up to be healthy and mature;
• Water is another very important part of a puppy’s diet. A puppies diet should consist of a lot of water, which means that you should always keep a bowl of water available to them.

What Shouldn’t You Feed Your Pup?

Just as it is important to know what to feed your puppy, it’s important to know what not to feed your puppy. Sure, you can feed your puppy the occasional snack, but it’s important that your puppy should never consume too many snacks or treats, for if they do, they can become obese and develop problems such as diabetes and heart disease. Additionally, here are the foods you should NEVER feed your pup:

• Grapes;
• Chocolate;
• Garlic, onions, or root vegetables;
• Avocados;
• Alcohol.

Now, with this page, we hope you know exactly how to look after and care for your dog. We hope that you have enjoyed the read and that you have learned from it. Thank you for reading and thank you for visiting us.