[Dori]

I too am sorry for your losses. It’s always a difficult thing to go through. I feed my three dogs grain, white potato, white rice free foods.
As someone else mentioned, if you check out the 4 and 5 star foods and read their ingredient lists you can go from there. Many of us on this site find a food that our dogs do well on and then continue the search so that we can have a few different brands and proteins to rotate through. Some rotate from bag to bag others rotate more often. I don’t really feed kibble any more (I feed commercial raw, also The Honest Kitchen which is a dehydrated food that you just add water to) and am just starting to delve into doing homemade raw meals. When I did feed kibble, some of the brands I really liked were Brothers Complete (you can only buy it on their website but they have very very quick delivery and great customer service, it’s a family run business), Zignature, Victors (you can also order Victors on Amazon, Natures Logic, Acana just to name a few.

Keep in mind that, and it’s only my way, when I first bring a puppy home (or any dog for that matter) I usually keep them on the same food they were eating for the first two weeks. My feeling is that they are going through enough stress with moving to a new home, new people, etc. that I think it’s just a little easier on them that at least something in their lives is familiar to them. Then I start the slow transition to a food I’m comfortable feeding and also comfortable with the companies website and where they source their ingredients and what plants are used to produce their food. I try to make sure I then research what other dog foods that plant may be producing and, of course, have there being any recalls on any of them.

On the top left hand section of this page is a wonder list of Dog Food Recalls and you can also sign up to be put on their email list for dog food recalls as they happen.

Hope any of this has helped. Good luck with the new puppy. Let us know how you make out. Oh, and ask all the questions you want.