Hi Oceans11,
I feed my dogs a base of kibble and vary the toppers. The extras I mentioned are the toppers. Sorry I didn’t make that clear! 🙂 I buy small bags of dry food that will be used up within two or three weeks. I rotate foods with each new bag. Neither of my dogs requires a transition. My Cavalier would love to eat raw at every meal, but my Golden turns his nose up at it and walks away. I feed them similarly for my sanity. I can’t feed them the same dry food because my Golden has lots of food sensitivities. They both love raw tripe though. I use tripe as a topper or occasionally a full meal. It stinks to high heaven. I order mine from My Pet Carnivore. I’m on their local home-delivery route. You could also order from Hare Today. I prefer frozen raw over canned.
ALS foods are all life stages. They meet the AAFCO profile for growth. Growth foods are called “puppy” foods by some manufacturers, but some might also refer to growth foods as ALS foods. The other profile is adult maintenance. I prefer not to use maintenance foods. Some foods labelled puppy just might be higher in calories, so it’s a good idea to pay attention to calories (usually listed as kcals per cup) all of the time. Feeding guidelines on bags and cans of food tend to be high. Determine for sure how many calories your pup needs daily and measure it out. Be sure to include calories from all sources… kibble, canned, treats, etc. With a small dog, you might need to weigh food using a digital kitchen scale to ensure accuracy. There’s less room for error when you’re talking about a small number of calories to begin with. Keep an eye on their body condition and use that as your guide for portion control.
If they’re truly hungry at mealtime they’ll eat eagerly!
