[Marina K]

Hello, we are bringing home an 8 weeks old German Shepherd and the breeder suggested food is Iams large breed puppy food and a wellness canned puppy food. That is what she feeds her dogs and I just wanted to get suggestions if that is a good food of choice

[Pitlove]

Hi Marina-

Its very imperitive to know that large breeds (like GSD’s) have extremely strict dietary requirements from 8 weeks of age to about 10 months of age. Their calorie intake must be monitered closely to ensure they are not gaining excess weight and they need to be fed a diet with correct levels of calcium and a correct calcium to phosphorus ratio. Keeping all of these things in check can reduce your puppies risk of diseases like Pano, OCD, and Hip Dysplasia.

Not all Large Breed Puppy foods are correctly formulated for large breed’s because there is no actual regulation on that phrase and it ends up being up to the company to decide what a large breed puppy needs nutritionally. This is very scary if the company has no clue what they are doing.

Some foods that I know do meet these criteria are Fromm Gold Large Breed Puppy, Precise Holistic Complete Large/Giant Breed Puppy, Holistic Select Large Breed Puppy, WellnessCORE Puppy and Eukanuba Large Breed Puppy which is rated 4 stars on here and is probably closer in cost to Iams (not 100% sure on that though). I would personally recommend the first 2 over the others, my top pick being Fromm.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by Pitlove.

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