feeding questions?

[wot_racing]

I just got a new 1 year old male rottie.. I bought a 50 pound bag of purina one Large Breed Mix.. How much and how often should I feed, him, or should I just open feed him?

It purina One any good, or should I get something else.. I am in the middle of nowhere, so I all I can get for my dog is basically what is at Walmart... There are no pet stores around here...

[Wookie'sMom]

Well the bag should have a feeding suggestion by weight. I would at least start with that and then if he is gaining or loosing weight adjust the amount of food as needed. Free feeding is generally not recommended, but you want to feed him 2-3 times a day (split the recomended amount into 2 or 3 portions not the recomended portion 2-3 times a day).

Purina products aren't very good in general, maybe you could look into having food delivered? I think you can get pretty much any food you want delivered right to your door if you can't find a store that carries it.

As to what you should feed. Do a search on this site on "food" and you'll get way more information than you ever thought existed on dog food. Use that info and choose the food best suited to your dog an budget, but keep in mind that the higher quality the food, the less you need to feed which evens out the price difference between low and high quality foods.

[JD102175]

If the only store you have to choose from is Wal-mart, then I would stick with the Purina One as it is probably the best one in the store.

Are there any other larger towns near-by, or one that you travel to once a month or so? If there is then you might want to try to find a pet store there and look into the foods they have.

When looking at foods the first 3-4 ingredients are what you want to look at. Look for foods that have at least 2 protein sources(ie. chicken, beef, lamb, cheicken meal, beef meal) listed in the top 3-4. If the food lists some sort of grain as being one of the top ingredients then you may want to look for something else. Grains such as corn are used as fillers and are not very nutritional for dogs. Stay away from foods that have by-products, such as chicken by-products. By-products have no nutritional value.

Hope this helps


Jaime

[wot_racing]

I will travel to a place called Feeders Supply in Louisville to get food for, but at 11pm, walmart here in town was all that i could choose from...

[Wookie'sMom]

Well Purina certainly won't kill him or anything like that. It just has a lot of grain which dogs can't really digest so you get a lot of "waste" which means a lot of poop scooping is all (a lot of gas too usually).

Get better food when and if you can, but I bet you anything that Purina One is a lot better than what he was being fed at the last place he lived.;)

[JD102175]

According to the web-site Feeders Supply carries

Our premium brands include Professional, Pro Pac, Eagle, Pro Plan, Science Diet, Eukanuba, and Iams, among others.

I'm not exactly sure where all of the foods fall, but I can tell you that Science Diet, Eukanuba and Iams are on the low end of the nutritional scale for these foods. Out of all of them listed it looks like Eagle Pack is the best. All of the others list by-products or a lot of grains.

Don't be discouraged by the cost. Better quality food costs more, but you don't have to feed as much so in the long run you do save money.

Jaime

[Wookie'sMom]

Eagle Pack Holistic Select is what I would feed out of that list (in fact I am feeding it right now, but I switch foods for variety's sake). Other Eagle Pack formulas aren't all that great, but the Holistic Select is a good one. There are three different Holistic Select formulas: fish, lamb and chicken I think...

[wot_racing]

I will check today and find somewhere to get that.. I can tell you that whatever the previous owner was feeding it had whole corn kernels in it.. I just discovered that while cleaning my truck from the trip last night....