Time to get some new puppy food for my 13 week old Basset Hound, and I've narrowed it down to 4 choices. Feel free to suggest anything that's better than the options in the poll as well, These seem to be some of the better offerings I could find.

1: https://www.chewy.com/merrick-...recipe-dry/dp/104977

2: https://www.chewy.com/blue-buf...ion-formula/dp/32079

3: https://www.chewy.com/earthbor...ppy-vantage/dp/32407

4: [url=https://www.chewy.com/taste-wild-high-prairie-puppy/dp/34836]https://www.chewy.com/taste-wi...airie-puppy/dp/34836

Question:
Which Puppy Food?

Choices:
Merrick (Chicken or Beef)
Blue Buffalo
Earthborn
Taste of the Wild

 

We use the 4health brand from tractor supply. I get grain free and rotate between the different flavors (turkey, beef, chicken, etc.). Of those 4 Blue Buffalo and Taste of the Wild were on our short list.

I buy Taste of the Wild.

I'm not a dog person, but I fed my cat Purina dry cat food exclusively. She loved it, and lived to 20+ years – long for a cat. And she was completely healthy until her last few months.

fromm gold

quote:

Originally posted by dlayne:
We use the 4health brand from tractor supply. I get grain free and rotate between the different flavors (turkey, beef, chicken, etc.). Of those 4 Blue Buffalo and Taste of the Wild were on our short list.

We feed the 4Health as well. Never had any issues, and our dogs coats are shiny and healthy.

Use this site to check the ratings and you can find your optimal price/quality choice:

https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/

quote:

Originally posted by dlayne:
We use the 4health brand from tractor supply. I get grain free and rotate between the different flavors (turkey, beef, chicken, etc.). Of those 4 Blue Buffalo and Taste of the Wild were on our short list.

^^ this. I have been using nothing but 4health from tractor supply for about 8 years. I feed my shepherd the performamce formula (chicken based). This food gets good quality ratings and after giving it to him since he was a pup I'll say that he has been rather healthy and never had any problems with it. A skin rash problem as a pup alsi cleared up after the switch. Price comparable it is worth it because I feed him half as much as would the box store popular brands and he goes to the bathroom much less. I won't use anything else and will give him chicken, eggs, etc. if I run out. I will probably switch him soon to something with less protein like the regular or senior formula.

We feed our dogs Acana regional formulas and at the service dog place, we feed all the dogs Fromm.

Of the choices you have, I would prefer Taste of the Wild (with the caveat that I've never heard of Earthborn).

Origen!

We used Science Diet puppy for our labs but changed over to Purina Pro Plan on the advice of our breeder a couple years ago. The formulas were almost identical but it seems the Purina product is more palatable to the dogs as they mature.

None of the above.....

Look at Fromm

Victor Active Dog and Puppy. A great grain free dog food and made in the US.
https://victorpetfood.com/

None of the ones pointed out in your OP. Blue Buffalo is one step above grocery store fodder. I know Taste o the Wild has had recalls in the past. The only dry type food I'd feed my dog is Acana/Origen, Fromm, or Victor...which is what our GSD eats.

 
My wife is in charge of dog food, and she has researched many. What we get delivered every month is 4 bags of this Nutro product. She adds fat to their diet separately, with fat-rich treats.
 

Blue Buffalo. I have used that from puppy hood until last November. I switched to 4health until a month ago and went back to Blue Buffalo.

I made the switch to 4health because I was having a hard time getting the Blue Buffalo.

After a year of problems with my girl, I finally figured out it was the food.

Made the switch back and all the problems have went away. The Vet. didn't think it was the food, but after fighting several skin conditions, UTIs and excessive shedding, yest infections and a big loss of activity.

My now 7 year old is acting like a puppy! She has awaken me in the middle of the night to play (I'm not liking that part.....but....) I'll talk that to the alternative!

She's more active, looks like her old self, eats good, not being picky. No more mounds of fur everywhere. Bright eyes, shiny coat.

I will never change again! Even if I have to drive the 25 miles to the next town!

My girl only really likes the white fish and brown rice formula. She will eat the lamb, but won't eat the chicken at all. So white fish and brown it is!



ARman

My GSD i had her on a TX based brand that was excellent. When I got my Maligator, it didn't work. Tried everything, including Orijen, and Nutro produces the best stool. I mix the adult large breed Chicken/brown rice/sweet potato and the Lamb 50/50. Works great. I buy a 30lb bag of each and it lasts me a few months. My GSD breeder also feeds Nutro to all her kennel, and they are all Schutzhund titled dogs.

After using the Costco brand for years we went unconventional. You see, we had switched our own diet to a mostly unprocessed supply of "whole food". Essentially food as close to its natural state as possible. Almost nothing from a box or bag and it turned our lives around.

We did the same for our GSD. She got a diet that consisted 100% of essentially unprocessed animal products. I've got a buddy at s major supermarket meat counter and after clearing it with the meat manager and store manager they started setting aside their "throw away" meats in boxes labeled dog food in a freezer. They easily supplied more than enough to feed my pup and I was picky. We accepted only certain sea foods and we wanted the bulk of her diet to be meat with bones she could handle. Essentially lots of cut up bone in chicken wings, quarters, legs, entire whole chickens, lots of turkey necks and backs, stuff like that. If I recall correctly she got about 3lbs a day. So a typical day would be about 2lbs of cut up chicken with bones, some ground whatever, a whole trout or filet of some seafood (often sword fish, actually), maybe a pork chop (got lots of those) and finished with a few eggs (supplies by another friend with a flock).

She was even more excited to eat every day than she was before and she had more energy, an incredible soft shiny coat, less shedding, and her stool was great. We no longer had to pick it up. Within about a day it would dry up and disappear on the lawn

And it was pretty cheap as it was stuff they were tossing anyway.

I urge people to consider it. A lot of people believe that dogs have an innate NEED to eat a carcass. That's why we especially tried to get her an entire intact fish often.

We feed Fromm Gold as well.

Blue Buffalo is the only one on the poll we won't use.