Adult Food?
 

My little guy is 3lbs and just got fixed. He is 7 months old and the vet usually recommends that is a good time to start adult food. What do you guys think? Would he benefit by staying on puppy food a little longer? Thanks for your input.:)

With a puppy that small and that young I wouldn't recommend adult food for at least another year! Goodness, sometimes vets frustrate me!
Keep your guy on a good quality puppy food until at least a year and a half (unless he gets fat, then switch). Your puppy is still growing in a small dog kinda way, he needs the puppy nutrition.

There is no need to feed puppy formula foods to small breed puppies. Chose an all life's stage, high quality food and he'll do fine.

I feed mine Taste of the Wild.

I'm confused about this too now, Bailey is 8 months, a liitle over 3lbs and on Wellness puppy food, I though I had to wait until he was a year old to switch:confused:

There are lots of all stage foods available.

None of mine have ever eaten puppy formulas.

Feeding a diet of all natural "real" food is the safest and best way to keep pets healthy. They are not fully developed until they are 18 months old, so if you prefer feeding dog food, then stick to the puppy formula till he's at least 18 months old.

Jackson stopped eating puppy food around 6 mo. old and we switched to an all life stages food.

Is all life stages a brand?

No, there is some foods out there that say they are good for "all life stages" as in you can feed the same food to an 8 week old pup as a 12 year old dog. Certain brands are that are all life stages are Nature's Variety (which Jackson eats and loves!), Taste of the Wild, Canidae, etc.

Okay thanks! I really only have one decent choice in my area and that's Wellness:rolleyes:

Aw, well, Wellness is good! Jackson loved Wellness but he got terrible eye boogers on it so I stopped. But a lot of dogs do well on it. :)

I've been feeding Skyler Wellness too. I like the idea of a all stage diet. Thanks for your help.

Some food labeled as "puppy" are all life stages, too. I feed Innova Puppy but it is technically an ALS formula. You just have to read the bag and it will tell you the AAFCO rating. Usually puppy formulas have more protein and fat in them. I have two pups - one is 10 months and one is 13 weeks. I chose Innova puppy because when Nick turns a year, I didn't want to have to start feeding them separate. Yorkies don't usually over-eat, especially on kibble. So, if you can find a puppy formula that is also an ALS formula, that would be best. I checked Wellness puppy formula and it is not ALS - only approved for growth which means just for puppies.

A lot of people order their dog food online and some companies will send out samples. When I was earching for the perfect food I got samples via mail from Natural Balance, Solid Gold and Wellness. Natural Balance and Solid Gold both have all life stages formulas. You could email them for samples to see if you like them. Then, if you do, you could buy online.

Innova and Canidae offer samples, too but I got them from a local feed store. It couldn't hurt to ask them for samples, too though.

Good luck!

I was just looking around some more on the Wellness sight and saw that their "Complete Health" formulas are all life stages formulas. Their small breed adult formulas is not, though. I'm not sure how big the kibble peices are but you could maybe email Wellness and ask for samples. They have 3 "Complete Health" formulas and they are all ALS formulas.

One their website it shows the AAFCO rating right below the ingredients and above the feeding guidelines if you want to take a look.

Thanks for the good information. I didn't know that Innova was a ALS food. I switch off from Wellness to Innova because my little guy is so picky. Maybe I'll get him off the puppy wellness and try to get him to eat the puppy Innova all the time and see what happens. Thanks again:)

No problem. Innova also has an adult formula that is ALS, too. The only difference and why they are labeled "puppy" and "adult" is the different amounts of protein and fat. I plan to switch mine to the adult fomula when Daisy is over a year. Since yorkies usually don't over-eat, it's OK to feed them the puppy (higher protein/fat) formula past a year.

Innova is a SUPER good food so if your little guy likes it, you're lucky. I went through a gazillion samples before I found what Nick liked. I'm just glad he picked such a healthy brand! :)

So, have you switched Jackson to something else and since then, his eye boogers has gotten better? reason i ask is that i started Maddie recently on Wellness and i've notice a lot of eye gukes lately.