Changing puppy food?
 

Hi..my little girl is 13wks & is on Royal Canine Yorkshire Terrier puppy kibble as well as some soft diet.
I have heard that Hill's Science diet is superior? Should I change her?
Today I was in a pet shop & they gave me a sample of Pro Pac small breed puppy Kibble..I gave her some to try & she loved them?
She doesn't like the Hill's. I have to crumble them and disguise them in her soft diet. She will eat Royal Canine?
Now I know I shouldn't be changing her and if I do it must be gradual but I have Hills & RC in the house and want her to have the best diet.
Please help with choice if you know these brands. Where I live we don't get Buffalo & some of those I have seen listed on YT. We also get Eukanuba kibble here plus a multitude of super market ones. Help would be appreciated in choosing.:aimeeyork

If she is doing well on the RC I would leave her on the RC, if you have no need to change diet- I wouldn't. Personally RC and Hills are much better foods than Eukanuba.

:) It's very frustrating isn't it - we read about all the varieties available in the USA that we're unable to get hold of - and, if we can get hold of them, they cost a fortune!!! ;)

I personally home-cook for our Harry - but the kibble of HIS choice that's always down is Royal Canin, it's the only one he'll go anywhere near, and I've tried about a dozen different types.

If he's eating it, enjoying it, and thriving - then I personally would stick with it. Good luck! :) Sally + Harry :aimeeyork x

Not really a fan of Royal Canin, but think I would choose it over Eukanuba or Hills. Not knowing what foods are available to you there, I think you'll have to talk to knowledgeable people at independent pet food stores to see what options you have and what they recommend.

Mmmmm..what is it you don't like about RC?

My puppy was sent home on the Hills. But she went off it and wouldn't eat. Then my friend gave me a new pkt of RC that she had been given but hadn't used as her Yorkies were adults. Its the one made for Yorkie puppy's & my little girl ate it. Then the vet said the Hills were a superior food and as I have two unopened pkts I thought maybe I should try and get her on them? So that was why I had the query..Thanks so much for your reply Ax:aimeeyork

Yes thanks for that it makes sense..and your right these pet foods do cost a fortune..thank goodness she's not a Rottweiler..of course she thinks she is..like all our little yorkies;):aimeeyork

Thanks for that..I think I will leave her on it..seems the most sensible thing to do when she is actually eating it. :):aimeeyork

No problem, it is really easy getting lost in picking the right dog food. I know a lot of YT’ers (breeders and long time members) that feed RC and have nothing but good things to say about it. Their Yorkies have been on RC for many many years and are thriving on it. I would just wait it out, maybe start looking around at different dog food companies, just research your butt off and then maybe when your baby can switch to adult food you can do it then. I honestly don’t see a reason to switch her on a different food especially if she is eating and doing well on it. It is very easy to get lost in the dog food world, just remember the most important thing is how your baby is doing on the current food- that is all that matters!

If she likes it I would keep her on it

Changing food on a puppy is VERY STRESSFUL for them, please don't do it. If she's eating the RC & is doing well, why change? No need to give the Hills if she doesn't like it, the RC puppy will be fine for her, it has all the nutrients a growing puppy needs.

I agree, if she is eating the RC, then stick with it for now. You can always look into other options later if you want. As I said before, I'd choose RC over Hills or Eukanuba. The thing I don't like about it is that it contains corn and other controversial ingredients. But I have heard that RC has very good quality control, and that is worth a lot. You sure can't say that about a lot of the companies. Stay away from Diamond (or anything made by Diamond), and stay away from anything made in China or foods that use ingredients from China if possible.

I would keep her on the Royal Canin for now, but switch her to a higher quality kibble when she is an adult. Royal Canin has corn in it and it is not an ingredient I am comfortable feeding my dogs. It is hard to digest and imho not good.

For my pups, I feed grain free. You might want to try home cooking if you cannot find a suitable kibble in South Africa.

Thank you everyone for all the info on what to feed Hollee. She does love RC & so I went out & bought more today. We'll stay with it as I don't think it can be that bad when so many of you have recommended it. I agree corn could be a problem but at the moment nothing seems to be upsetting her digestion. I am home cooking as well so she has a mixture. But all points taken. Thank you so much. Ax:aimeeyork

So confused by this statement, corn is very easy for dogs to digest! Are you thinking of uncooked corn? Corn got a bad name because many dog food companies use it as the first ingredient. This isn’t always a bad thing, but when giving a short list on what to look for in a food, you should avoid foods with corn as the first ingredient. Unfortunately, hobby nutritionists just know general rules and not all the exceptions and whys and why nots. Unlike most vegetables, corn is a complete protein and contains all ten amino acids in varying amounts. However, while corn may provide a rich source of some essential amino acids, it supplies a poor source of others particularly lysine and you may develop a lysine deficiency if corn is the only source of protein. While some dogs are allergic to corn, corn is no more likely to cause an allergy than any other ingredient. Joey’s doing really well on Royal Canin, and my little rescue Ralphie recently switched to it after his regular food changed ingredients and he wasn’t tolerating the new food as well. He has a very sensitive system, so I was afraid to feed RC, but we switched to it about a month ago and he’s doing really well on it too.

I believe it to be a filler and choose not to feed my dogs food with corn.

I don't believe in the belief that just because your dog is doing well on something, that you shouldn't change it. My male was doing well on Pedigree when I adopted him, but I knew I could do better... So we switched his food.

This isn't the only site, but I thought I'd post this information as an example:

The Truth About Corn in Dog Food

I want to do what's best for my dogs and I know my mom's dog had a horrible allergy to corn, so I am choosing not to even chance it with my two :)

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to get anyone to use a certain food. If what you have works for your dog that's great, it's just I think there is so much misinformation about nutrition posted on the web and repeated here. Here's another opinion of someone who has excellent credentials. She majored in chemistry and biology and after completing coursework in Animal Nutrition, Care, Physiology, Diseases and Parasitology, Sabine earned her certification in Animal Care from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Here's what she says:



I just want to share our experience with the foods we've tried.

All dogs are different & there's a lot of misconceptions of corn...I think the issue w/corn when it comes down to it, would be the glycemic level. Since it's not a low glycemic food, it would not be good for dogs w/diabetes.

As for digestion...from Pet Food Industry.com:
In two recent papers in which dogs and cats were fed pea-rich diets (66%), it was reported that digestion of starch and protein was slightly less than diets based on corn and rice (Carciofi et al., 2008; de-Oliveira et al., 2008).

Hi..Well this is a difficult one. My puppy is eating so well. She is on the RC puppy kibble but I do mix in some home cooking & other times also some purity meat & veges.

On the subject of corn I looked up RC and ingredients. This is the site

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-fo...i-puppy/..they give a run down on ingredients. RC puppy food gets a 3 star rating. See what you all think?

I will carry on feeding her this kibble while she is eating so well. I won't hesitate to change her if I see any problems. Ax :aimeeyork

I like Dog Food Advisor but it is just a fancy way to read the back of the bag. The author only takes the ingredients into account...in order to get that 4 or 5 star rating, foods must have a higher protein content and few grains if any. Not that a higher protein diet is necessarily what YOUR dog specifically would do best on. DFA doesn't take into account company history and ingredient sourcing and other factors like that. RC doesn't score higher I think because there are several different sources of grain and the protein level is more modest than something like Orijen or Blue buffalo Wilderness.

There are a LOT of 4 or 5 star foods on DFA that I would never feed but I still enjoy reading the site...it's still a fantastic resource. If your pup is doing well on the RC, I'd stick with it.

[QUOTE=tokipoki;4044984]I like Dog Food Advisor but it is just a fancy way to read the back of the bag. The author only takes the ingredients into account...in order to get that 4 or 5 star rating, foods must have a higher protein content and few grains if any. Not that a higher protein diet is necessarily what YOUR dog specifically would do best on. DFA doesn't take into account company history and ingredient sourcing and other factors like that. RC doesn't score higher I think because there are several different sources of grain and the protein level is more modest than something like Orijen or Blue buffalo Wilderness.

There are a LOT of 4 or 5 star foods on DFA that I would never feed but I still enjoy reading the site...it's still a fantastic resource. If your pup is doing well on the RC, I'd stick with it.[/

Thank you for your reply..Yes, I agree with your comments..after all the eating problems I originally had with my pup & the fact that now she loves eating, I will stay with RC for now. Ax:aimeeyork

I agree with that comment about DFA also. Some of the 5 star foods they have listed use ingredients of low quality and ingredients sourced from China, or whereever they can get them the easiest and cheapest. You want to choose a couple good companies first, then look at their lines of foods. The store I buy from recommends Horizon and Fromm as their first and second choices.