What are your thoughts on Merrick's

[Yorkieluv]

Before I started homecooking, we fed it to Emma and she loved it. Never had any problems with it, and she was a puppy...
All of their foods are for all life stages including the Puppy Plate and Senior Medley.

[Lola'sMommy]

Originally Posted by Yorkieluv

Before I started homecooking, we fed it to Emma and she loved it. Never had any problems with it, and she was a puppy...
All of their foods are for all life stages including the Puppy Plate and Senior Medley.

Thank you so much for giving me peace of mind! Do you mind if I ask you a few more questions?
1. Did you just feed the dry to your puppy? Or, did you feed Merrick's canned as well? I'd really like to try some of their canned because the ingredients look so healthy.
2. Did you feel that the kibbles were too big for your puppy?
Thank you so much!

[drawlins27]

I feed Merricks canned puppy plate to my 5 month old puppy and Merricks Senior Dry to my 8 yr old boys.

My puppy is very very small and the Merricks kibble is just too big for her so in addition to Merricks canned puppy plate, I give her Chicken Soup for the Puppy Lovers Soul dry food because it has very small kibble that even she can eat. Ask the pet store for a sample of Merricks dry if you are worried that she can't eat it. They often keep samples in the back and give it out only on request.

My boys can only eat the Merricks Senior dry. I tried them on the canned but it had too much protein for them and was causing their PH level to be too high.

[Yorkieluv]

Originally Posted by Lola'sMommy

Thank you so much for giving me peace of mind! Do you mind if I ask you a few more questions?
1. Did you just feed the dry to your puppy? Or, did you feed Merrick's canned as well? I'd really like to try some of their canned because the ingredients look so healthy.
2. Did you feel that the kibbles were too big for your puppy?
Thank you so much!

We fed the canned as well. It looks good enough for people to eat! LOL I wouldn't recommend that though.

I want to add, that we had her on the Grammy's Pot Pie. My maltese was only 2.9 lbs when we got her, and she had no problems at all. In fact, I thought the kibbles were pretty small. Maybe it varies between the different kinds that they have or maybe it varies from bag to bag, but the size of the kibble we got (Grammy's Pot Pie) was tiny in my opinion. Before we got her, she was eating Natural Balance Venison & Brown rice, but we switched her because she did not like that food at all and the kibbles were huge! And, later on they were recalled.

[Yorkieluv]

The canned food is very high in protein like drawlins was saying...

In order to compare the amount of protein in a canned food to a dry food, you have to look at them both on a dry matter basis....If a bag of dry food says 22% protein, and then you look at a canned and see 9% protein, that does not mean that the canned has less. You have to convert the numbers...

Take the amount of protein divided by the reciprocal of the amount of moisture and that gives you the amount of protein on a dry matter basis.

Example:
Let's say the canned food is 9% protein and it has 80% moisture....
Then take 9 (amount of protein) divided by 20 (reciprocal of 80-the amount of moisture) = 45% protein on a dry matter basis.

Now, you can compare the can to the bag of food. So, as you can see, the canned has 45% and the dry has 22%. Remember, this is just an example.

[Lola'sMommy]

Originally Posted by Yorkieluv

The canned food is very high in protein like drawlins was saying...

In order to compare the amount of protein in a canned food to a dry food, you have to look at them both on a dry matter basis....If a bag of dry food says 22% protein, and then you look at a canned and see 9% protein, that does not mean that the canned has less. You have to convert the numbers...

Take the amount of protein divided by the reciprocal of the amount of moisture and that gives you the amount of protein on a dry matter basis.

Example:
Let's say the canned food is 9% protein and it has 80% moisture....
Then take 9 (amount of protein) divided by 20 (reciprocal of 80-the amount of moisture) = 45% protein on a dry matter basis.

Now, you can compare the can to the bag of food. So, as you can see, the canned has 45% and the dry has 22%. Remember, this is just an example.

Oh my! I had no idea! I was only looking at the actual percentages, so I thought that the canned had so much less protein. Thank you!
I feed Lola the dry for breakfast, and the canned for dinner, but maybe I should mix them together? Did you mix the dry with the canned, or did you feed them seperately?
I'm so sorry for all of the questions! I hope you don't mind?! I just feel that I have no idea what I'm doing sometimes when it comes to petfood!

[Lola'sMommy]

Originally Posted by drawlins27

I feed Merricks canned puppy plate to my 5 month old puppy and Merricks Senior Dry to my 8 yr old boys.

My puppy is very very small and the Merricks kibble is just too big for her so in addition to Merricks canned puppy plate, I give her Chicken Soup for the Puppy Lovers Soul dry food because it has very small kibble that even she can eat. Ask the pet store for a sample of Merricks dry if you are worried that she can't eat it. They often keep samples in the back and give it out only on request.

My boys can only eat the Merricks Senior dry. I tried them on the canned but it had too much protein for them and was causing their PH level to be too high.

Hi Drawlins! I bought a 5lb bag of the dry Puppy Plate, and I so wish that I had asked for a sample because I do think that the kibbles are too big! Lola is 4 months old, just under 3lbs, and I wish I had asked if they had small kibbles before I bought it. Do you recommend the Chicken Soup for Puppy Lovers Soul? Does your puppy like it? Do you mix the dry with the canned? Maybe if I did that, it would soften the kibble?

[drawlins27]

I don't mix the dry and canned only because Lily will not eat it that way. I give her the canned food 2-3 times a day and then leave the dry food out for her to eat whenever she wants.

[Yorkieluv]

We mixed the canned and dry together, and the grammy's pot pie has small kibbles

[Yorkieluv]

Also, I would wet the dry with a little warm water.

[Lara]

I only feed my baby Lee-Roy cooked chicken with grated carrots (cooked till very soft) with basmati rice, he eats 3 times a day and totally loves his meal times, sorry I can not help you on canned food as I am a lover of fresh food for my Lee-Roy