Hello all. I hate to hear a tired drum, but there is such an overflow of information. I will be picking up my new 9 week old puppy on Saturday. Trying to figure out what to feed him. Anyone tried Stella and Chewy's puppy kibble? Currently feeding our 6 year old english bulldog th adult formula kibble. The calcium, phosphorus, protein levels confuse me, and I don't want to get it wrong. any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

I went with a large breed puppy kibble so that those issues were worked out (I also was confused). We started Agis on Fromm's, he didn't like it, so we moved him to Acana which he LOVES - we just put taurine powder on top 1x/day due to DCM concerns.

Every pup I fed puppy food got pano. The ones I fed adult food didn't.

I fed all of my GSD puppies a Life Stages food, so good for adults.

If I were homepreparing food, I would be more concerned by puppy vs adult amounts. As for commercial food, for my own puppy, I would feed an adult "all life stages" food. The one dog I did feed puppy food to developed a bad hip and had to have surgery young (12 months), but she might have been a special case. I mentioned to the surgeon that I switched her to adult food at 6 months and he said that if that were to be effective, it was too late of a switch since they have a major growth spurt right around 4 months old.

Are the adult formulas okay as far as the calcium/ phosphorus levels are concerned? I also started looking at wellness comple large breed puppy, and blue Buffalo. Although blue Buffalo has more grains in it, and i am unsure how it will sit. Seems some people stay away from grain. I did see someone say they had diarrhea issues with wellness.

I think you will hear different opinions on the adult formulas, and I really don't know if large breed puppy foods are any better. I haven't done a deep dive in too many years, but my instinct and what I would do is feed one that is an "all life stages" food and not a puppy food. To be truthful, this is one reason I went to a small breed, because I wanted to feed a home prepared diet. The most important part is to not overfeed a pup and know that a GSD typically will be lean usually into adulthood. Hopefully others with more GSD pup experience will weigh in here, but I think they tend to look a bit skinny until about 2-ish and owners shouldn't freak out if that is the case. (Should be able to feel the ribs, but not see them.)

Every food will have a dog that has issues with it, only because dogs are so individual. Foods are also designed to give optimal stools, and sometimes they may make nutritional compromises to do that, so in addition to stool quality you also want to keep an eye on weight, coat quality, etc.

Way back when, before all the diverse foods were on the market, when I was training, I used to recommend owners find a food that had no corn, no sorghum and no by-products. Usually foods that checked off those three things satisfied all the other stuff people worried about. Nowadays, I also avoid legumes, including soy, and I worry about pea protein - I just think there are issues feeding those, but many feed them without issue, so it may come down to the overall quality of the food and the actual amounts.

So that's a bit of a food ramble. Again, I haven't looked at what's out there lately. Here for my digestively sensitive girl I feed some of the dehydrated foods.

I do the same and switch to an adult food at six months. Never had a problem with hips or Pano.

Welcome to the boards I switch my pups to an All Life Stages adult food at 6 months. Never had a problem with hips or Pano with any of my pups. I did all kinds of calculations on the calcium levels with different foods and really didn't come up with a problem. I also spoke to the company that makes my dog food and was assured it was safe.

Lisa is right. There's a concern that some dog foods cause diet related DCM in dogs. A common theme they are finding is dog food that has peas, pea protein and legumes in the top 5 ingredients could be contributing to it. There's another ingredient in there, just can't remember at this moment. Apparently, this condition mostly affects the Goldens, but GSDS have developed it. I feed Victor's Hi Pro Plus, so far so good.

Prior to Victor's I fed Taste of the Wild and Merrick. I never had a problem with either food, but they are both on the DCM list so I didn't want to take any chances.

Just wanted to add that there is a difference between "Adult" dog food and "All life Stages". The "All Life Stages can be fed to puppies, the "Adult' is for adult dogs only. I didn't realize that until one day when I was reading the TOTW Website.

Good luck with your pup. Do you have any pictures?