Question Regarding Food

[Joanie]

Hi Everyone :)  I have a question regarding food.  I was speaking to Lani's breeder last night and she asked what food I have been feeding her.  I have her and my English Bulldog on Wellness Ocean Whitefish and Sweet Potato which is a limited ingredient food.  The breeder told me Wellness is not a good food.  Every review I have read said it's a very good food.  She said there is not a high meat content in the food and is not of high quality. Also, she said I should be feeding chicken or beef or venison foods and never fish based because fish oil has been tied to canine cancer!  Please let me know.  Is Wellness a good food?  Is fish based food really bad?

[Joanie]

Thanks :)  I gotta tell you, I didn't know there was so much to learn about canine nutrition until years ago when I got my yorkie, Sky and started to learn.  When my husband and I got our English Bulldog I kept insisting that right away we get her on a high quality food.  My husband thought I was crazy... he wanted to feed her Gravy Train or some other food you can pick up in the supermarket and I said absolutely not.  So, I try to feed my babies the best food I can afford, I just got scared because I thought the breeder knew something more about food than I did and when she said Wellness was a bad food I was like oh no I don't want my babies eating a bad food and one that could harm them.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

The Free Trade Agreement has changed the whole playing field when it comes to feeding dogs. (And even people; the human food supply chain is closely linked to the animal feed supply chain.)  Years ago, you could buy even something like Gravy Train and know that while it may have contained chicken beaks and by-products, at least they came from U.S. sources and it didn't contain melamine from China disguised as protein. So when your DH or anyone else tells you that they fed their dog Alpo or something and the dog lived to be 19, remind them that those products were made in the U.S. from U.S. sourced ingredients and had some quality control behind them.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

We usually recommend that you not switch a puppy's food for at least two weeks after they come home, for a variety of reasons, even if the current food is poor quality. There are a few reasons for this, we have quite a bit of info on transitioning a puppy's food in the Food Group. 

The early food change, plus the fresh foods you are giving (fresh foods and variety are good, it's just that you don't want to introduce a variety of new foods too soon with new puppies) may have been one reason that it seemed to you that Lani had a sensitive stomach. I would not make any further changes in her food for a while, and if you decide to go with a higher protein formula, which I recommend, do it very very slowly.  

[Joanie]

thanks Karen for all your great advice :)