How Much Should I Feed My Puppy?

A Complete Puppy Feeding Guide with Chart how-much-to-feed-a-puppy-feeding-guide-and-chart The decisions you make about your puppy’s nutrition will affect his growth, development and even his behavior. Feeding your puppy a high-quality, complete and balanced puppy food helps set him up for a long and healthy life as an adult dog. This raises a lot of questions for first-time (and even veteran) puppy owners, though. How much should you feed your puppy and when? When should you stop feeding puppy food? Get answers to these questions and more in our complete puppy feeding guide below. Our experts answer your questions and offer advice to help set you and your puppy up for success. What to Feed a Puppy When it comes to feeding puppies, there are a lot of factors to consider. Overall nutrition, breed size and the type of food all play a role. Here’s what you need to know: Puppy Nutrition Puppies need puppy food. Feeding puppies a complete and balanced puppy food ensures they get the proper nutrition to develop and grow into healthy adult dogs. Puppy foods are formulated with a balance of nutrients to help puppies grow up healthy and happy. Look for formulas rich in high-quality proteins to support their growing bodies. Fat and carbohydrates supply the energy active and playful puppies need, while calcium supports developing teeth and bones and DHA helps support healthy brain and vision development. Feeding Puppies Large & Small Not only do puppies need puppy food, but certain breed sizes can benefit from size-specific formulas. If you have a large breed puppy, he may benefit from a large breed-specific puppy formula. Small breeds can also benefit from small breed-specific puppy formulas. Regardless of breed size, the food should be complete and balanced for growing puppies. The difference in formulas comes down to the unique needs of large and small breeds. Large dogs have a higher risk of developing joint problems, so a large breed puppy food should include proper levels of nutrients to support their healthy growth and development. Small breeds may prefer smaller kibble so they can more easily chew their food, which helps ensure they get all the nutrients they need. According to Purina Nutritionist, Karina Carbo-Johnson, MS, “Small breed-specific dog food is important due to their increased metabolism. This results in a nutrient-dense, high-energy formula which adults and puppies need to support a healthy lifestyle.” Dry vs. Wet Puppy Food Although dry kibble is a popular choice, it’s not the only option. As you walk the dog food aisles, you may see both dry and wet puppy foods. This can make it harder to decide what to feed your puppy. Fortunately, as long as both the wet and dry formulas are complete and balanced for growing puppies, you can feed either one to your pup with confidence. You and your puppy may have a preference when it comes to dry versus wet. Feeding a combination of the two is also an option. According to Purina Nutritionist, Allison Millican, PhD, “If you’re feeding your puppy a combination of wet and dry food, it is extremely important to ensure the total caloric value does not fall short or exceed their daily energy requirement. Use the calories reported on the package to understand how much wet food will replace the dry and vice versa. This allows you to calculate the amount of each product needed to meet your puppy’s nutritional requirements.” “For example,” Millican explains, “one thirteen-ounce can of wet puppy food may contain four hundred and seventy-five kilocalories and replace approximately one cup of a dry puppy formula with a similar value of kilocalories per cup. In this scenario, you could substitute a thirteen-ounce can of wet food for one cup of the daily dry food recommendation. “Remember puppies will grow at various rates and body condition may change rapidly,” she says. “As a result, it is extremely important to monitor your puppy’s body condition and adjust calorie intake as needed to prevent over- or underfeeding your puppy,” Millican continues. The brand websites and your veterinarian are great resources and can help you develop a feeding plan specifically for your puppy’s needs. How Much to Feed a Puppy Now you know what to feed your puppy, but just how much food does he need each day? Because puppies grow at such fast rates, they need to start eating a complete and balanced puppy food as soon as they’re weaned, usually between six and eight weeks. The amount of food your puppy needs depends on how much he’ll weigh at maturity. A Labrador Retriever will weigh more at maturity than a Russell Terrier, for example. So, the larger dog requires more food as a puppy. The chart below can help you determine how much dry food to feed your puppy. You should also review the specific feeding instructions on the back of his puppy food and consult with your veterinarian.