Guest Anonymous Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 My dobie is about 6 & 1/2 months old and about 57 lbs. He is gonna be big for his breed and already looks pretty close to a normal adult Dobermans size. I've talked to my breeder and other Dobie owners and all have said to switch foods at about 6-7months of age. They say that puppy food have to much calcium in it for large breeds and a change to adult would be better. My vet says otherwise and says to stick with Innova Puppy food until 1yr of age. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with large breeds? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 We stuck with the puppy food until Rocky was a year old and then we switched to the adult formula. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 [quote name='Underdog']My dobie is about 6 & 1/2 months old and about 57 lbs. He is gonna be big for his breed and already looks pretty close to a normal adult Dobermans size. I've talked to my breeder and other Dobie owners and all have said to switch foods at about 6-7months of age. They say that puppy food have to much calcium in it for large breeds and a change to adult would be better. My vet says otherwise and says to stick with Innova Puppy food until 1yr of age. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with large breeds?[/quote] I gave up puppyfood for pups years ago with great success I have raised pups from weaning on using a premium complete adult food. I gave up the puppyfood due to all the evidence that the nutrients were not balanced for the pup's health but rather for deleteriously rapid growth - slow and steady makes for a much healther pup than fast and furious does when it comes to growth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aroura Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 In my experience, many breeders know alot more about dogs than vets, and certainly know alot more about their own pups! I'm all in for puppy food though personally, if they were unbalanced good brands like innova wouldn't make them. Of course alot of people here will disagree with me, but I beleive a good quality puppy food is best for growing pups. Not only do they need the extra calcium, they also need extra calories etc. Read the ingredience labels, compare the difference, price difference etc and make up your mind from there. I think your breeder is right though, vets have been lectured by pet food representatives - a multi billion dollar industry - so just go with what they have been told. Not many have done thier own research. Good choice of dog food though, if i fed my dogs a commercial diet and innova was available around here I would certainly feed it to my dogs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 Most breeders you speak with now do not even feed puppy food. They go straight to a high quality adult food off the bat! But if you do feed puppy food switch to adult at 5-6 months. Our vet switched Jac over at 5 months to adult because he was large as far as structure wise! (I had already switched him 2 weeks before though) :D :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 Thanks guys. I think I'll go with switching to adult food soon. It seems that for the Large Breeds you should switch to adult food sooner than you would for a small to medium size. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 I've always switched by dogs to adult food at least by 4 mos. I have large dogs, and I truly believe there's too much rapid growth w/puppy food. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.