How to Choose the Right Puppy Food

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Dr. Greg McDonald. I own McDonald Animal Hospital; I'm a Veterinarian in Southern California in Santa Barbara. I just want to talk a little bit about nutrition in your puppy. I think it's one of the most important things that we can do is to actually feed your puppy right and it's so important and it's so difficult for owners to try and figure out how to feed their puppy. So a lot of misinformation on the Internet as well as in pet food stores and certainly the grocery stores; my feeling is that you should be feeding a premium brand of food and I like the Science Diet. You can do both IAMS and Royal Canin is also an excellent diet. Some of these diets have like ten years of research involve in them and if you think about it, they're not going to change the ingredients when there's been ten years of research if one of the ingredients gets to be more expensive. The other thing about puppies is it's very important to pick a, a a dog food that matches your puppy's size. Puppies who grow very quickly become problematical and if they're fed too rich a diet they can actually end up with joint disease. So they have a product called Large Breed Puppy and Large Breed Puppy is really really good for dogs that are big dogs because it prevents them from growing too fast and having joint disease. There's still a, a raging controversy over whether wet or dry is good for your dog. I think a lot of Veterinarians think that wet should be the only kind. I think also that there are Veterinarians who think dry is certainly fine. I think with the new premium brands; I know a little bit more worried about feeding a premium brand of food. Again, once again, people just think that they can save a little bit of money and get a cheaper dog food and they end up causing some problems with their dog and then they spend all their money with their Veterinarian instead of on a good plan of nutrition. So I think that when your dog gets to be a little older, it's pretty important; people are always wanting to know how much to feed the dog; I think it's really important to take something like this cup and measure the amount that your dog's getting and then you can watch and see if you're feeding the dog twice a day at a certain amount in the feeding each time and your dog is gaining weight, then you need to either increase the exercise or cut back the amount of food."