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Puppies need and use a lot of energy, so nutritional requirements for young dogs include increased protein to support healthy growth. Once puppies are weaned, which is around 5-6 weeks of age, they'll get all their nutrition from dog food, so it is important to not only choose something that's tasty, but healthy too.
To start with, puppies may require three to four smaller meals a day before slowly being transitioned to two larger meals per day. Expect puppies to play with their food at first. While eating may start as a game, young dogs will enjoy the taste and look forward to the flavours and sensations of chewing. It may help to slightly moisten dry food to get your dog comfortable chewing.
Depending on the breed size, you may want to consider a ‘slow feeder'. This is a type of feeding bowl that will stop your dog from inhaling their food, which can result in them being sick. These are especially useful for Labradors.
There are a lot of diets out there, so make sure you do your research. You can get breed-specific diets, but for puppies the most important thing is a ‘puppy-specific diet’.
At Coquet Vets, we recommend Hill’s or Virbac—both are great diets and full of nutritional goods to help your puppy to grow strong and healthy. Hill’s and Virbac also provide life stage diets, so you can start with puppy all the way through to geriatric.
Hill’s offers money back on every bag bought. It is very simple; you just need to sign up through their website.
Virbac offers a one-time buy-one-get-one-free to trial your puppy for a good few weeks, then if they like it, you can move to Virbac’s buy-five-get-one-free offer.
You need to let your puppy try the food for at least 4-6 weeks. Swapping and changing the food just because they have gone off it for one or two days can lead to all sorts of issues in the future. The main issue is that your dog can become very fussy, and you will be constantly trying to find different diets, which is unnecessary and can also cause digestion upsets.
If you are concerned about your puppy’s eating routine, or you want more advice on nutritional diets to support your puppy’s growth and good health, call us today on 01665 252 250.
Promotion - Vaccine Amnesty Month - July 2025
Preventative health care is one of our main priorities at Coquet Vets, which is why we are running a vaccination amnesty month for dogs, cats, and rabbits. Get your pet back up to date with their vaccinations this July, with a vaccination restart!
