What is the best food to feed my Maltese puppy?

Question

I just purchased a Maltese puppy and he will be coming home in about a week. He is 3 months old and weighs about 2 lbs. The breeder is currently feeding him Eukanuba puppy food, but I know there are much better brands out there. I am considering Inova, Nutro Natural Choice, Canidae, or any other high quality food like these.

My main concern is this. As you may know a Maltese has a very delicate coat and digestive system.

What ingredients should I look for that will give him all the nutrition he needs and that will keep his skin and coat in top condition? I am looking for a food that will reduce problems like staining, dry skin, and hair breakage.

Answer 1

My vet has told me this- look at the ingredient. on the dog food bag- first ingredient should be poultry, beef, lambs rice- second one of the ones listed above- never corn/cornmeal as the first ingredient! also if they are sensitive you may have to make sure soy is not a top ingredient too! We have an English Bulldog so I know what you mean!  

Answer 2

Innova and Canidae are high quality, but Nutro is not. Eukanuba is even worse.

Not all pet food is made equally. A lot of it is full of corn, by-products, dyes, unhealthy preservatives, filler grains and all sorts of nasty stuff. A lot of pet food companies are perfectly happy to dump cheap leftovers in. Will it kill your dog? No, it has to be nutritionally complete and safe to even be marketed. Is it healthy? Not by a long shot.

Corn is a low quality ingredient you never want to see in your pet food. Corn and low quality grains are two of the biggest culprits when it comes to food allergies in our pets.

Thankfully, there are some excellent dog foods being made these days that include organic, human grade ingredients rather than trash not fit for human consumption.

Examples of low quality foods to avoid: Anything you can find in a grocery store will be low end, Purina, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Royal Canin, Pedigree, Kibbles n' Bits, Beneful, Ol'Roy.

Examples of high quality foods to look for: Innova, Wellness, Solid Gold, Canidae All Life Stages, Fromm Four Star, Merrick, GO Natural, Nature's Variety Prairie, Nature's Logic, Artemis Fresh Mix.

Although the high quality foods are more expensive, you're getting what you're paying for. Less filler material means more concentrated nutrients... this means you typically need to feed far less of the high quality food than you would of the low quality one. Which also means less p**p!

A great option is to go with an entirely grainless diet. Many of the high quality foods now put out grainless formulas. Some good grainless diet's include: Innova EVO, Wellness CORE, Blue Wilderness, Nature's Variety Instinct, Orijen, Fromm Surf & Turf, Now! and Sold Gold Barking At The Moon, Taste of the Wild.

Some pretty decent foods can even be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness, Solid Gold, Natural Balance, Eagle Pack Holistic, Blue Buffalo, Castor & Pollux Organix, Pinnacle, and Halo. If you can't find a food, most of the high quality food brands have websites with store locators on them.

Remember that foods should be switched gradually, especially when switching to a higher quality one, so as not to upset tummies.

Another option for feeding dogs is to feed raw. This is something that should be thoroughly researched before being attempted:

http://www.barfworld.com/

http://www.rawfed.com/

http://www.rawlearning.com/

http://www.wysong.net/controversies/rawm...

More on dog food:

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?...  (Learn how to determine the quality of your dog's food.)

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_... (Dog food reviews. Four stars is a decent food, five stars is a great food, and six stars is an excellent food.)

Answer 3

I fed my Bichons boiled skinless and boneless chicken mashed up with cooked white rice, in a bowl with a pinch of butter and a tiny bit of salt, until they were each a year old.

After a year old I added an on demand feeder with dry kibble in it. I still make their food with one part cooked meat (beef or chicken or fish-all boneless) to one part Lil Cesar, with a slight pinch of butter and salt with a few drops of vitamin supplement.

My babies are pure muscle, pure energy, and the pinch of butter adds just enough fat to their diet to help keep some fat on their bodies and their skin supple.

Always ask your vet before putting your dogs on self prescribed diet plans.  Some breed have requirements which differ from other breeds and it is important that you understand what the needs of your breed are.

Answer 4

nutro is not the best food, it is basically on the same boat as the eukanuba, they keep changing their ingredients in the food,( I used to work at a pet shop, and noticed that the ingredients were different than a previous bag, they recently were also having difficulty with the grain that the use in there food, some of it was bad, that is why the pet shop i worked at and all the others stores can not get in certain nutro products) I feed my husky Solid Gold dog food. it is one of the more high quality pet foods, it is made here in the usa, and was not on the recall list.

The food contains no filler, corn, soy, sugar, salt, by-products, wheat, preservatives, artificial colors, no added animal fat, it only contains the fat that naturally occurs in the meat, they are a meat based food, so their first ingredient is always a meat, they are also holistic, and very very healthy, for you dog I would suggest that you use Hundenflocken which is the lamb and rice formula, lamb and rice is excellent for the dogs skin and coat, it keeps it extremely healthy and full, i am not to sure about the staining around the eyes though, you would have to get some one Else's opinion on that.

Solid Gold is an extremely healthy food which contains all the nutrients that your dog needs, they also have a wee bit formula, for small breed dogs and dogs that prefer a smaller bite, but they only have that formula in bison and salmon, which still is good for a dogs coat but the lamb and rice does a better job, solid gold is also very good for dogs that have allergies, because solid gold does not use corn and wheat and chicken which are the main allergies in dogs today. If you want to read information yourself on the dog food here is the website

http://www.solidgoldhealth.com/products/...

My dog does very well on this food, his coat is so beautiful and soft, the petshop that I worked at sold solid gold, there are a lot of people who have had so many great expriences with this food, as I did, and I will not feed my dog anything else.

Answer 5

Here are some good quality foods. ANYTHING you get at a grocery store is c**p!

Orijen

Wellness

Wellness CORE

Merrick

Innova

Canidae

Solid Gold

Here is a website that may help you.

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_...

Stick with the 4,5,and 6 star foods. 1,2,and 3 are mostly all junk!

Chicken Soup for the Dogs Lovers Soul

Answer 6

LISTEN TO A VET!!!!!