Changing my puppy's diet

Can anyone advise me?

Harvey is a delicious eight week old podgy bundle of spots and has been with us for four days now. He left his breeder on a diet of Pedigree puppy (complete dried food) mixed with Butcher's Tripe canned food three times a day plus one meal of raw mince. In terms of amount, we were advised to feed him all he will eat until he's six months old.

I have two questions:

1) Harvey is really quite porky(!) and the vet advised reducing his meals to three per day and only leaving his bowl down for five minutes, removing any he hasn't finished by then. His rationale for not allowing him to eat all he wants is that if we later have Harvey castrated while he's still on the podgy side, we may end up compounding any potential weight gain as a result of the op. Any clues as to which meal to drop - do we go to 'breakfast-lunch-tea' or 'breakfast-tea-supper', for example?

2) I'd like to end up feeding Harvey a complete dry food, rather than the mix he's having at the moment. All the advice is to make the change slowly. Can someone quantify 'slowly', please? For example, do I drop the canned food from one meal, or simply reduce slowly the percentage of canned until the meal is all dried? What about the raw mince - leave it in, take it out first . . .?? Help!

He's such a gorgeous, energetic little puppy and I really want to make sure he gets the same healthy start as my children when it comes to diet! I'm a first-time dog owner (can you tell???! ). All advice welcomed .

Sarah x

Hi Sarah changing slowly from ordinary to complete means mixing a lttle of each at food at every meal until you are on all complete.. never leave food down but remove after say ten mins.

Complete food has a low moisture content and dogs fed this food drink more, it takes a dogs tummy a little while to adjust to this change .

I would feed the amount according to the manufacturers instructions and
these vary with each type of food.

Maybe try a quality food like Burns...a complete food without additives...visit their site and request samples

Hi Sarah Have a look at this thread for opinions on Pedigree food

http://www.dogweb.co.uk/talkdogs/ped...ete_17793.html

Also I would not allow your pup to become overweight. As your vet has pointed out, this can cause problems later.

There are loads of good quality foods on the market: Burns, James Wellbeloved, Arden Grange, etc.

If you do a search in the diet and nutrition section of this forum you will come across many debates on which food is best, and, armed with knowledge, you can choose which food will suit your pup best. Good luck