Puppy Food

What do you look for in a good puppy, or all life stage, food? Maybe my Google Foo is bad today, but when I try to look stuff up all I'm coming up with are dog food websites. No thanks! Currently the pups are on Purina Puppy Chow Healthy Morsel. I'll pick up a small bag to help with changing over, but I'd like to get him on a better food as soon as I can.


Thanks!

-I look for the right C Ratio, especially for larger breeds you want them to grow SLOWY (TOTW is a great example of a food that is great for adult.. but I've heard a few formulas don't have the right ratio for growing pups)
The ideal calcium content, on a dry weight basis is 0.7%-1.2%..the lower the better for big puppies

- I look for the usual grain-free stuff.. no corn. meat meat meat etc..
I'm ok, for puppies, if food has rice and oatmeal and such if it's low on the ingredient list. Especially if pup has never gone grain-free..

- Food owned by family or individual.. not huge corp with huge plant somewhere

- I like poultry more than other proteins. Duck, chicken, turkey etc.. No REAL reason, I just think it's easier for puppy tummies and switching
Personal preferences? In the world of puppy food. I like Fromm Large breed puppy.
ALS? I like Acana

Thanks Fran. Do you happen to know what the right C ratio is?

If you want to go with a specific puppy formula, I really like Fromm Gold, Nature's Variety Prairie, and Orijen - I would check those out as a starting point!

Would Earthborn Holistic be at all puppy appropriate? I like Fromm and Acana/Orijen a lot.

Earthborn's Meadow Feast and Great Plains Feast are appropriate Ca ratio for large breed puppies. They're all fine for med/small puppies.

Its interesting that no body has mentioned raw (meat and bones) diets at all in here. Cant believe that everyone is still buying commecial grains for their carnivore dogs, but each to their own. I fed mine on pellets for the first year, just to make the vet rich.

Puppies in the wild have chewed up meat for food, and they learn to chew on small bones like lamb ribs and chicken necks (well thats what we give domestic dogs).

Just saying ... please dont hound me out of here!

I bought a small bag of what the breeder was feeding yesterday. Gag. I told Ben that I felt I needed my dog owner card revoked. He said, "I thought Purina was a good dog food"

I need to check out of the pet stores to see exactly what they carry. I was hoping to stop by yesterday but it took longer to get the first coat of paint on the living room that we originally thought. There is another store that isn't too far away that ,based on their website, carries the Acana line, so that is also always an option.

Worst case, there is always the interwebs

Plenty of us around here for RAW/partial raw. But we try to not push our feeding choices on others, especially in threads where the question is about traditional store brought food. Everyone here KNOWS about raw..so it's not like this would be LostAndConfused' first time hearing about it. And the question asked was about kibble food so that's the question we are answering here

We are big supporters of raw around here, but like to encourage healthy eating for all types of dogs and homes, including those who for, whatever reason, can't feed raw.
This isn't the kind of forum where we run people off for not choosing RAW or push it in every thread and make people feel bad for not being able to..We work hard to make sure people are informed and work with them to feed the healthiest thing possible within their budget, their needs, their wants, for their dog.

Yeah, I know about feeding raw but at this point it just not feasible. I really don't have access to an affordable way to feed that right now. maybe when we move back to Ohio, not right now, which is why I'm looking at commercial kibble.