I absolutely disagree with NOT feeding puppies puppy food. There are vital trace minerals and other nutrients in proper amounts, which are essential for puppies to develop properly, in puppy food. It is designed for them. What causes bone and joint problems in large breed dogs is primarily being overweight as puppies. You can cause a lot of damage by depriving your puppy of these nutrients. I recommend looking into it further and consider your sources from where you get your information. Talk to vets. Believe it or not, they have gone to school for a very long time and studied anatomy and physiology of animals, know how their bones develop etc.... and you can even find a nutritionalist.
I've had GSDs, Labs, larger sized mutts, Doberman, smaller dogs and I always fed puppy food for a year. Get a premium one like Chicken Soup or Canidae, Innova....there are several. I've never had a dog with any hip or other skeletal problems what so ever, other than a little old age arthritis.