Feeding Your Puppy (and Avoiding a Vet-Scale Shaming Incident)

Twenty-five years, five dogs, and one mortifying moment beside a vet's scales: that's the honest foundation for everything I'm about to share about feeding your puppy well.

I've had dogs that needed to lose weight, a dog that needed to gain it urgently, and one who simply refuses to eat her meals indoors under any circumstances whatsoever.  Between them, Ellie, Jazz, Pepsi, Boodle and Mouse have taught me that getting nutrition right is less about finding a perfect universal system and more about paying close attention to the actual dog in front of you.

Here's what I've learned — practically, honestly and with the vet-scale incident delivered in full.

Choosing the Right Puppy Food

The most important rule is also the simplest: feed a food made for puppies, not adults.  Puppy foods are formulated to support the rapid growth that happens in that first year, and adult food simply doesn't deliver what a growing puppy needs.

Choose a complete puppy food appropriate to your puppy's life stage and breed size, from a reputable manufacturer.  Small-breed and large-breed puppies have genuinely different nutritional requirements, and good manufacturers account for this in their formulations.  Your vet is the most useful resource for working out what suits your individual puppy — they can cut through the noise of the pet-food aisle in about thirty seconds.

For what it's worth, we use Pets at Home's own-brand AVA, mixed with a cheap meaty topper to make it smell more appealing.  I know this is not glamorous.  It works.  If you add a topper, make sure it's dog-safe and contains no onion or garlic — both are toxic to dogs.  Adding a small splash of boiled water to dry kibble is worth trying too: it releases the smell and makes the whole bowl considerably more enticing, especially for a puppy who's being picky.

How Often and How Much: Getting the Schedule Right

Young puppies need feeding more frequently than adult dogs.  Three to four meals a day is the right starting point, reducing to two meals as they grow.  The feeding guide on your food packaging gives you a useful baseline portion, but treat it as a starting point rather than an absolute rule — puppies vary, and you'll need to adjust based on how yours is doing.

Consistent mealtimes help with digestion and, perhaps more usefully, with routine.  Puppies notice patterns quickly and a predictable schedule makes the whole day easier to manage for both of you.  Free feeding — leaving food down all day — makes it genuinely difficult to monitor how much your puppy is eating or spot early changes in appetite, so it's worth avoiding.

Then there's Boodle.  Boodle is devoted to life, deeply gentle and very keen to please — except when it comes to mealtimes.  She will not eat her meals inside.  Rain, cold, wind — none of it matters.  She wants to be served at the back door, and that is simply that.  We don't know why.  At some point, you accept these things and get on with it.

The broader point is that feeding routines are partly about you and partly about what your dog will actually engage with.  The goal is a puppy who's eating consistently and growing well, not a dog who performs mealtimes for your convenience.

Treats and Training Snacks

Treats are enormously useful for training, but they work best when they're kept in proportion.  A reasonable guideline is that treats shouldn't account for more than about 10% of your puppy's daily calorie intake — not a clinical rule, but a useful way to keep things roughly balanced.

For training rewards, small pieces of cooked chicken have worked brilliantly across the pack over the years.  Cheese is another reliable motivator — Jazz absolutely loved it, and tuna has always gone down well too.  Keep cheese to very small pieces offered occasionally; it's rich enough that more than a sliver adds up quickly.

Jazz loved garden peas too, as does Mouse.  Mouse is highly food-motivated despite being tiny, which sounds ideal for training until you factor in that too many treats make her sick.  A single garden pea turns out to be exactly the right size for a reward when you are the dimensions of Mouse.  Pepsi, at the other end of the enthusiasm spectrum, eats at a speed that suggests she believes each meal might be her last — for Pepsi, almost anything edible qualifies as an excellent treat.

Some foods are toxic to dogs and must never be offered: chocolate, grapes, raisins, onions, garlic and xylitol — the artificial sweetener found in some peanut butters and sugar-free products — are the most important ones to be aware of.  If you're unsure about a specific food, check before offering it.

Fresh water should be available at all times, not just after walks or in warm weather.  It's easy to overlook and easy to sort.

Supplements: When to Consider Adding Something Extra

Supplements are rarely necessary for a healthy puppy eating a complete food, and this article is really about puppies rather than the joint-support conversations that come later.  The short version: don't add anything to a puppy's diet without speaking to your vet first, because more isn't always better.

We used glucosamine for Ellie in her older years to support her joints, and we're starting to think about it for Pepsi now as she slows down a little — but both of those are very much older-dog decisions, taken with vet input, not something that featured in either dog's puppy years.  Your vet will tell you if and when a supplement becomes relevant for your dog.

Switching Foods Without Upsetting Anyone's Stomach

If you need to move your puppy onto a different food, do it gradually.  A sudden switch is one of the more reliable ways to cause digestive upset, and that benefits no one.

Mix a small amount of the new food into the existing food and increase the proportion steadily over about a week.  If you notice loose stools, vomiting or your puppy going off their food, slow the transition down and give them more time to adjust.  If problems persist, speak to your vet before carrying on.

Monitoring Growth: The Scale, the Ribs and the Shaming Incident

Keeping an eye on your puppy's weight is worth doing regularly, not just at scheduled vet appointments.  One easy method: weigh yourself on your bathroom scales, then weigh yourself holding your dog and subtract the difference.  For a very small dog like Mouse, kitchen scales and a mixing bowl work just as well.

The rib test is also genuinely useful.  You should be able to feel your puppy's ribs without pressing hard, but not see them clearly from across the room.  If you can't feel them at all, the food intake may need adjusting.  If they're visible without any searching, the puppy needs more.

And now, the promised incident.  A few years ago, I took Jazz to the vet and she was deemed overweight.  We were paraded solemnly over to the scales.  She weighed 18kg.  She should have been around 16kg.  I was mortified.  The cause was entirely straightforward: as Jazz had got older and less active, I hadn't reduced her portion size to match.  She was eating the same amount she always had and going on fewer long runs.  The solution was simple — smaller portions — and she got back down to 16kg without drama.

Mouse's story ran in the opposite direction entirely.  She came home at just 900g, and the vet wanted to see her gain weight.  We increased her meals from three to four a day and added a different kibble topped with warmed dog-safe gravy.  In two weeks, she had put on 300g.  The vet was satisfied.  What worked for Mouse under those circumstances is not a template for every small puppy, but it's a good reminder that the scale can go wrong in both directions and that small adjustments can make a real difference quickly.

Jazz over the recommended weight because her portions didn't shift with her age.  Mouse under the recommended weight and needing an urgent nudge in the right direction.  Boodle eating her meals outside in the rain because that is simply what she does.  Five dogs over 25 years have been consistent proof that there is no single feeding plan that works for every dog, at every stage, in every household.  What does work is attention — watching how your puppy is growing and adjusting when something isn't quite right.  The vet-scale incident only happened because I stopped noticing.