What's the best dry food for a German Shepherd?

Answer 1

It´s not the food that makes it good or bad, it´s the particular dog (as I call them, "the individual").

Science Diet, Eukanuba, ProPlan, Natures Recipe, etc. are all what we call Prescription/Premium diets, then we have what we call comercial diets or the "supermarket brands" like Alpo, Pedigree, Dog Chow, Beneful, Ol´Roy, etc.

What you feed your dog has to do primarily with your pocket book, how much are you willing to spend? and most importantly, what special needs does YOUR dog have?.

The best advice I can give you is, try different brands, you should allow your dog to feed on a particular brand for at least 1 month, 2 is better. All changes in food should be done gradually, mix the old with the new, decreasing the old until you can ofer only the new.

Look for the following:

Amount, color, odor and consistency of hisher feces. This is a tell tale sign of how much food he is actually digesting and how much is being "waisted".

Hair --- is he/she shedding a lot more than usual? is it shiny or not?, dry, brittle, etc. Malnution usually manifests itself first in nails and hair. Malnutrition in dogs means they are not getting enough nutrients from the meal, even when they eat a lot or the suggested amont.

Body weight, is it muscle or fat? Does he look like a "hard body" or a tub, a lean dog in his proper weight will show the rib cage but not the ribs, a fat dog will have no waist.

Attitude ---- Very important, it makes absolutely no sense for you to spend 40 dollars on a premium dog food if your dog won´t eat it. Make sure that he LIKES it, if you have too much trouble, change it. Remember, this is YOUR dog and he will tell you what he likes and what he doesn´t.

(Warning: in my experience, Nature Recipie's venison diet, once they taste it they usually don´t want any of the others, I know a lady that lives in Mexico that has it imported because her Chihuahua (she takes her everywhere) is really finiky about food, and she just happened to help herself to my dogs´bowl when they were visiting, it´s the only food she´can get her to eat., other cases have happened when I take my troublemaker to be board, because he likes to share).

Read labels: puppies need more protein than adult dogs, also try to keep the artificial colors and flavors to a low, as well as salt.

AVOID any food that has ASH. This stuff is just bad.

Talk to your vet, not all breeds need more protein when growing, Great Danes should always be given "Large Breed Puppies" and keep the mineral intake balanced or they can develop some pretty bad health problems.

Always allow your pet to drink as much fresh, clean water as he/she wants, unless your vet says otherwise due to some health problem.

Never feed your dog Cat food, even if he/she likes it. It can cause digestive and most of all dental problems. the nutritinal requirements of the cat are very different than the dogs.

I hope this is helpful.

Answer 2

German Shepards tend to have hip and joint problems. You want a food that is for large breed dogs. Eukanuba is a good food for large breed dogs. Look in the ingredients section and make sure the food is recognized by the AAFCO. Foods that state that the just meet the requirments need a second look.

Answer 3

Thank God you are feeding your dog dry food instead of canned food. Canned food should be banned.

Feed it any dry food that contains no preservatives, as they cause dry itchy skin and other skin problems. I assume you know that dogs also need raw split marrow bones regularly, not good cuts of meat like steaks - in the wild, dogs would ignore the roast and steak cuts completely.

Answer 4

Pro Plan is a very good dog food and they have special formulas for your size of breed. Eukanuba uses corn as a filler and Pro Plan uses rice. A dog food that uses corn isnt very good b/c your dog will poop a lot more and not get the nutrients from the corn like he would from the rice.

Answer 5

Try ProPlan Large Breed.

Answer 6

I am going to say the scieence diet is best i have mine on it and have went through as many good foods as thare are and it is the best sheding is eleminated and my sheps have never looked as good.... I swear by it....

ask your vet what specific kind to get thehave a large breed puppy formula

Answer 7

Eucanuba

Answer 8

You need to check labels and make sure none of the first four ingredients have anything to do with corn.