Puppy food advice

[Jreed95]

I have a 16 week old rottweiler cross staffy female called Roxy, for a about she's been having soft stools sometimes runny, ive weighed at 15 an she was 10.2kg she's been fully vaccinated an wormed recently, she eats Harrington's puppy food about 210g every day in 3 meals but recently split it to 2 to see if it helped which is has not, after recently reading that Harrington's isn't the best I'm looking for an alternative that might solve this, for the meantime I've bought some pedigree vital protection wet food to try an blend with it to see if this helps until I find a better food to switch to, any help would be greatly appreciated thank you.

[Rebecca Forrest]

I have red setter who had plenty of problems with soft poo and upset tummy and have tried lots of different dog foods. He is now 3 and I have realised that he does not do well on dried foods, so is now on one meal of raw and one meal of a food called Pure dog food which is a food that you have to re hydrate , not cheap but you get what you pay for. It is a very good food. Lots of help on the website.
If you do not want to go down the raw route or wet food , then milles dry dog food is very good,they do small bags so you can try for a small price  and they are very good at helping on the phone.
At 16 weeks it is best to give 3 meals, and just look on the directory and see what is the best food for your puppy, and your purse. I hope that you can find one food that suits your puppy .

[Petmum]

As Rebecca says I’d definitely keep your pup on 3 meals or even 4 a day at her age.
I had a dog who often had tummy upsets and found Forthglade’s grain free wet food trays helped sort this. I used to mix with kibble for him; if you wanted to use a kibble it may be worth trying a cold pressed one. Forthglade do a range which they say is fine to use alongside their wet food but there are others on the market such as Guru and Gentle. Many people find cold pressed food is good for sensitive tums, if you do decide to change to this it’s probably best to transition by feeding one meal of her old food, followed by one of cold pressed, gradually increasing the number of cold pressed meals as this type of kibble breaks down in a dog’s stomach differently to conventional, extruded kibbles.
Most of these foods are all lifestages so fine to feed to a puppy, though  I would check this with each food.  If you did want to feed a specifically targeted puppy food another cold pressed brand which has  one within its range is Tribal TLC.
Good luck and let us know how Roxy gets on.

[Dottie]

Some good advice given so only want to add that having checked the review of Harrington’s Puppy Food I noticed that it has maize as the first ingredient. Some dogs cannot tolerate this. There is a thread here about what to look for when choosing pet food.  There is another thread on feeding dogs with a sensitive digestive system here.

[Carra-Pet Foods]

if you do decide to change to this it’s probably best to transition by feeding one meal of her old food, followed by one of cold pressed, gradually increasing the number of cold pressed meals as this type of kibble breaks down in a dog’s stomach differently to conventional, extruded kibbles.

You're correct in saying a pressed kibble digests completely differently to an extruded kibble and for this reason Prins strongly recommend that you should instantly change over, not to alternate meals and definitely not to mix the pressed & extruded kibble in the same meal.

It's always possible that you can get some minor stomach issues when changing food but Prins believe that mixing or alternating between pressed and extruded is more likely to cause stomach issues than an instant change over.