How to feed your puppy?

To properly feed a puppy, it is essential to follow a specific diet from birth until 9 to 12 months for small and medium breeds, and until 18 to 24 months for large breeds. A puppy's diet is important to meet its nutritional needs, ensure its growth, and prevent deficiencies. Mother's milk, wet food, or kibble: the Tomojo team explains how to feed your puppy!

Dietary Transitions in Puppies: Stages and Evolution

There are 4 dietary phases for puppies:

A puppy's diet changes several times during its first year of life. Each phase change corresponds to a period:

• The pre-weaning period: 0 to 4 weeks
• The progressive weaning period: 4 weeks to 8 weeks
• The post-weaning period: 2 months to 6 months

Pre-weaning Period

The pre-weaning period runs from birth until the 4th week of the puppy's life. A puppy under 1 month old feeds exclusively on its mother's milk.

If the nursing female does not produce enough milk, or in case of abandonment, the puppy's diet consists of puppy formula milk.

Mother's milk is particularly rich to allow puppies in the litter to gain weight quickly. It also provides puppies with the nutrients they need to live, acquire immunity, and stay hydrated, which is very important.

The milk is so nutritious that it allows for an average weight gain of 20 g per day for small breed puppies and up to 100 g per day and more, for large breed puppies.

Progressive Weaning Period

The progressive weaning period for puppies begins at 4 weeks and lasts until 8 weeks (puppy aged 1 to 2 months).

The diet of a 1 to 2 month old puppy evolves: you can start giving puppy kibble or wet puppy food to your furry friend.

To stop mother's or formula milk, and gradually accustom your puppy to its new diet, make a dietary transition. This step is crucial to avoid digestive problems, diarrhea, and dehydration.

🦴 Tomojo's puppy kibble 🧡

How to change a puppy's diet?

1. Prepare a small amount of puppy kibble
2. Mix it with warm water or wet food to soften it
3. Increase the amount of kibble daily until weaning by the mother.

Moistening the kibble makes it softer, thus easier for puppies to chew, as they do not yet have all their teeth.

The progressive weaning period for the puppy is important for the nursing female, as the puppies begin to have small, sharp teeth that can irritate her teats. Furthermore, her milk production will gradually decrease until it stops.

Post-weaning Period

The post-weaning period starts from the 8th week of the puppy's life until adulthood.

The puppy is now weaned. Its diet consists exclusively of puppy kibble or wet puppy food.

Puppy food (wet food or kibble) should be healthy, complete, energetic, and caloric to allow the puppy to grow and play big games with its siblings.

As soon as your puppy has finished growing, it can transition to adult dog food.

The age at which a puppy stops growing varies depending on its breed:

• small breeds (Pomeranian, Chihuahua, etc.): 9 to 12 months
• medium breeds (Staffie, Cocker Spaniel, Australian Shepherd, Border Collie, Eurasier, etc.): 12 to 18 months
• large breeds (Pyrenean Shepherd, Great Dane, Cane Corso, etc.): 12 to 24 months

The energetic needs of an adult dog change: it needs less rich and less caloric food. Again, it is essential to make a transition from puppy food to adult dog food to avoid digestive problems and weight gain.

Wet or Dry Puppy Food: Which to Choose?

There are 2 types of puppy food:

• dry food: puppy kibble
• wet food: puppy pâté

Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each type of puppy food:

There is no perfect formula applicable to all puppies, as they are all different. You can choose a 100% kibble diet, 100% pâté, or a mixed diet for your puppy.

Mixed food, meaning pâté mixed with kibble, has the advantage of making puppy food more attractive and appetizing, in addition to maintaining good hydration.

Are you tempted by homemade puppy food? It is not recommended to prepare homemade meals for a puppy. If you want to do so, seek guidance from a veterinary nutritionist specialized in puppy nutrition. Their role is to calculate the quantities of nutrients, vitamins, and trace elements adapted to the puppy's age, breed, and size, and to suggest appropriate recipes.

How to feed my puppy kibble?

Your 3 to 6 month old puppy's diet should be divided into 3 to 4 meals and given at fixed times (puppies, like adult dogs, love routine!). From 6 months and older: divide the daily ration into 2 portions, one in the morning and one in the evening.

Fractioning a puppy's meals is important because its stomach capacity is small, so it's necessary to avoid overfilling it. An overly full stomach can cause significant intestinal pain during digestion, and lead to nausea, vomiting, soft stools, or even diarrhea.

Feeding your puppy several meals a day is the ideal solution to provide it with the energy it needs, without risking its well-being and health.

How much kibble to feed your puppy?

Here is a table of kibble quantities for puppies based on general estimates:

To assess the daily portion of puppy food, refer to the information provided on the back of the package or can. Brands give indications of kibble quantities for feeding a puppy according to age, weight, and potentially breed.

Here is a table of kibble quantities for Tomojo puppies:

How to tell if your puppy is eating enough?

Despite the indications provided by brands, it is difficult to assess whether your dog is eating enough.

To help you, here are some signs to look for:

Puppy kibble: what should it contain?

Puppy kibble should contain proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and trace elements to meet their nutritional needs.

Proteins

The protein content in puppy kibble should be at least 30%.

Puppies are opportunistic carnivores, meaning their diet needs to be primarily composed of animal proteins, such as beef, poultry, fish, or insect proteins.

Proteins in a puppy's diet are essential for:

• providing energy,
• structuring organs, skin, and muscles
• creating enzymes and hormones that ensure the proper functioning of your pet's body and internal exchanges
• producing antibodies for a functional immune system

The amount of protein is a significant criterion for choosing your puppy's food, but protein digestibility is equally important. It is crucial that the proteins provided to your puppy contain all the essential amino acids for their growth.

Certain traditional meats (beef and chicken) can, in some cases, cause skin and/or digestive allergies in young dogs.

🦴 Our kibbles are hypoallergenic

Fats

Fats, also known as lipids, should make up at least 10% of puppy kibble.

A puppy's diet must contain enough fats to provide them with sufficient energy for growth and to transport vitamins throughout their body.

Choose a puppy food with fatty acids: omega 3 and 6. Often called "good fats," they promote the development of your furry friend's nervous system and brain.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are important for feeding your puppy because they are sources of energy and fiber. However, they can be present in limited quantities, as puppies have the ability to produce carbohydrates from ingested proteins.

Fibers contribute to the proper functioning of the digestive system. Your puppy's digestive comfort and intestinal transit are therefore partly ensured by the fibers in carbohydrates.

Vitamins

Vitamins are essential to ensure your puppy's proper development and provide healthy growth.

Here are the recommended amounts:

• Vitamin A: 5,000 to 25,000 IU/kg of food
• Vitamin D3: 500 to 2,000 IU/kg of food
• Vitamin E: 50 to 500 mg/kg of food

Vitamin A is essential for vision, cell growth, and immunity; vitamin D affects metabolism; and vitamin E is an antioxidant that supports immune defenses and fights cell aging.

With a balanced and vitamin-rich puppy diet, you can be sure to meet your furball's nutritional needs to help them grow into a healthy adult.

Minerals and trace elements

Minerals and trace elements must also be present in sufficient quantities in your puppy's kibble.

Amount of essential minerals in puppy food:

• Calcium (Ca): approximately 1 to 1.8% of dry matter.
• Phosphorus (P): approximately 0.8 to 1.6%.
• Magnesium (Mg): around 0.06 to 0.1%.
• Potassium (K): approximately 0.6%.
• Sodium (Na): approximately 0.3%.
• Chloride (Cl): approximately 0.45%.

Amount of trace elements in puppy food:

• Iron (Fe): approximately 80 mg/kg of food.
• Copper (Cu): approximately 7.5 to 15 mg/kg.
• Zinc (Zn): approximately 100 mg/kg.
• Manganese (Mn): approximately 5 mg/kg.
• Iodine (I): approximately 1.5 mg/kg.
• Selenium (Se): approximately 0.3 mg/kg.

Calcium and phosphorus are essential for building strong bones and teeth. To choose a good puppy food, you can calculate the Ca/P ratio. The amount of calcium should be at least equal to or up to twice that of phosphorus.

Indeed, phosphorus allows the assimilation of calcium, and calcium enables skeleton formation in puppies. These two combined elements are essential to ensure your furball's proper growth and skeleton mineralization.

Which puppy kibble brands should you choose?

To choose the best puppy food:

• check the composition
• verify the protein and fat levels
• choose a brand that reflects your values

To help you, here's a comparison of the main puppy food brands:

Overall, all brands offer puppy food rich in protein, with a content between 30% and 32%.

Regarding fats, Royal Canin and Purina Pro Plan puppy kibbles are richer than Ultra Premium and Tomojo puppy kibbles. An excess of fats can cause diarrhea, digestive problems, joint risks, fatigue, a decrease in vitality, or overweight. If your puppy shows any of these symptoms, try another brand.

In terms of vitamins A, D3, and E, Tomojo puppy kibbles stand out with higher quantities than competing brands.

Because we know that a lack of vitamins can cause deficiencies in your puppy:

• growth retardation
• vision problems
• bone malformations
• joint pain
• muscle weakness
• neurological disorders, etc.

At Tomojo, we also offer insect-based kibbles, formulated by a veterinarian specializing in animal nutrition, and made in France from organic ingredients.

Our recommendations are intended to guide you, but they do not replace a veterinarian's advice. If you have any doubts about your puppy's food, we advise you to consult a professional.

Puppy feeding: common mistakes

Due to lack of knowledge or inadvertence, some dog owners make bad decisions when choosing puppy food.

To reduce the risks to your furball's growth and health, here are mistakes to avoid:

• giving adult dog food to a puppy: deficiencies and growth problems
• giving forbidden foods like chocolate, grapes, onions, avocado, nuts, energy drinks, alcohol, cooked bones, etc.
• leaving meal scraps for the puppy without checking the contents: risk of choking, allergies, or diarrhea
• neglecting the puppy's size (small, medium, or large breed): overfeeding or undernourishment, motor problems
• forgetting to divide meals: poor absorption, lack of energy, or bloating.
• ignoring emergency symptoms: repeated diarrhea or vomiting, swollen and painful abdomen, lethargy.

Our tips for feeding your puppy well:

1. Check table scraps before giving them to your puppy, and limit the quantity!
2. Read the labels on puppy food to choose a balanced and suitable recipe
3. Store foods forbidden to dogs and their kibble and treat packages, out of reach
4. Prefer puppy food specially formulated to meet their needs
5. In case of accidental ingestion or urgent symptoms, contact your veterinarian

Feeding your puppy well to support their growth

Puppy growth is rapid. In just a few weeks, the puppy learns to walk, their first teeth develop, and they discover the world with their nose.

Discovering the world is a wild adventure, but it also comes with small emotional challenges! A clumsy fall, the first (sometimes stressful) visit to the vet, etc. In these key moments, positive reinforcement works wonders. Having a healthy and hypoallergenic treat on hand is the best way to reassure them after a small boo-boo, soothe them, or congratulate them on their progress, without unbalancing their daily ration.

🦴 The ideal treat to reward your furball

Providing them with a good diet is essential to give them all the nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and trace elements vital for their growth and development. A complete puppy diet will also help you avoid deficiencies and diseases, while ensuring your companion a long life!

At Tomojo, we have designed a recipe adapted for puppies, healthy, nutritious, and palatable, to offer them a balanced food that meets their nutritional needs.

Our goal? For your pet to be happy and healthy!

Virginie and Atlas