Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone! I do pit bull rescue and I am picking up a 3-4 week old pit bull puppy this evening. Long story short, his idiot owner left this baby living in his own feces, dehydrated, and starving before nice people found him and took him (this was after he was illegally purchased @ only 2 wks old.) He was living in an area (Miami-Dade, FL) where pit bulls are illegal anyway, and so they contacted me. They have had him 3 days, and is doing much better, he's playful and curious now, as opposed to being lethargic. They have been bottle feeding him, but I know puppies can be weaned at 3 weeks of age. (I hand raised a litter of 5 pit bull puppies a few months ago, they were weaned from the bottle at 3 weeks). I want to know what the absolute best canned puppy food is for this baby. With my last litter, there were 5 puppies, and I could only afford to feed them Iams puppy. This time its only one puppy, so I can afford to feed him the best food. What should I put him on? I live in West Palm Beach, FL so I have no problems finding lots of different brands, I have vet supply stores all around me. Is Wellness ok? What about Wysong or Solid Gold? Thanks so much in advance! (by the way, we have a vet appt on Friday, soonest they had available!)

Melody Owens
West Palm Beach, FL
Ethical Bull Breed Rescue & Referral

Momma to: Maui, CGC - american bulldog & Mako, CGC - shiba inu

Expensive doesn't always mean better. I normally start introducing canned food to my pups when they're about 3.5 weeks. At that time in their development, they have very sensitive digestive systems that can only handle minute amounts at a time. I've leanred the hard way you need an extremely nutrient dense, high protein/fat/kcal food when they're that age.
Canned varieties I've tried are Wellness Puppy, Evolve, Chciken Soup, Pro Plan, Iams, Eukanuba & Nutro.
Out of every single one of them, Wellness & Euk gave them good stools, but I had a hard time keeping weight on them with Wellness, and had to mix in a bit of dry food.
I wouldn't recommend any of Solid Gold's foods for a pup ... too low in fat and protein.
The best and cost effective option is to feed a dry food. They give better stools (cleaning up puppy diarrheah is horiffic and those squirts get EVERWHERE from the walls of the whelping box to their littermate's heads) and you end up feeding less. Less food at more frequent intervals equals happier pups, as there are less digestive upsets.
Toss the dry food into a blender, and it will come out as a fine powder. I add water and evaporated milk or a tablespoon of canned to this mix to make it more appetizing.
Whatever you feed, check the protein & fat contents. Protein should be 27% or higher, and fat should be 15% or higher.