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Comment by Shepdog on April 27, 2009 at 2:57am

(Oh, and I left a message about Caleb on your page, whoops! :)

Comment by Shepdog on April 27, 2009 at 2:56am

Let's see -- I feed mine Sojos dog food at this point. Caleb eats about a cup and a half... Simon eats about 3/4 of a cup (he is on a diet, he was too heavy for the ring.) Riley and Piper are on half a cup. I mix in cottage cheese, probiotics, yogurt and other things, though - and I do add a multivitamin. It seems to work very well for them, though!

Comment by Alice on April 23, 2009 at 7:41pm

I like the probiotic formula of Blue Buffalo too. The Wellness brand has live micro organisms so hopefully it will be just as good but maybe minus the gassy effect Blue had on Finn. :)

Comment by Corgibyassociation on April 23, 2009 at 3:10pm

I'm going to go ahead and switch Freya's food--she's so close to finishing her bag of puppy food that it is just for the best. I'm going to switch her over to Taste of the Wild Salmon. I believe it's an all stage formula the only thing I'll miss is the probiotic formula that Blue Buffalo has.

Comment by Alice on April 17, 2009 at 7:24pm

We're still mixing half and half until the puppy food runs out. It seems to be taking forever to use it up and he'll be 8 months on 4/27 so I'd like for him to be done with it already.

That's interesting about your German Shepherds. That's great that none of them had problems!

Finn never really seems to put on weight. He always looks too thin to me and right now he gets 2 cups of food a day. How much do you feed your two? Where is Caleb from BTW? He's adorable and his coloring is great.

Comment by Shepdog on April 17, 2009 at 2:16am

I admit, I totally took Simon off at four months - his breeder suggested that as well. I'll do the same with Caleb. Simon actually was a little heavy on the regular adult food too - so he had to ramp up working out and is on Sojo's right now. I have to agree that there is so much protein and calcium in a lot of these puppy foods that they can cause joint issues with dogs; I've seen several now that had to be surgically scraped out - the joints actually had deposits on them from over supplementation.

It's funny - twenty years ago, my first Shepherd breeder told me to take my dogs off at four months and go to an adult food, and I have never had a Shepherd with hip, shoulder, or bone issues. Six different lines, six different dogs, and all had OFA good hips, including one excellent OFA. I'm not surprised the Cardis should do that as well -- they're a big, fast growing dog for all purposes, and too much minerals and weight too fast could likely cause the same leg, body, and bone issues. Kind of an interesting point, really.

Six months seems good, as long as he's not getting heavy. That's the one concern, these guys are pretty good at gaining weight on the drop of a kibble! ;)

Comment by Alice on April 5, 2009 at 11:35pm

Thank you for sharing your opinion. Maybe when he's over a year old we'll consider supplements for joint health but not while he's a puppy. We're getting Finn switched to Wellness Super5Mix Chicken adult food so for now he's getting half that and half his Blue Buffalo puppy food until the puppy food runs out. Our breeder said he puts his puppies on adult food at 6 months when I asked him about it recently. Our breeder is great but sometimes he forgets to offer certain information such as that until you ask about it. That's why I like being able to get the opinion of other breeders as well s Corgi owners to help me make an informed decision.

Comment by Melissa Bee on April 5, 2009 at 7:26pm

My breeder gave Skeezix a thorough going over somewhere about when he was past 8 months. At that point she told me that, in her opinion, Skeez could switch to grown up food. and Since then I have had him on various "flavors" of Wellnes for quite a while as well as other premium foods. My dog trainer recommended some supplements, but that was after Skeez was well over a year old. I know from what I have been feeding him that whatever the combination is, his coat is fabulous, it's full, thick and very glossy. His teeth are perfect and his nails are in excellent shape. And, as you would expect, the Skeezman is 100% full of zip and frap. So I guess there are lots of opinions out there, just like there are lots of opinions about human puppys! I do believe, however, that since dogs are carnivores they need meat (even though I don't eat it much myself). These are just my opinions and experience, however.

Comment by Alice on March 28, 2009 at 7:22pm

Here's another quote from a Corgi breeder. This one is a breeder of Pembrokes:

"My last two litters were not feed anything but adult formla foods. They are not lacking in bone, correct size or did they have any growth problems. In fact if you feed a puppy formula food you might be harming your puppy. Most puppy formulas cause accelatered growth and that can cause the growth plates to grow faster than muscle tissue. Panosteitis is thought to be caused by this growth problem. (Cronic limping in puppies is one symptom.)"

One thing I was questioning though is since some adult foods have more protein in them than puppy food (grain free formulas in particular) will feeding your dog these foods do more harm than good? I was under the impression that grain free diets were a good choice but perhaps not with dwarf breeds. I'm not sure. ???

Comment by Amanda on March 28, 2009 at 6:35pm

I fed Dax puppy food until he was about 11 months old, I feel like you should wait until they've pretty much grown all they're going to grow since puppy food is designed for......growing puppies. But that's just me. So far nothing's wrong with Dax, so I guess he did fine. It may be different for cardigans though, they may be more sensitive to that kind of thing. I'm certainly no expert, though, just from personal experience. Good luck with your pup.