So I've had our new puppy for just over a week now. She is 8.5 weeks old right now and so far I have not switched her food form what the breeder was feeding them -purina puppy chow. Not my number one choice but I figured with new home and being inside for the first time (litter was kept in outdoor kennel with mom, dad and sibling from older litter), that I should keep the food stable so I bought the smallest bag of puppy chow to feed for a bit before transitioning. I have noticed so far her stools are formed to slightly soft as long as she isn't getting too many training treats as well.
Now for the difficult part though. I've never really paid that much attention to ingredient lists and my other dog is on purina proplan and my cat is on the purina prescription urinary diet and both are doing really well with it. My dog actually eats all her food when it is put down instead of grazing like she did before.
As I am reading through this forum though I am realizing that aside from the quality of food purina might not be the best option for a husky specifically with tummy issues. I was planning to put her on the purina proplan lg breed puppy formula. Now I'm not so sure.
Another thing would be cost. I can get the 34# bag of the purina for $36 through work which makes it a heck of a deal.
Any other suggestions for a young puppy that would be even close to comparable price wise? Also do you think a lg breed formula is necessary? Her mom was ~50# and dad a bit larger.

Heather, depends on where you work will help us help you. With that said.....Costco has Nature's Domain I believe inexpensive, Tractor supply has 4 health, and they also carry Diamond Naturals, petco can't find a grain free close to that price point, Petsmart carries Authority. Huskies are considered a medium breed dog, and at the weights you mentioned would also be considered medium, so an all life stage, large breed puppy, or regular puppy is totally fine. Not having to worry about being specific is a huge relief, trust me, I have a gsd, considered a large breed and gsd's are more prone to hip and joint issues, where as huskies are not, and that is the reason why people get large breed puppy food for large breed dogs. Since you don't need to be as concerned, any type of formula that is puppy or all life stage is fine. So now I am curious where do you work.

I work at a vet clinic so I can pick up purina, hills science diet- or pretty much any hills formula- or royal canin for pretty close to cost since we buy direct from the companies and no middle man. We do see huskies at our clinic but not a lot and have definitely noticed most of them seem to have diarrhea pretty often so this has definitely given me insight into that too.
When I had talked to someone at petco before getting Kiba they had said huskies were large breed so I went with it since it seemed like they were sort of borderline, and I figured it is usually better to grow slower. But not nearly as many choices with large breed formulas.
She also tends to gobble her food when I put it down, but still has soft stool off and on so I don't really want to give her too much more. We get 1/2 cup of the puppy chow 3x a day right now and was planning to switch next week sometime so I can finish most of the food I have.
Unfortunately for Costco the nearest one is well over an hour drive for me, but have a tractor supply close to where I work- and I think I may have seen one of those brands at menards but could be wrong on that one (I find menards is usually cheaper )

Chewy's.com will deliver the food to you and your options are pretty extensive, from low to high price points to choices in brands. For me to buy TOTW (which many feed their huskies here) I'd have to drive well over an hour to get to a Tractor Supply, so mine get the Costco Natures Domain which I've compared ingredients to TOTW and they're pretty equal, but Chewy's would be able to deliver the TOTW to my door, so it might be a good option for you. Their pretty informative on the ratings, ingredients/descriptions of the food they offer as well. Just throwing it out there.

Jimmy gave you excellent advice, many have chewy's deliver their food. being in North Dakota you may have similar issues as I have being in the middle of nowhere Texas, and that is chewy's is great, but the shipping is slower than it is for most folks, sometimes I get packages in 3 days, other times it has been closer to a week. You can read about for instance, 4 health and diamond on line and that way you are prepared to know what you're buying before going to Tractor Supply. Today is a great day to go if you are semi close to the store, it's their pet appreciation day and can get samples and things like that.

Yes they are border line large breed, however, the husky breed ranks one of the lowest breeds to develop HD, you indeed want a slow and steady weight gain. I had a ton of issues with my gsd puppy, and ended up feeding Taste of the Wild Sierra Mist at around 4-5 months old, and that is an all life stage food, and she still grew slow and steady, she is 13 months old. As we all know gsd's are so much more prone to HD than huskies.

I agree at feeding 3-4 times a day, until around 8 months old, spreads out the food, and curtails the pudding poop some. Also do believe it's menards that carry Diamond, just be watchful Diamond offers a huge selection, some with grain, some with rice, and some grain free, believe it's Diamond Naturals you'll be looking for if you choose to feed Diamond. Good Luck

Heather, like you I have to drive well over an hour to get to a store that doesn't have convenience store prices.  I've been ordering food from Chewy since the prices are competitive and I can't beat home delivery.  Can't say that my FedEx driver is happy when half her load seems to be from Chewy, but she has dogs as well, so she tolerates it.  If you haven't, you might want to take a look at DogFoodAdvisor to check on the quality of food you're feeding. While I feed Dog Chow to my Alaskan, my Sibes are on IAMS (not a lot better but at least the results are solid)

It's really becoming amazing what you can order on line.  I can order a lot of my canned stuff from WalMart for less than I'd have to pay at the "local" (80 miles away) grocery store and not have to drive to get it.   Of course I end up getting stuck at the really local (20 miles) convenience store for eggs / bread / milk / etc.

Hey Heather,

Orijen puppy food is the best, but very expensive. A great alternative is Blue Buffalo's.

Blue Buffalo puppy food is really good, and you can get a 30 lb bag for $45 with free shipping from Amazon--usually available in one or two days, if you have prime.

So still on topic but not. As I am looking at some of these foods that are all life stages, and some puppy ones I have seen too. The feeding guidelines are confusing me. I've always seen the puppy formulas say estimated adult size feed this much at this age. Now I keep seeing weight and age but it doesn't appear to be adult size? Is it saying if your puppy is currently this weight and this age feed this much? A lot of them for the 8-12 week old range don't go up to the adult size for larger breed puppies for the weights to correspond to estimated adult size.
Never seen this before! Apparently it has been that long since I have shopped around for new dog food and specifically puppy food.

Heather, since I'm one of the worst offenders for going off topic, I'll try to keep this on topic.

In my opinion:

• All dogs are different.  Bet you'd never have guessed that, eh?
  
• Different dogs will respond differently to the same dog food.
  
• Guidance on dog food bags is notoriously bad!
  

Given my assumptions above, what *I'd* do is to first select a good quality dog food.  Gradually shift your pup to the dog food of choice.  If he eats it, fine and good; if not then try another brand - Sibes (and related northern breeds, apparently) seem to be fussy about what they'll eat.  Each time you feel you need to change brands, take at least 2 weeks to give his body time to adjust to the new food.  Switching too often is a sure guarantee that things'll be "loose".

Once you and your dog have decided what brand of food he's going to eat, then you start regulating how much he needs.  The best way I've seen to judge this is to monitor what goes in and what comes out.  If you feed 3 cups a day and his feces is sloppy then cut it back by 1/4 cup, if it's still loose, cut the quantity back a little more.  

As to the type of food, you have a puppy (9 weeks +/-) so I'd stay with a good quality puppy food.  Though an "all stages" might be okay, I'd be *personally* more inclined to feed a puppy diet till she's at least one year old.

Let me emphasize the guidance on dog food bags is notoriously BAD and for Sibes, etc. it's almost always *wrong*.  Most vets (and I realize you work at a vet clinic) don't really have any real ideas about how much of what to feed.  Sibes were bred to use whatever food they could get carefully.  Thinking about the Chuckchi they didn't often get much good food, probably mostly scraps and then had to work in harness so they "learned" (their bodies adjusted) to live on what they got.

Yeah I always recommend people stay at the low end of feeding guidelines since dog food companies are in the business of SELLING food and therefore the more you feed the more you buy. And also gauge based on how your dogs body condition looks and amount of stool. I have seen a husky come in that weighed almost 100# and she was not supposed to be a large husky she was the normal size just extremely overweight, and I just felt so bad for that dog...

Heather, the puppy foods and the all life stage foods are specific to puppies on the recommended feeding, so if it says 6-12 weeks look for Kiba's weight and that's the guideline for feeding him....so with Taste of the Wild High prairie puppy for example it says 6-12 weeks and say your pup is between 10-20 pounds you would feed 2.25-3.5 cups of food a day. Then at 3 months it says 3-4 months and say you pup is now 20-30 pounds you would feed 3-4 cups a day, and so on.

Some suggestions, huskies tend to eat 20-25% less food then what the bag recommends. my gsd puppy I feed no more than the middle of the recommendations, so at 3 months she weighed between 20-30 pounds I fed 3.5 cups. I took the approach with her and fed her as if she were a husky to promote a slow and steady weight increase.

Lastly, I personally would stay away from any Blue food, they ,make several varieties, they recently had a recall as well as lost a lawsuit that Purina brought against them. They deceived the public by saying they had no grain in their food as well as using rendered meats and by products, which I don't want to mention what that is, but it is not something I would feed my animals. There are plenty of foods to feed within a budget that are high quality, I mentioned those up above. I personally feed Taste of the Wild many do here, but the ones I mentioned above, Nature's Domain, 4 health, Diamond are great products as well. Upper budget, Earthborn, Fromm, Victor, Acana. Very few huskies do well on Orijen, it is a great food, expensive, but it is very high in protein and many huskies do not do well on it, it is geared for sled dogs, hard working dogs.

Thank you so much! I thought that is how I would read that feeding guidelines. It just seems like a lot of food even at the low end so wanted to make sure I was reading it right. The high end of the puppy chow is only 2 1/4 cups. I might try taste of the wild as an adult for her but the puppy guidelines seem to recommend so much more than some of the other foods which would make it more expensive. I will look into the diamond line for now and check out dogfoodadvisor.com. I had some purina proplan food at home that I am starting to switch her to for now to see if that at least forms her stool up some over the puppy chow.

I feed TotW and find the feeding directions to be way off for my 2 puppies. I'm only feeding about 66% of the max that the bag says. One pup self regulates. The other is at about 66%--if I feed more he starts putting on too much weight and his poops get too soft. I go through a 30 lb bag every month for both dogs (if that helps for budgeting)

Both were originally on Diamond from their breeders and it was not a pleasant experience....the regular puppy food (had chicken and grains). TotW Pacific stream puppy works much better for them. I also second chewy.com bering awesome--I get the food the next day

Good luck deciding! Kiba is very cute btw (: