Hi everyone!

I am new to the forum and am also the proud new owner of a 13 week old Husky (we've had her since 8 weeks). She is the first Husky my boyfriend and I have ever owned. Her name is Sansa (yes named after the GoT character) and she is getting to be a big girl already. She is currently around 23 lbs.

My question is how I can go about deciding whether I should be feeding my girl large breed puppy vs. regular puppy food. I have her currently on Blue Buffalo Puppy but she's at the end of the bag so I was thinking of switching her to Wellness Brand either their puppy or large breed puppy and don't know how how to decide. I've tried to do research but I am not getting very far researching the question on my own.

For a little additional information about her for those interested: She is supposed to be full Siberian Husky but we got her from a backyard breeder so we can't really be 100% sure. Supposedly her parents are both papered but the people we got her from said that they would not be papering the pups (not sure if it was money related or why). Her mother is a 50 lb. dog and her father is a 45 lb. dog from what we were told. We didn't see the parents or the pups before getting her so we can't verify the size information other than looking at the photos provided by the people we got her from.

We have taken her to the vet and he said that she looks great and that she is totally healthy and well built dog. He also thinks she will be bigger than her mother and will end up around 60-65 lbs.

Huskies aren't large breed dogs and since she is already growing fast giving her a large breed puppy food could potentially make her grow even faster and you don't want that. Growing too fast or putting on too much weight young can cause their joints to come in loose or out of whack which will cause issues later. Since you know she came from a backyard breeder you don't want to take a chance on anymore health issues in her future than you're already taking a chance on. I would step up to the wellness puppy, not the large breed. The ratios of nutrients for large breed is just different because large breeds just have so much growing to do. Even if she does go way out of standard at 65 pounds she still wouldn't fall under large breed standards.

Hey tinydancerkl!

Before I switched Echo over to raw food, I was on Orijen Large Breed Puppy and he did really well on it up until he was 8.5 months. Large breed food I think just has a bit more restrictive fat content and calcium/phosphorous ratios. I can't remember if it was on this forum or somewhere else a member e-mailed the manufacturers of Orijen to ask which one a husky should be on and they said large breed so that's what I went with.

I think because huskies do have the potential to develop bone and joint disorders like hip dysplasia that people tend to recommend large breed food which may reduce the risk of developing those health problems.

Regardless what you chose, I think the key is not to overfeed, maintain a lean body profile and serve small measured meals on a regular schedule to control growth. It's often the rapid growth like Twisterll said above that can really run the risk of injuring your pup later in life.

Good luck!

B-Chan

Stick with regular puppy food, Siberians are a medium breed dog and do not need to be on a large breed formula.

Thank you for all the feedback everyone!

I have also heard that the biggest difference between the large breed puppy and puppy food is the more controlled amount of Calcium and Phosphorus in the large breed food.

I do realize that a Siberian Husky falls into the "medium" dog category but as I mentioned in my post, the vet states she is going to end up being a 60 lb dog which is extremely likely given that I weighed her yesterday and she's 25 lbs at 13.5 weeks. This is what is pushing me towards the Large Breed food rather than regular. The vet I went to also recommended a Large Breed food because he uses 50 lbs as kind of an arbitrary threshold for determination.

I also was more inclined to use the Large Breed Puppy based on the fact that we got her from a backyard breeder and we can't be sure she isn't partially a Malamute. She may only be 25% Malamute and 75% Siberian but regardless, she seems as though she's most definitely going to end up on the bigger side of a female Husky. We are seriously contemplating paying for a DNA test for her to determine if she is part Malamute simply for our peace of mind of knowing what breeds she has in her DNA so that we can be fully aware of what will be best for her care as she grows into an adult dog.

I am still going back and forth on my decision but receiving feedback from veteran Husky owners has definitely helped me.

Kara and Shane, atm I see no evidence that Sansa is not all husky. It is not unusual to see out of standard males weighing in the 70 pound range. I am also inclined to say even out of standard, huskies are still a medium breed. Some will say over 60 and under 100 is a large breed, and some will say 70-100 is a large breed. Just to give as an example german shepherds are considered small large breeds or large medium breeds since standard is 49 pounds for small females and 88 pounds for large males of that breed. Also to consider is that HD is not a common issue in huskies, altho, byb huskies would surely have potential of having the issue vs well bred. You of course do want a slow and steady weight increase, and oh heck she could be a fast grower and will slow down at 6-8 months and end up being on the high end of breed standard for females. In general I would say feed regular puppy food, however, if you really feel she will weigh upwards of 60 pounds feeding LBP food is not going to harm her any. LBP is indeed set in a controlled calcium to phosphurous ratios designed for slow steady growth for large breed puppies. So to answer you, no the large breed puppy food will not speed up growth, on the contrary, it is designed for a slow steady growth, and if you feel your husky will be on the large side of size it is perfectly fine to feed the large breed. Most people commonly misunderstand the difference between puppy and large breed puppy food. It is the regular puppy food that has higher calcium and phospherous ratios, which can lead to too fast of growth rate when feeding regular puppy food to a large breed. I did want to correct that misinformation, in case someone else were to research and come across this thread. Cute pup, btw

tinydancerkl wrote:

I do realize that a Siberian Husky falls into the "medium" dog category but as I mentioned in my post, the vet states she is going to end up being a 60 lb dog which is extremely likely given that I weighed her yesterday and she's 25 lbs at 13.5 weeks. This is what is pushing me towards the Large Breed food rather than regular. The vet I went to also recommended a Large Breed food because he uses 50 lbs as kind of an arbitrary threshold for determination.

I personally don't consider 50 or even 60 lbs to be "large breed". And I take what most vets say without much weight when it comes to size, food and feeding. When I was a kid my doctor told my parents my sister and I would be taller than my mom who is 5'10". I topped out at 5'4" and my sister at 5'2"...so much for the growth percentiles in early childhood. Point being, you never know and even quick growth in puppyhood is no guarantee. Another case in point, my mom got the runt of a litter who eventually grew up to be the largest of the litter in adulthood. And the largest puppy of that litter ended up being the smallest in adulthood. Like I said, no one can say for sure. But if both parents are what you say they are (weight wise), I wouldn't expect your girl to be much larger if she ends up being larger at all. And even if she did get larger than expected it will not happen that quickly but most likely will be over more than a year or two. My boy didn't reach fully grown (i.e. filled out) until he was 3 years old.

I think - my opinion, mind you - that we're misdirecting this topic, maybe badly.

When we're talking about breeds and then go to toy, small, medium, large and giant breeds does a dogs weight *really* play into it.  Is a badly bred and fed 50 pound chihuahua qualify as a medium breed dog?  *I* don't think so.  On that same note, does a 15 pound Sibe puppy qualify as a small breed?  Again, I don't think so.

The fact that a Sibe may be under or over breed standard doesn't change the fact that it's a medium size breed, does it?  

If you feed a chihuahua food intended for a large breed, I think you're more apt to end up with a larger chi than nature intended - possibly growing faster and more disproportionally, the same with feeding a Dane food intended for a chi is apt to hinder their growth - in either case, it's not the right food to produce the good results we want in any breed.

Might I humbly suggest that some of the authors in this thread reconsider their phrasing.

There is no misunderstanding and no need for rephrasing AL. I took this thread as asking which puppy food should be fed. And is the size of the dog considered large or medium. In general yes absolutely a husky is a medium breed dog. I actually took and ran away with a statement Val said a few years ago, and it made total sense to me, unfortunately that statement is no longer used, which is if you have parents that are out of standard and on the high end of weight, chances are the offspring will be too. So feeding a potential large husky large breed puppy food is fine to feed. I'm not going to look for the thread, nor am I going to change any of my statements. With a husky that has potential to weigh 60-70 pounds at full maturity feeding a large breed puppy food WILL NOT make the dog grow faster, it will actually slow the growth process down. If you feed that puppy regular puppy food, there is a potential for that puppy to grow too fast. It has everything to do with calcium to phospherous ratios that is in each type of puppy food. Large breed puppy food is considered LBP food with C:PH ratios of 1.2:1 and max amount recommended is 1.4:1. Regular puppy food can have those ratios upwards of 1.8:1 and that can be catastrophic for a large breed puppy under 6-8 months of age, which is the highest potential for growth. I do want the misinformation about the difference between puppy foods understood.

Back to this particular puppy, for some reason I read the weights of the adults wrong, and the sire is on the low end and mom is at the top end of the breed. Every dog is different and grows at different rates. I agree that vets do not understand individual breeds, and the majority of all people think that huskies are a large breed dog. There is nothing here that suggests that this puppy will be any larger than the parents, which would mean the pup will be within standard. You can feed either puppy food, it will not harm the puppy at all if you feed a large breed puppy food or regular puppy food. It is the regular puppy food that has more potential of making a dog grow too fast.

This is a lot of information. I feed my husky large breed puppy.

Hey everyone! Thanks again for all of your thoughts regarding this. I totally understand that a Husky is a medium breed and that my girl could just be on the large side of the standard. Because many things inevitably point me to believe that she is likely full Siberian, I did not put her on a large breed puppy food. I have her on Wellness Core Puppy which doesn't seem to work for her so I'm back to square one with finding a good and relatively affordable puppy food brand yet again.

As an update, she is still a big girl but I'm not sure she'll top out at more than 60 lbs. Right now she is 18 weeks old and weighs 32 lbs. She has seemed to have slowed down in terms of growth in weight and such but I'm waiting for another spurt at the moment lol. She's been a good girl and is as sassy as ever in a Husky not naughty way. She does start puppy classes this week with 30 puppy friends so that should be fun!

Thanks again for all of your thoughts regarding this topic!