When To Switch From Puppy Food To "adult" Food

[katied86]

I have a gorgeous (incredibly tall) 8 month old chocolate lab. He is a ball of energy and loves his trips to our local dog park, the beach and his rally-o training classes. He is still being fed the same puppy food the breeder sent him home with and has been thriving (at 33.5kgs, the vet is says he's on the lighter side of normal and could beef up a bit ). He has always had "extras" and will do anything for a banana or strawberry! I am wondering when you would be moving onto adult food? It was recommended to me that at 10 months I could move him on to working dog food. I will be away when he turns 1 (he'll be with my parents who love him almost as much as he loves them as he licks them to death!) so ideally I'd want to be transitioning him around 10 months or just over 1 year (I get back 6 days after his first birthday).

I am planning to ring the breeder tomorrow to talk to him about this, but I was wondering what your experiences have been.

Links below are some videos of my little guy having fun these school holidays! I think he likes having me home and being able to take him to the beach!!! :D

[Rebanne]

My pups never go past 3 months on puppy food, after that it is all adult food, so any time now IMO.

[WreckitWhippet]

I don't use puppy food full stop so if he were mine, he'd have been fed adult and raw from weaning

[Mjosa]

I never feed puppy food I wean them onto small adult kibble and fresh meat, they seem to grow too quickly on puppy and also letting

my breed run they seem to get leggy and not develop as I would like, they lead a restricted exercising regime.

[dragonwoman]

I never feed puppy food I wean them onto small adult kibble and fresh meat, they seem to grow too quickly on puppy and also letting

my breed run they seem to get leggy and not develop as I would like, they lead a restricted exercising regime.

Weaned on to adult dry and minced beef/chicken here, plus yoghurt, low lactose milk, etc

[Mjosa]

Yes Dragonwoman, I too use yoghurt and Lactose free milk, although next litter I will be using Puppy Gold instead of the milk. :)

[katied86]

Thanks! I have been thinking about changing over for a while now and am nearly finished this bag of food so I might look at doing the change-over over the next couple of weeks! :D

[karly101]

I'd move to an adult food now.. it's hard to tell from the video on his weight but if you have any concerns there are plenty of active formulas.

I fed a puppy food well past 12 months but my dog was a struggle to keep weight on, at 2 I moved to a lighter adult formula and the weight has just dropped off again so its back onto active for him!

[Staff'n'Toller]

Your Lab looks fine in the weight department. Most people think they should look very thick set - well that's just adding fat.

If you get along to a retrieving trial soon you won't see any fat Labs there! If you want to do sports, the fitter the better. Make sure you can see the hip tuck in clearly when looking from above, feel the ribs with a flat hand and see muscle tone on the legs.