food royal canin vs stella & chewy’s

[cparker]

hello! curious what brand do y’ll feed your puppies?

my puppy is currently 12 weeks old tomorrow and is eating half royal canin mini puppy half stella & chewy’s puppy freeze dried chicken and salmon dinner patties.

breeder told me he wasn’t eating the rc kibble so they’ve been feeding him steamed chicken breasts. when i brought him home for the first day i continued giving him steamed chicken breasts, but the next day when i brought him to the vet he told me to stop and “force” him to eat the kibbles.

of course he wouldn’t touch them so i added goat’s milk and a few bits of chicken breast on top which thankfully did the trick and he ate but slowly (most of the time didn’t finish, even after 15 mins)

when my package of s&c came, i started adding bits of s&c which made him happily eat up all his food in 2 mins, and now he’s on the current diet of half of each brand.

question is, should i transition him to full rc or s&c? seems like he for sure likes s&c more but rc is the brand recommended by his vet. there is also the debate of grains vs grain free.

i did also buy s&c puppy chicken recipe raw coated kibbles, but planning to use it as treats and not his main meal. but if it’s better to give as his main meal instead of the patties pls do lmk!

i’m also concerned about tear stains, back at the breeder’s place i noticed most of the maltipoos had tear stains. they’re all on rc, since i started lessening the amount of rc kibble and adding s&c i noticed his tears were getting lesser.

do lmk your thoughts and recommendations, thanks!

 

[houstonreborn]

@cparker I’d stick with Royal canin. It is well known, researched, been around for years and backed by science. Puppy growth stages are super important to make sure they don’t have any gaps in their nutrition.

Since you already have the Stella and chewy patties, you can soak them and mush them up and use that in enrichment toys like kongs if you wanted to, just keep in mind the calorie content. You want 90% of their daily calorie needs to come from a nutritionally complete and balanced food (his kibble) and treat calories should be no more than 10% on an average day.

I’ve used other nutritionally complete foods (like kibble or freeze dried morsels or Purina moist and meaty, whatever is on sale) as training treats before with no issues. Again just keep calories in mind and treat them as “treat” calories. You could also crumble those patties into a powder and mix it up with a portion of his kibble to use as “supercharged” kibble treats for training. This helps bump up the value of a kibble reward and can be helpful for when you need a higher value treat.

 

[tgrubin61]

@cparker Just remember, your dog will eat when he gets hungry enough. Feeding only chicken breast doesn't have enough nutritional value, which is why your vet recommended against it.

Royal Canin should be sufficient, it's a well-known and well-regarded brand. Other high-quality kibbles like Purina Pro Plan or Hills Science Diet are also quite often used.

Personally (and vet corroborated) I don't believe that those "boutique" food brands like Farmers Dog or even FreshPet are worth the cost and unless you have money to burn, stick with a high quality kibble. It sounds like the freeze dried patties you're adding to his food is just going to make him a pickier eater in the long run. I know we love our dogs but unless you always want to be making them a fancy bowl of food every time you feed them for life, you might want to get them on plain kibble ASAP.

 

[cparker]

@tgrubin61 yeah i get what you mean, but the patties aren’t just a “topper” i was meant to transition him to fully eating s&c freeze dried patties since he likes it more than royal canin and it cleared up his tears. since he’s on half of each brand rn im trying to make the decision of which brand to choose

 

[margoelise]

@cparker Dogs need grains in their diet. When they kill prey the eat the stomach contents.

My pup eats the royal canin and is doing well. She does have tear stains, but it doesn't bother me. I do make sure the eye area is clean, no matted hairs.

 

[debbieh]

@cparker I recently switched to Purina Pro Plan. I'd consider Royal Canin if it came to it, but I believe it's considerably more expensive, so I wanted to avoid going there straight away. Reason I switched was my puppy was eating less and less of her Iams. She was also avoiding the Iams puppy wet food. Both were chicken based foods, so in addition to switching brands, I switched proteins. She now gets a lamb based kibble and so far is loving it!

Your vet's opinion is well worth listening to, but a food doesn't do any good if pup isn't eating it. I made my food decisions based on WSAVA guidelines, so I was only looking at Iams, Eukanuba, Purina Pro Plan (and Purina One, Purina Dog Chow lines) Hills Science Diet, and Royal Canin. Then food cost was my other consideration. If I needed to, I'd spend all my money on my pets, however if I can help it I'll choose a more frugal option.

I am not well informed on Stella & Chewy, and it may still be a fine food for your dog. My last dog lived until 17 on Blue Buffalo, which is a brand that many say to avoid these days. Perhaps other commenters with knowledge on it can give their opinion if it meets your dog's needs.

 

[belmonty]

@cparker lol my mini dachshund is a whore for anything s&c.
we feed her Purina ONE Plus Healthy Puppy, Weruva wet food, and we add a couple of the s&c Super Beef Meal Mixers and just a little bit of the s&c beef bone broth. She loves it!

 

[maolmhuaidh1916]

@cparker I would like to follow this post. My Havanese who is 17 weeks old, has always had one wet eye and tear stains. Bit worse since teething. He was always on RC by breeder. So wondering if that makes worse

 

[cparker]

@maolmhuaidh1916 have switched to stella & chewy’s for a month+ now and i would say his tears are indeed better compared to when he had kibbles

 

[grindingla]

@cparker I feed my 11 month old Bolonka S&C kibble. He seems to love it. I just switched him from puppy to adult food.

 

[chukwuemeka]

@cparker I use tribal for my Doberman puppy. It’s got a higher meat content and high fish oil and his coat is silky soft because of it.