Hill’s Science Diet offers a selection of puppy foods featuring balanced nutritional profiles with an emphasis on high-quality protein sources.
Their large breed option provides optimal calcium levels to control bone development while their small breed recipe caters to the nutritional needs of smaller pups. All options come backed with a robust safety and quality assurance policy.
Contents
Size
There’s no denying the role that dogs play in our lives, and as such we do everything necessary to make sure they have the best life possible – including taking them regularly to their vet for checkups and providing all of their nutritional needs.
Hill’s Science Diet offers a selection of premium dog foods designed to meet the nutritional requirements for various ages and health concerns, with recipes specifically suited to breed size allowing pet parents to quickly find the ideal formula for their pup.
This dry food for large breed puppies contains an array of nutritious ingredients such as chicken meal and oats, while its controlled calcium levels help support optimal bone development – essential developmental needs of large breed puppies.
Hill’s has unfortunately experienced several recalls over recent years. Most notably was in 2007, when their melamine-contaminated foods caused hundreds of pet deaths. A year later, 62 bags of Hill’s Adult Small & Toy Breed dry food were recalled due to possible salmonella contamination.
Characteristics
Hill’s Science Diet puppy foods are designed to meet the specific nutritional requirements of different breed sizes, giving puppies all of the essential vitamins and minerals for building strong bones, joints, eyes and nervous systems.
This recipe starts off with chicken meal as its primary ingredient – a high-protein meat concentrate. After that are three whole grain ingredients such as brown rice, cracked pearled barley and whole grain sorghum that provide beneficial dietary fiber that aids in digestive health for puppies.
Corn gluten meal, an economical plant-based source of protein, is used as the fourth ingredient. Though less nutritious than meat sources like chicken or turkey, corn gluten meal provides an economical way to increase protein content of dog foods. Furthermore, this recipe includes fish oil for omega fatty acids and chondroitin sulfate to support healthy bones and joints in dogs; finally this dish includes dried beet pulp to add fiber content; however this controversial component could either benefit or harm depending on each pup’s digestive systems.
Training
Your early training of your pup will have an immense influence on their future hunting potential, so select an approach best suited to you and your family.
Train your puppy to walk calmly alongside you without being on a leash, such as in your back garden with just you and them and some treats. Also teach him/her their name frequently by repeating it often while rewarding with food whenever they respond appropriately.
Continue socializing your puppy with people and calm dogs, making sure that all vaccinations have been administered. Train impulse control by asking your pup to sit before setting down their food or water bowls, and initiate recall training by calling him from longer distances with various distractions present.
Health
Hill’s Science Diet is an acclaimed brand offering numerous varieties of pet food, each specially tailored to address different health or developmental concerns or developmental stages in pets. For instance, its large breed puppy formula provides additional calcium for controlling bone growth. Other formulas contain specific protein amounts or are grain free.
Some brands feature meat as the first ingredient, while many use meat meal instead. Meat meal is a form of dried and ground up animal protein used as an edible source. Although meat meals tend to provide more nutrition than most ingredients, real meat offers greater levels of nutrition. Furthermore, certain mineral ingredients may not be chelated and therefore less digestible for your digestive health.
The company has been involved in multiple recalls. Perhaps most notably in 2007, when their products were recalled due to melamine contamination resulting in thousands of animal deaths due to ingestion.
