[Peggy]

As an intro, Pat Hastings has been involved with dogs since 1959. She started as an owner handler exhibiting her dogs, then moved on to breeding and later teamed up with her husband as a professional handler.

She is currently an AKC jugde. She has had articles published in a wide variety of dog magazines. Her husband was an AKC rep for a time also. He and his wife have evalutated over 250 litters per year and mentored countless dog fanciers. Pat continues to judge, evaluate litters, give seminars and mentor many dog fanciers.

From "TRICKS OF THE TRADE" by Pat Hastings:

FOOD FOR GROWING PUPPIES

When you consider that a puppy grows for 18 to 20 months and a child grows for 18 to 20 years, the speed at which damage can be done by improper puppy nutrition is staggering. Feeding a puppy improperly for one month is the equivalent of feeding a child improperly for one year. Thus, it is imperative to make sure your puppies are doing well on whatever you are feeding them. Just remember how quickly nutritional damage can occur, and once the growth plates close, nutritional damage is permanent.

One issue we as consumers must give careful thought to is the idea that more is better. Why would we want to feed our puppies more powerful nutrients than we feed our adult dogs? The overwheliming consumer response would be: "Because they're growing babies."

Let's think about that one for a moment. Do human babies recieve more powerful nutrients than human adults? They start out on formula or breast milk, then slowly move to strained, bland fruits and vegtables. They are hardly coaxed to gum down salads, steaks, or multigrain dinnner rolls. When was the last time you saw an infant chomp into a pepperoni pizza?

By the same token, do coyote pups or wolf cubs get prime morsels of their parents' hunt? Certainaly not. They either recieve a regurgitated portion of the kill or morsels left over after the adults have eaten.

In a sense, we as consumers may have convinced the dog food companies that we want a special food for our growing puppies and that we are willing to pay extra for it. And no one in Corporate America's right mind would ignore that kind of message. So it goes - we give the message that more is better and we believe if something on the market costs more, it must be better. But what does this cycle mean for our puppies?

High-powered nutrients can make it possible to grow bone faster than it is meant to grow. However, the growth rate of tissue is unalterable. If a puppy recieves more nutrients than it can utilize so that those nutrients accelerate the growth rate of bones beyond the growth rate of tissue, the tissue can be weakened.

When we conduct our puppy evaluations, we always pay close attention to how puppie are doing on the food they've been given. When we see nutritionally-based problems, our first recommendation is always to drop back one level in the quality of food the puppies are eating. This change almost always corrects the nutritional problems we see in front legs and feet. (See Chapter 2, Puppy Evaluations in "Tricks Of The Trade".)

Try to feed puppies only what their systems and structures can use. If your puppies are running in the woods with their mother from five or six weeks on, they are spending enough energy to utilize almost any level of nutrients you choose to feed them. However, most of us raise out puppies in small yards, kennels, exercise pens, and kitchens. In these cases, we need to be careful about what we feed.

Also, smaller breeds burn greater amounts of energy in confined spaces, so less damage is seen when these puppies are fed more high-powered nutrients. By the same token, however, the smaller the breed, the smaller the space provided, so nutritional damage is possible.

We recommend you feed a name-brand product that clearly states it is forumlated for all stages of a dog's life. If you see any structural weaknesses that could be caused by what is being fed, switching to a lesser-powered food generally corrects the problem, as long as the growth plates have not yet closed. The younger the puppy is when the change is made, the faster the problem is corrected. As stated earlier, the nutritionally-based weakness becomes permant once the growth plates have closed.

We belive if you are feeding a quality food to your adult dogs and they are in excellent condition, then that is what you should be feeding your puppies from day one.

Puppies should be given only thier food. Try not to offset the balance of this nutritional formula by addding other food items or supplements. The only supplement we suggest is Vitamin C. A study out of Cornell University indicates that a Vitamin C supplement allows a dog to utilize more readily the available calcium in thier bodies. Giving dogs a calcium supplement can cause more problems than it cures.

Supplementing with Vitamin C, which is water-soluble, can help only if help is needed. Vitamin C is part of the enzyme that links and strengthens collagen - a vital component of tendons, ligaments, and joints. So even though Vitamin C supplementation may be controversial in some circles, its use poses little potential for harm.