Great Dog Foods for Boxer Puppies

Boxers can be beautifully strong and lean dogs, if given the right diet and exercise program. Starting this program, while the boxer is still a puppy, is the easiest way to prevent an overweight and out of shape adult dog. When choosing a feeding program for your puppy, it is essential to begin with the one used by the breeder and slowly modify from there.

  1. High-Quality Kibble

    • Dry kibble is the mainstay for most pet owners and boxer owners are no exceptions. The top names in dry food are Innova, Instinct, Eukanuba, Origin and Artemis. These foods all have high percentages of protein with minimal use of grains (excluding rice). Always look for the puppy formulas of these foods, as the adult foods have higher calcium and protein levels that can be hard on a puppy's digestive system and lead to diarrhea or bloating.

      A fairly hard to come by brand, Solid Gold Hundchen Flocken Puppy, is probably the best food for young boxers. It is preservative-free, meaning it has no Ethoxyquin -- a banned or heavily regulated chemical in human food production -- due to the belief that it is carcinogenic.

    Canned Foods

    • Too much canned food can cause bloat in boxers, which can be life-threatening.

      Sometimes a puppy deserves a treat and there may be no better one than Evangers canned dog foods. These foods are 100 percent meat with minimal water added. Offering buffalo, duck, chicken, pheasant, rabbit and beef, as well as beef and liver and chicken and liver varieties, this brand will provide a puppy with the nutrients similar to their natural diet in the wild. The Innova brand also offers almost pure meat products with 95 percent versions of duck, chicken, venison and beef. Vet's Choice and Wellness brands also are great choices for younger dogs.

      It is best not to give a puppy too much of this type of treat, as it can lead to indigestion and bloating as well as vomiting, due to gorging. Bloating can be life-threatening to boxers.

    BARF Diet

    • A more recent trend in feeding boxer puppies is the use of the BARF (Bones and Raw Food or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food) diet. This is essentially an attempt to provide the same nutrition that a dog would subsist on in the wild. Raw vegetables, bones and meats can be purchased at the supermarket, the same as food for the family, and then be prepared quickly at meal time. BarfWorld offers a completely natural and balanced raw diet for those who want to get the benefits of the program without the work of assembling the meals themselves.

    Changing the Feeding Program

    • When a boxer puppy is first brought home from the breeder, it is extremely important that the feeding schedule that the puppy was on remains the same for the first few days. After the puppy has grown accustomed to the new surroundings, the diet may begin to change. This has to be done slowly or else the puppy may become sick. The best way to do this is to mix in the new food with the old, in increasing proportions, until the change from one food to another is completed.