I feed my German Shepherd puppies Nutri Source Small Medium Breed Puppy Food. I switch the puppies to Nutri Source Large Breed Puppy Food when they are ten to twelve weeks old. I have food available for them all the time. When you first bring my puppy home I would like you to free feed, leave food available for the puppy all the time for the first week. You can put the food away at night. Going home with you everything is new and changed for my puppy, so I would like to keep a few things the same as the puppy adjusts to his or her new life. After a week if you want to feed the puppy three times a day that is fine. As the puppy grows you can feed the puppy twice a day. If these brands of puppy foods are not available in your area then when your looking for a puppy food you need to check the ingredients in the puppy foods. The first ingredient need to be meat. Most meats are fine, but don’t buy a puppy food with bison as the meat. I had a client that had health issues with their puppy because bison is too lean a meat. Meat as the first ingredient is very important. German Shepherd puppies grow very fast and need the protein from meat. If the puppy is not fed the right food you can have health issues such as hip dysplasia which is 65% environmental depending on how the puppy is fed and exercised. Feed your puppy a puppy food like I have already told you about for the first year and a half of the puppy’s life. As far as exercise you can take your puppy on a long walk, just do not jog the puppy till it is 18 months old. Your puppy can run around and play in your yard fine. You can play ball with the puppy just don’t play constant over 10 or 15 minutes at a time. You can teach your puppy to play frisbee, just keep the tosses low. After the puppy is 18 month old you can throw the frisbee high and you puppy is fine to jump and catch it then. You want to try to keep the puppy’s jumping to a minimum till the puppy is 18 months old. The hips are growing and developing and you don’t want to stress and damage them. After 18 months your puppy’s hips should be about done growing and you two can go and do what ever you like. German Shepherds are awesome dogs, enjoy your puppy.
I teach my puppies and dogs what the word Hot Dog means and how good a hot dog tastes. Out of all the animals I have been around and raised food is a big attention grabber. The fastest way to get an animal gathered back up is with food. So if I have a pup or adult dog get loose from me I get a package of hot dogs and start saying “Hot Dog! Hot Dog!” All my dogs know what the words Hot Dog is and like them as treats. So they always come running back to me and get a couple of hot dogs as their reward for coming to me and them are put back were they belong. I tell my clients this because your dog will learn the word come, but that doesn’t mean the dog is going to come back every time he gets loose and is told to come. I have just found the hot dog method is a quick fast way to get back a hold of your dog or puppy to keep them out of harm’s way.