Your puppy goes home on the food it is already eating, and enough of it to keep going for the first few days. Do not change it in week one. The puppy has just lost its mother, its littermates and everything it has ever known, and its digestion does not need a fourth surprise.
If you want to change food
Wait a week or two until the puppy has settled, then move across slowly over seven to ten days: a quarter new for a few days, then half, then three quarters, then all of it. A sudden switch usually produces a mess on your floor at two in the morning.
How often
- Eight to twelve weeks: four meals a day.
- Three to six months: three meals a day.
- Six months onward: two meals a day, and most dogs stay there for life.
Spreading the food out matters more than it sounds for a deep-chested breed. Two enormous meals are harder work than three sensible ones.
How much
Start with the guideline on the bag for the puppy’s expected adult weight, then adjust to the dog in front of you rather than the number on the packet. Those guidelines are averages and your puppy is not average.
The test is your hands, not the scales. Run your palms along the ribs. You should feel them easily, like the back of your knuckles, with a thin covering. Looking down from above there should be a visible waist behind the ribs, and from the side a clear tuck up toward the back legs.
If you have to press to find ribs, cut the food by ten per cent and check again in a fortnight. Adjust in small steps rather than dramatic ones.
Large-breed puppy food, and why it matters
Use a food formulated for large-breed puppies. This is not marketing. The controlled calcium and energy density are there to make a big puppy grow at a moderate rate, and the fastest-growing large-breed puppy is not the healthiest one. Growing a Golden slowly is one of the more useful things you can do for its hips and elbows.
For the same reason, do not add calcium supplements to a complete food unless your vet has specifically told you to. It is one of the more common well-meant ways to cause a problem.
Treats count
Training treats are food. If you are doing serious training in the puppy months, take that food out of the meals rather than adding it on top. Ten per cent of daily intake is a sensible ceiling for everything that is not a meal.
Small, soft, quick to eat. A treat that needs chewing kills the rhythm of a training session.
The single most useful thing on this page
Keep the dog lean for its whole life. Not thin, lean. It is the most reliable thing an owner controls for how long a Golden stays sound and comfortable, it makes every joint problem the breed is prone to less likely and less severe, and it costs nothing.
Almost every overweight Golden I meet belongs to somebody who loves it very much and shows that love in food. If you do one thing from all of our resources, do this one.
Exercise while they are growing
Related, because people ask in the same breath. Free play on grass, at the puppy’s own pace, as much as it wants. Forced or repetitive exercise, long runs, cycling alongside, and repeated jumping should wait until the growth plates close, which for a Golden is somewhere past twelve to eighteen months. Ask your vet about your dog.
Stairs in moderation, and a hand under the chest going down them for the first few weeks, does no harm at all.