It was Easter time and the children thought that the best puppy food must surely include their best treats so they shared their chocolate Easter egg with Barnie our new Labrador puppy.

Within a few hours Barnie became dangerously ill and close to death luckily our local vet Mr. Jansen managed to save him much to the joy and relief of the children. From this we had all learned a valuable lesson about puppies and their digestive system which is different from the human digestive system and there are chemicals in foods like chocolate that will not harm us but can kill a dog.

There is in fact a large list of foods that are unsuitable or dangerous to the dog digestive system . These are foods that humans enjoy and without thinking believe that their pet will enjoy the food too. The dog is not a miniature human or close to the monkey family he is a species that has developed along specific evolutionary lines and therefore must be regarded as quite different in food needs.

So we began a journey to find the best puppy food for our little fluffy friend Barnie because he was part of the family and of course he deserved the best puppy foods.

Our Vet pointed out that all young puppies need plenty of protein however it must be animal based protein and not vegetable base protein. Why was this, the children asked, Mr. Jansen showed us a picture diagram of the doggies insides and explained that the puppy has a much shorter intestine than humans and to absorb protein from vegetable your need a long intestinal track like humans.

So if its animal protein the puppy needs we wanted to know what was the best protein for our highly favored Barnie.We found that for the puppy chicken meat is ideal for the growing years. Now you can get good products with chicken meat and also rubbish which may have chicken feet, heads and intestine as the main ingredients however the best is pure chicken meal because it's a more concentrated form of protein.

Of course our Barnie needed some solid bones to chew on not just for protein but also for his developing teeth and jaw strength. Some owners cook the bones with the idea of making it easier for the puppy to manage however a cooked bone can splinter and causes internal risks for the young dog.

And like humans your puppy should enjoy his food and so you should find combinations of the right food that he looks forward too and you wont have him sniffing at the plate and walking away (although with Labs they never walk away from any food)

Finally do you realize that if your young puppy is fed on high quality dog food he will live, on an average, five years longer than the pup which is fed scraps from the table. Our Barnie lived his full 18 years (that's 81 human years) and the start he got with the best healthy puppy food was a main contributor to his good, illness free, life span