Feeding Miniature Poodle Puppy

[shropshirenick]

We have a 13 week old miniature poodle puppy who now weighs 4.7 kilos, which seems on the large size for his age.
We are feeding him Millie’s Wolfheart countryside mix kibble and he is being fed 4 times a day with a total of 150 grams of kibble in total. Even though he is a good weight he feels quite skinny. We are worried we are underfeeding him. We are following the feeding guide supplied with the food.
People opinions would be most welcome.

 

[JoanneF]

Feeding guides are just guides. If he is on the skinny side, I'd probably increase a little, puppies shouldn't be skinny. And he is using a lot of his intake on just growing. You can always adjust later once he has reached full size.

 

[shropshirenick]

Perhaps, skinny was the wrong word. There just isn’t that much meat on him, but mini poodles aren’t generally chunky. Also, his weight is much heavier than than the breed average for his age.
He is gaining weight every week, it is just our first dog so everything is a learning curve. He is going to the vets Friday, so will also get there opinion.

 

[JudyN]

Bear in mind that so many dogs are overweight that a healthy, slim dog can look skinny... even to some vets. Poodles do have quite an athletic build, and some pups are naturally skinnier than others. Chances are he's the perfect weight for him.

 

[excuseme]

Millies Wolfheart is a nice food it is not full of nasty fillers.
I totally agree with Judy in her above post.

 

[shropshirenick]

Thank you for all the replies, I think what we are giving him is probably about right. He just is quite often looking for more, but I think he is probably trying his luck.
Just as novice dog owners, we want to try and get things right.
We are very pleased with Millie’s Wolfheart, the breeder recommended, as they have been feeding there 8 mini poodles on it for years. It certainly seems to agree with him.

 

[CoCo2014]

Just a word of warning re asking vets about nutrition. During their courses the nutritional part is usually sponsored by a multi national complete dog food manufacturer such as Hills, Mars etc & unless the vet has taken additional nutritional courses they are definitely not experts.
On the rare occasion my dogs go to the vets, current dogs 1 has never been to my vets for treatment & the other was castrated 5 years ago. Neither go for "booster"vaccinations as they have random Vaccicheck titre tests.
Any new vet always ask me what I feed & prior to his castration(Coco) I had a vet nurse ask me what he was fed on & got the start of an anti raw lecture, I stopped her mid flow. & pointed out I had my dogs raw since my first dog in 1956 & none of my dogs ever had any food related problems & even my Cavaliers always had good minimum poos & sparkling teeth & were never overweight.
I don't like over muscled puppies nor "chunky" ones. I had 2 dogs with bad HD, but keeping them at the correct weight & well muscled meant they never needed any treatment. The only reason I know they had HD is that they were both scored & I have always scored my dogs since the scheme started.