Dog food is an important consideration that will affect your dog's entire life.
Luckily Redteddy Poodles are not big eaters, because it is important to make sure that their diets are not sub standard! Try a higher quality dog food, such as made by Oma's Pride and Darwin. We recently received the WholeDog Journal and were interested to find that this journal agrees with what our wholistic vet has been saying for years: dry food is linked to cancer, e4ven the better brands. We suggest not using dry food at all, and especially not for the only food. Then take a hard look at the label of any dog food you are considering. The label makes it look tasty enough for your table, don't be fooled! Finally, do not feel that you need to feed one and only one food to your puppy or dog. It is better to feed a variety, and change it up. Different vegetables, and different protein sources should be varied in case you have to feed a specific diet for health reasons, or you cannot find the only food your dog is used to. Plus, having a variety helps ensure that over time your pet is getting what he or she needs.  We feed our dogs a variety, too. Most of our dog food is chicken based. We change out rice, oatmeal and sweet potatoes as grains or starches. We almost always add pumpkin and vary other vegetables such as Kale, broccoli, green beans, zucchini, lettuce, and more.  For the omega fatty acids we add mackeral, sardines, or fish oil. 

Raw Diet
RedTeddy Pups serves our dogs a wholesome, semi-raw dog food diet. If you are serious about following a raw food diet, check out these resources below. They will help you feel more confident in choosing a raw diet for your dog:

• “Give Your Dog a Bone” by Dr Ian Billinghurst 
• "Feed Your Pet Right" by Marion Nestle and Malden C. Nesheim, Hint - this book has a generic recipe for healthy dog food (see below) from page 257 of the paperback version which was published originally in Small Animal Clinical Nutrition,  a standard veterinary textbook published by an offshoot of Hills, the dog food maker. 
• “Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats” by Kymythy Schultze 

• One of the best (and free) resources for making your own dog food is by veterinarian Dr. Don Strombeck. We suggest everyone interested in feeding raw read:"Strombeck's Home-Prepared Diets For Dogs and Cat Safe, Balanced, Complete & Up-to-Date" available free at his website: http://www.dogcathomeprepareddiet.com/index.htm

RedTeddy makes most of our own dog food. We use locally sourced beef, venison and chicken mixed with vegetables, grains and legumes. Each time we make it, our dog food recipe changes a little. if you are interested in following a RedTeddy approved recipe, try out what our Co-owner Deb has come up with in her years with Little Bear and Arkansas Bill, and raising their puppies, here: Deb's Raw Dog Food Recipe. 
Hint: We feed mostly raw, but we feed very young puppies cooked dog food,  you can always make a raw food and then cook it, in your microwave or oven. Cooking thoroughly will eliminate most common germs associated with raw dog foods, such as salmonella. 

Diet recommendations:
Puppies need to have meals that are 60% meat/fish, 35% vegetables and no more than 5% grains/potatoes. Supplementing with omega oil or flax, and calcium or bone meal is advised. Check with your vet or other reliable source for exact formulations or supplement names and doses. 
We use NUVET Plus powdered vitamins. We like NuVet because they source human grade ingredients from the USA and work hard to create a high quality vitamin that uses scientific research without compromising on ingredients for a good, healthy balanced product.  Anyone can order NuVet products online using our product code, which is 25590. We suggest placing your orders on autoship and for all Minis and Toys, purchase one can every four to six months.
Click here for more information about NuVet.


The meat/fish/poultry for raw diets may include regular cuts as well as organ meats/gizzards from the following sources: beef, lamb, venison, goat, buffalo, rabbit, turkey, chicken, ostrich, emu, duck but NO PORK due to its high parasite risk.

Eggs can be served raw or cooked but do not feed separated egg whites raw.

Dairy –  Cottage cheese, yogurt, goat milk, kefir are OK for puppies only. Dairy is not a natural food for adult dogs. My adult poodles love cheese of any kind, but I use it sparingly as it can cause constipation. 

Do not feed your puppy or dog: garlic, onions, grapes, raisins, macadamia nuts, or marijuana (no pot - cooked or raw!) nor tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. Also, do not feed the same vegetables all the time – they must be rotated. 

You may add raw pureed vegetables, or if need be cooked and/or canned if this is what is available. Some dogs like to snack on baby carrots which is fine. For meals, green leafy vegetables that would be present in the dogs natural prey, e.g.  rabbits, are recommended. Limit spinach, lentils, dried beans and broccoli (do not feed these every day).

Grains- The only acceptable grains in their diet should be: brown rice, barley, millet, pasta, rolled oats, polenta, or cooked whole wheat pasta. Cook and grind them up if you use them. If your pet has allergies, try eliminating all grains from their diet. 

Potatoes – Organic sweet potatoes are fine. But do not feed raw white potatoes, and do not use potatoes with green skins or sprouted potatoes. 

Fruit – No apricots, No peaches, No rhubarb, No Avocado.  It is recommended that fruits be given as treats only. 

No chewing gum or chocolate.
*Do not allow your dog or puppy to get overweight - over eating is a primary cause of disorders such as hip displasia, even in puppies! Free range feeding is fine if you are also giving your pup plenty of free time on the range, exercising and playing, to burn the appropriate calories!

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Our home made dog food contains no corn, no soy, and nothing you cannot pronounce! ​

Our recipe for what we put into RedTeddy Really Good Raw dog and puppy food changes depending on what is available.

On the left is a snapshot of what we put into a batch:  We start with about 15 pounds of beef, venison in season, turkey and/or antibiotic and hormone free, free running chicken per 6 pounds of mixed fruits and veggies including carrots, broccoli, kale & other greens; legumes (here we include peas and navy beans), beef liver or chicken liver, squash and seaweed calcium, fish oil, as well as NuVet powdered canine vitamin.

Left, the photo copied recipe is from a veterinary student text book created by Hills (Hills Science Diet) for a dog food recipe that meets AAFCO nutrient profiles for all life stages using easily accessible ingredients! The authors of the book "Feed Your Pet Right," the source for the recipe both stipulate that the tricks to creating a healthy  home made diet are 
Balance, Variety and Moderation! 

Concerned about making it yourself?
Kudos to The Farmer's Dog dog food maker for putting an easy to follow dog food recipe that they stand behind right on their website!


ADVICE ON FEEDING FOR A HEALTHY LONG LIFE:
Click here to see one of our RedTeddy Associate's step by step dog food recipes, plus  more tips on how to feed your dog.​

Click here for a thorough introduction to making your own raw food.

Red Teddy dog food is available

Red Teddy makes our own dog food, RedTeddy Raw, for sale on puppy pick up day.

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Vitamins

We now include NuVet vitamins in our puppy packets. 
We require the ongoing use of a high quality canine vitamin, for our puppy health guarantee to be in effect.

We recommend NuVet because they source locally and use human food grade ingredients and of course, they have done and continue to do the appropriate research to stay up with new science on canine health. Check out any other canine vitamins and please let us know what you find.

NuVet vitamins are organic, locally sourced, scientifically based, and we use them on all our dogs.

The true cost of vitamins for a puppy under 10 pounds is less than .30 cents a day.
(That is using half a tablet/scoop a day until they are grownup.)

As your dog gets larger, the price will increase to about .50 cents a day. 
Go ahead and use any vitamin you like, just make sure all the ingredients are sourced in the USA and are human food grade.

RedTeddy’s NuVet order code is 25590 Enter this code at the check out at www.nuvet.com 
when you order their products and we get a commission or call  800-474-7044.