What do you feed your pets and puppies?
The conversation around dog diets has become highly controversial over the years. There are two key disclaimers I like to give before discussing what our pets and our litters eat –
All of that being said, currently, as this is being written in February 2025, our adult dogs are eating the following mix:
2 parts RawMix Wild Ocean Fish & Ancient Grains Dog Food – Open Farm (openfarmpet.com)
1 part Wild Caught Salmon Dry Dog Food with Ancient Grains – Open Farm (openfarmpet.com)
Dog foods are meant to be a complete and balanced diet on their own, toppers and additives aren’t a requirement, and more often than not unnecessary for the average dog with average nutritional needs.
As pet owners there will always be room for improvement. Our first litter nearly 15 years ago lived off of a bag of Pedigree Puppy food during their time with us after being weaned from their mom’s milk and went on to live long healthy lives. We want to be transparent about what our pets and litters eat and do not intend to shame anyone for what they choose to feed their dogs. There are great grain food options at almost all price points, and we’re happy to make recommendations where necessary.
Our litters begin the weaning process from mom’s milk at the three-week mark, with baby rice and goat milk, they will continue to drink mom’s milk, but not as frequently. In week four the puppies are introduced to gruel made with Open Farm Puppy Food, goat milk, and baby rice cereal. In weeks five and six the puppies are introduced to more solid meals that consist of the Ancient Grains High Protein Puppy Food. A bag of the aforementioned puppy foods is included in your pup’s going-home bag to aid in the safe transition to the food they’ll be eating moving forward.
What are the litters being exposed to, and why?
The Importance of Early Neurological Stimulation and Early Scent Introduction cannot be stressed enough. Starting as early as day three of the puppies’ lives we’re introducing ENS/ESI and age-appropriate puppy enrichment and exposure to different surfaces, and as they get older, sights, sounds, smells, and grooming practices. We have a schedule we follow closely when it comes to the enrichment mentioned above. We aim to provide weekly updates, which include pictures, any milestones the puppies reached, and what new things they were exposed to.
When your puppy leaves our care at 8 weeks old they will have been introduced to tactile stimulation, supine positioning, thermal stimulation, and more age-appropriate ENS between days three and sixteen. We are simultaneously introducing ESI like Alpaca Fiber, Pine chips, allspice, parsley, rubber, soil, apple, star anise, rabbit fur, etc., on a schedule. Weekly, we introduce new grooming practices when age-appropriate, like a bath, a nail dremmal, nail clippers, ear flushing, ear cleaning, a blow dryer, etc. in the hope of creating a healthy positive relationship between the pup and grooming.
Since the pups are living in our home, we aim to introduce them and desensitize them to household sounds, like the TV playing, music, doorbells, knocking, things falling over, cooking sounds, metal clanking, thunder, and other sounds that typically unnerve a dog if not introduced early on.
Using the head start method at four weeks onward, we aim to build confident puppies.
While we will never guarantee an eight-week-old puppy is fully trained in any regard or capacity, we do make an avid effort to introduce solo crate training and car rides, to help with the transition to their forever home.