A common misperception among dog owners is that it’s bad for your dog to switch their food, and that you should stick with one food forever. In reality, variety is just as important to your puppy’s diet as it is for your own. It’s more than the spice of life. Adult dogs can develop allergies if they are overexposed to one single protein source such as chicken. There’s no good reason to force a monoculture diet on your puppy. Their first experience with variety should be on their first day in your home. Get some of the food they’d been eating before you got them and mix it with the new food you’ve selected for them, until they’ve fully made the transition over a few days or a week.
Although giant bags of dog food tend to be less expensive than smaller ones, for puppies we recommend buying small- or medium-size bags. Assuming this food is working well for your puppy, as soon as they finish the bag switch to a different variety of food in the same line of dog food. If they just finished a bag where salmon is the main protein, their next bag should be chicken, pork, beef, or whitefish, whatever options that brand offers. The myth about switching dog foods causing tummy upsets is only true when you radically shift the quality or nature of ingredients or if your puppy is genetically predisposed to having a sensitive stomach. For example, a low-end dog food might have a preponderance of carbs and fillers. Switching to a food that has way more protein—a totally different formula—could indeed cause some stomach trouble, so in such a case you should transition from one food to the next over a four- to seven-day period.
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