Puppy food for Entlebucher Mountain Dog

Puppy nutrition is one of the most important investments you'll make — the right food in the first year sets the foundation for long-term health, and the differences between puppy foods are more significant than most people realise. You've got a 9-month-old Entlebucher Mountain Dog and you're already thinking about weight management as they mature — that's exactly the right instinct at exactly the right time. Can you tell me what you're currently feeding them, and roughly how much exercise they're getting each day?

Good — he sounds like he's in a really healthy place right now, and you're wise to think about this before there's a problem rather than after. Entlebuchers are a compact, muscular herding breed, and they can put on weight quietly if the food is calorie-dense but not nutritionally efficient. Royal Canin Medium Puppy isn't a bad food, but it leans heavily on cereals for its calories, which means you can end up feeding more volume than necessary and still not getting great nutrient density. At 9 months he's still got a few months of growth left, so you don't want to drop to an adult food just yet. What's his current weight, roughly?

18kg at 9 months is pretty much spot on for a male Entlebucher — they typically finish somewhere between 20 and 25kg, so he's close to his adult size but not quite there. That's actually the tricky window: he still needs puppy-level protein and fat for muscle development, but you need a food with a controlled, high-quality calorie profile so you're not overfeeding to hit his nutrient targets. My recommendation is Orijen Puppy. It's a high-meat, biologically appropriate food with around 85% animal ingredients, which means the calories come from quality protein and fat rather than cheap carbohydrates. The protein density means you feed significantly less volume than a cereal-based food, which makes portion control much more intuitive. It supports lean muscle development — which is exactly what you want in a working-type breed — without loading him with unnecessary starchy fillers that encourage fat storage. It's also formulated to be suitable right through to 18 months, so it'll see him through to adulthood without a food switch. You'd be looking at roughly 200–220g per day for his size and activity level, which is quite a bit less than what you're currently feeding.

It's a fair question and honestly the grain-free debate is a bit muddled in the media. For most dogs, it's not that grains are harmful — it's that low-quality grains are often used as cheap calorie padding rather than nutritional contributors. Orijen happens to be grain-free, but the reason it works isn't because it lacks grains — it's because it uses whole prey ingredients with minimal carbohydrate filler of any kind. For a breed like an Entlebucher that needs to stay lean and muscular, a lower-carb, high-protein profile genuinely does make a practical difference to body composition. So I wouldn't say go grain-free as a principle, but I would say go for food where the carbohydrates that are present are there for a reason — and Orijen fits that description well.

Definitely — especially moving from a cereal-based food to something as protein-rich as Orijen, you want to give his gut biome time to adjust. Do it over about 10 days: start with around 25% Orijen mixed into his current food, then move to 50/50 around day four, then 75% Orijen by day seven, and fully switched by day ten. Some dogs get slightly loose stools in the first week as their digestion adapts — that's normal and settles quickly. Given how active he is and his current healthy weight, I think you'll notice a real difference in his muscle definition and energy levels within a few weeks.