How Much to Feed a Bernese Mountain Dog Puppy

How Much to Feed a Bernese Mountain Dog Puppy12

We know there are a lot of large dog breeds in the world, and some are trained as guard dogs, some are used for military with their intelligence, and some breeds live as family companions. Bernese Mountain dog breed is one of the best companion as well as a good working breed. In this article, I’m going to talk about everything that you need to know about how much to feed a Bernese mountain dog puppy and how to feed your Bernese Mountain Dog properly. So, if you are willing to buy a Bernese Mountain Dog Puppy or if you already one a lovely Berner, this article will help you to keep your loving companion healthy.

It’s vital to think about the health and wellness of your dog or puppy. Then, a well-balanced diet with nutrition is a must to keep their body healthy and fight with any attackers who tries to harm the immune system.

Overall health and behaviour of your loving dog depend on the way you feed him or her. Depends on that, a dog can be active as well as can direct to health issues. So, proper feeding for your Berner is a significant fact.

How to choose the right food for Berner

Bernese Mountain Dog Puppy
Bernese Mountain Dog Puppy

The breeder of your new puppy is the best source for getting advice about the feeding plan. He can recommend a good diet for your dog as he got previous experience in selecting feeding plans for your puppy’s parents and their families. And it will help get advice from a veterinarian regarding diet plans if your puppy or dog has health issues.

Bernese Mountain Dog owners serve a wide range of homemade food, raw dog food and commercially prepared dog food. Whatever the method is, researches show that owners provide 18% – 26% low protein level high-quality food and food with under 16% fat content, to their loving Berners. Food with high fat feeds (>16%), and food with high protein (>28%) is too much for Bernese Mountain dogs who are not very active. So, providing such feeds for non-active working dogs may cause health issues.

Tips for feeding Berners

Right side image credit to Rebecca Griswold

Most of the time, feeding raw food or diet improves your dog to function the immune system well and for their overall health. Most Berners love to eat a wide variety of fresh food. They love to have vegetables like squash, carrot, beans, broccoli and fruits like watermelon, apple, pears and banana, and meat like chicken, pork, lamb, beef, fish, boiled eggs and yoghurt as well as cheese. But before you start a raw diet, it is better to read books or articles related to that first and as well as can take advice from others who are already serving their dogs with raw food. Without good research about that, I do not recommend to start feeding raw food right away. I researched a lot about how much to feed a Bernese mountain dog puppy to come up with this article. As well as I hope to research on raw food and bring you up an article soon.

Food allergies can lead to uncomfortable situations for your Berner like skin problems, dehydration or gas. So, if you observe that your pet is having allergic reactions like hot spots, seeping ears or skin rashes, it’s better to move to another food brand as well as get some expert advice on it.

Feeding and exercise for Berner

Maple, politely awaiting the cue to allow her to eat her dinner. Image credit: Tracey Havas

If your Berner is a puppy or adult Bernese mountain dog, you should pay attention to their activity schedule. So, if your Berner is very playful and exercising with a belly full of food may cause gastric dilatation-volvulus situations. So it is better to wait 1 to 2 hours after a meal to get him for activities. And suppose he/she was doing some activities/exercises and its mealtime. Then before feed him allow him like half an hour to cool down.

Manage food intake

The best thing any Bernese owner can do to their Bernese Mountain puppies is to feed them according to their growth while managing their activities. Usually, puppies show a rapid growth between 2 months to 8 months of age and show a slow growth between 18 months to 24 months as they reach their mature weight and size by then. Serving too much food for rapid growth is not recommended at all. Feeding too much for your puppy cause overfat, bone issues and many more health problems.

Homemade dog food for Bernese Mountain dogs

Homemade natural food like vegetables, meat, grains, and dairy is a good choice. Photo by kei photo from Pexels

Feeding your Berner with homemade natural food like vegetables, meat, grains, and dairy is a good choice. And a lot of Bernese Mountain Dog owners follow this route. Meat is the most suitable food for a dog as the basis of a dog’s nutrition is meat and its natural with animals. With that, you can serve him some small amount of grains and some reasonable amount of vegetables too.

If you choose to serve your dog with homemade food, you should know that you have to prepare meals for him as well as you will have to buy and store vegetables and meat on a daily routine. It indeed increases the amount of work you have to do daily, but it’s a better way to feed your dog if you plan to serve him/her with a well planned, nutritionally balanced meals. But it’s a bit difficult for people with busy schedules. That’s why some people serve commercially packed food for their dogs.

An adult Berner normally eats about 750g of meat and around 200g of vegetables of grains per day. Raw meat is more suitable than the cooked meat as a reasonable amount of nutrition being destroyed during cooking. But actually, it’s your choice. It’s better if you can feed them raw meat. But if you do not think of giving them raw meat, you can feed them cooked meat.

All necessary things with natural feeding

If you like to feed your dog according to this natural method, they are getting almost everything they want. Read more about feeding a raw diet for Bernese Mountain dog. Then you can get a deeper knowledge about that. And always keep a schedule to check your Berner’s health with a veterinary nutritionist to check whether he is getting balanced nutrition. That’s the best way to keep them always healthy and active. If you would like to read about most seen health issues for Berner, read it here.

Raw food for Bernese Mountain Dog
Raw food for Bernese Mountain Dog | Healthy fresh feeding

Commercially prepared food for Berner

When talking about how much to feed a Bernese mountain dog puppy, this is also a side you must know. Because of lack of food preparation time, most of the Bernese Mountain Dog owners tend to feed quality commercially prepared food. It’s actually not a good choice for your dog if you are buying cheaper food from the nearest supermarket or the pet food store. And for some commercially prepared food, they use human-grade ingredients and instead of BHA, BHT or Ethoxyquin, they use vitamin C, and vitamin E add preservatives. I have seen and read this several times, adding chemical preservations cause for allergic reactions on ears, eyes, skin, feet and mouth of your pet. Researches say most owners like to choose food with meat sources listed at the top of the ingredients list.

Wet food or dry food for Berner? – Explained

If you think you should feed commercially prepared food for your dog according to your busy schedule, you have 2 choices: either wet food or dry food. A large breed like Bernese Mountain Dog usually needs like 1.2KG – 1.5KG wet food per day. Most people use dry food, as well. It’s because dry food is an easy choice. But it is not such a healthy choice for your dog. If you choose dry food, an adult Berner will eat like 400g per day. And don’t forget to give plenty of water when you feed them dry food.

Wet food for Bernese Mountain Dog
Wet food for Bernese Mountain Dog

Prevent food deficiencies with dry food

Regarding dry food, there are a lot of brands in the market. But I should say this. Dry dog foods are not much healthy for your dog. It’s a good choice if you can feed him half dry food and half raw food. And don’t forget to change food every 6 months to lower the food deficiencies in dog food formulas. It’s important to check the phosphorus and calcium rates labelled on packaging when you buy dry dog food. Normally they should be included in 1:1 or 1:1.2 so better to check them before buying. You can find good dog food your own but if you want you can get your vet’s advice as well.

Dry food for Bernese Mountain Dog

I will do deep research on commercially prepared dog food and will come up with a good article for you soon. Without proper research, I can not recommend any for my favourite dog in this world.

How much to feed a Bernese mountain dog puppy?

According to the growth of your puppy, you should increase the food intake regularly. It’s not good to experiment with food with puppies. So, it’s a must to know how much to feed a Bernese mountain dog puppy. At first, it’s better to feed the same food which they had at breeder’s place. Normally an 8 -10 week old healthy puppy roughly eat 3/4 – 1 cup per meal. And puppies between 2 – 6 months are served 3 meals per day. After 6 months, the 3 meal plan per day is reduced to 2 meals per day. Normally a healthy and active dog will eat 3 – 6 cups of food per day. Generally, a 4 months old Bernese mountain Dog need food more than a 2 months old puppy. After 6 months, feeding should be proportionately increased according to an adult meal or sometimes greater than that according to the environment they live with the activities. There you can switch your Berner’s food from commercially prepared food to homemade food or vice versa. When you switch food, closely look at your dog’s health.

If you feed them commercially prepared food, and if your dog faces an allergic situation, please check the list of ingredients on that brand of food. And get expert advice and treatment for allergy for their long term health.

If Bernese mountain dog puppy overeats?

If a puppy overeats a bit, it’s fine. Bernese mountain dog puppies need energy for growth at their age. For puppies, do not feed them too much liquid food. And don’t forget to serve your puppy a warm meal. As well as train them to finish their 3 meals like in 15 – 20 minutes. After that time, take the plate or cup away. If they left something on the plate, that’s fine to take the plate away and make sure you do not feedback before the next mealtime. Do not exceed 3 meals per day. And always keep plenty of fresh water near them.

How many meals for adult Bernese mountain dogs

Time for a treat. From left to right they are Sherman, Hogan And McKinley. Image credit to John and Gretchen Saboe

It is ok to serve 1 meal per day for an adult Berner older than 18 months. 1 meal per day is enough to fulfil their energy needs and required nutrition for them. You can decide the time to feed them and serve them same time daily. Unlike today, in the past, Berners were hard workers. People used them for many activities during their day to day life. So, if you also get him for various activities during the day, you can serve him 2 meals per day. As well as if they are not healthy, feed them twice a day.

If it is an adult or a pup, do not overfeed them. I know we love them a lot and care for them a lot. But don’t do overfeeding. If you overfeed them, they will be overweight with high-calorie levels. And please never give chicken bones or any other bone for your dog. If you want to give him a bone, you can go to the nearest pet store and get them a safe one.

Pay attention to below facts too.

When you feed your dog fresh fruits, don’t forget to give them in small amounts. As well as don’t feed them cooked bones.

Please don’t get them to heavy work or exercises 2 hours before their meals and 4 hours after their meals. Normally it takes like 3 hours to digest fresh food and takes 12 hours to digest dry food. Now you know about how much to feed a Bernese mountain dog puppy or an adult dog.

Conclusion

So, I think you enjoyed this article and got something valuable from this. I hope to write about Berners continuously and, leave a comment if you got any questions or comments. I would like to know your opinions as well. See you in the next article.

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How Much to Feed a Bernese Mountain Dog Puppy
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