In this guide, we’ll talk about the best dry food for your German Shepherd. Our top picks are based on the hours of research and experience shared with other owners. We did a comparison article where we analyzed the pros and cons of both wet and dry dog food.
Taste of the Wild Dry Dog Food
Taste Of The Wild is one of those dog food companies that understands a bland flavored dog food just isn’t enough for your dog. While those foods may be packed full of nutrition, your dog deserves a bit of flavor profile on their pallette.
Giving them a food that they’re going to look forward to is great for keeping their spirits high, and watching them dance as you get the bag out is just a bonus you get to enjoy.
Pros
- Made With REAL Roasted Meats: Taste Of The Wild understands that your dogs have taste buds, too. That’s why they use 100% real meats, roasted to perfection in every recipe they offer. These flavors will have your dogs begging to be feed — if they could talk, that is.
- Supplemented With Fruits & Vegetables: Getting a well rounded diet is crucial to promote proper growth in your dog’s various systems. Unless your dog has a hankering for fruits and vegetables, though, they’re not going to get the vitamins outside of the food you give them. Each bag of Taste Of The Wild is packed chock full of fruits and vegetables, for a well rounded diet.
- Delivers Natural Antioxidants: While your dog food is designed to help your puppy or dog grow, and stay active, Taste Of The Wild also wants to make sure their bodies are able to fight off any potential bugs or viruses they may come down with. The antioxidants in each bag helps promote an active immune system in your dog, so they can fight off various illnesses.
- Grain-Free Dog Food: A large amount of dogs are allergic to the various grains used as fillers in most dog foods. Taste Of The Wild understands this, and crafts each of their recipes without the use of grains that may cause your dog to get indigestion.
Cons
- Some Customers Reported Upset Stomachs: Some customers reported that the bag of food they ordered may have set on the shelves a bit too long, and become rancid. This caused their dogs to have some indigestion problems, and loose stools.
- You may want to send the seller an email and ask if they can provide you with the expiration dates on their current batch, and only order as much as you need to prevent it from going bad.
- Has Been Recalled In The Past: To maintain 100% transparency for our readers, we do have to let you know that Taste Of The Wild went through a recall period a few years ago. While they’ve rectified the situation, you need to know that the recall happened.
Buying Advice
Giving your dog a food that is going to keep them healthy and promote proper growth is essential as a pet owner. However, with Taste Of The Wild, you can also give them a food that they’re going to look forward to eating, because it’s packed chock full of flavor that dog’s love.
To maintain transparency for Shepped.com readers, keep their past recall in mind, but also realize that they’ve cleared up the situation.
Ask the seller for a sample of the expiration dates on the bags of food that they’re shipping out to make sure you’re not buying an out of date bag.
Royal Canin Dry Dog Food
Not all dog foods are created equal. In fact, there are very few dry dog foods on the market these days that are actually healthy for your dog to eat.
A lot of companies have forgone your dog’s health in favor of generating more profits for themselves. When you look at how they’re staying competitive (by lowering their prices) it makes you wonder how they can still turn a profit at all.
That’s why Royal Canin decided to set themselves apart from every other dog food manufacturer. Instead of competing on price, they compete on formulas and great taste. Each bag contains a very specific formula that promotes proper growth from puppy to old dog.
Pros
- Supports Proper Joint Health: A precise mixture of glucosamine and chondroitin gives your large breed German Shepherds the joint health they need to support a long spine and legs. Hip dysplasia is a problem facing all large breed dogs later in life, and Royal Canin has formulated their giant breed dog foods with this problem in mind.
- Complex Recipe Of Vitamins & Antioxidants: Maintaining a healthy immune system is also critical to your dog’s proper development. A mixture of antioxidants and vitamins help your dog in every stage of life to fight off sickness and immunity disorders.
- Supports A Healthy Heart: From puppy to large adult, your dog’s heart health is essential to helping them live a long, happy life. With the low quality ingredients in most dog foods, your pet’s health (especially their heart health) is put to the side in favor of increased profits.
- Instead of risking your dog’s health later in life, and possibly even shortening their lifespan, Royal Canin puts the focus specifically on helping them maintain proper heart health.
- Perfectly Formulated For Large Breed Dogs: Large breed dogs have much different demands from their food than smaller breed dogs do. They’re a lot more active, have larger bone and nervous systems, and tend to be a lot more demanding on their bodies than small dogs will ever be capable of. That’s why Royal Canin is formulated to help address each of these areas.
Cons
- It’s On The Expensive Side: The old adage goes “you get what you pay for” and it couldn’t be more true than when you’re considering Royal Canin’s line of dog foods. Instead of competing on price and lowering the quality of their ingredients, Royal Canin instead favors higher quality ingredients that also happen to raise the price of each bag of food.
Buying Advice
Even though Royal Canin is more expensive than most of the foods you can purchase, you shouldn’t necessarily look at price alone.
Rather than buying a couple bags of low quality dog food for the same price you would pay for 1 bag of Royal Canin, you need to look at the differences in quality between the two prospective companies.
When you stop and look at the ingredients, you’ll understand why the lower priced foods are lower priced.
Precise Pet 726331 Dog Food
Humans around the world have begun converting to a holistic lifestyle, including the food that they put into their bodies. Precise understands the movement, and believes that your dog should have the same type of nutrition in their own bodies. That’s where the Holistic Complete line of dry dog foods was born.
It’s specifically formulated with large breed puppies in mind, to give them the developmental and immune health support needed to stay active as they get into their later years in life. Precise also makes sure that they’re not including ingredients that may cause your pet to develop allergies or digestion problems associated with a lot of other dog food brands.
Pros
- Formulated For Large Breed Puppies: Large breed puppies have very different diet requirements than dogs that will only grow to 15 or 20 pounds. They require a lot more in terms of nutrition and caloric intake to develop their skeletal, immune, and nervous systems, and the Precise Holistic line of dry dog foods is formulated specifically with that in mind.
- Size-Appropriate Serving Sizes: Because this food is packed chock full of vitamins and nutrients, you don’t have to give your dog massive helpings to ensure they’re getting everything their body needs. From a puppy, to a full grown adult dog, you will feed them less, on average, than compared to other brands of food because each serving has less filler, and more vital nutrients.
- Focuses On Your Pet’s Energy Levels: German Shepherd’s need a diet that’s going to keep them active, and curious about life. When your food is packed with fillers, it can actually make them lethargic, and develop allergies that could cause other health problems. Precise Holistic, though, is designed to keep them happy, healthy, and full of energy.
Cons
We worked hard to find something wrong with the Precise Holistic line of dog foods, and weren’t actually able to. We typically try to find customers reporting upset stomach, indigestion, or irritable bowels in their dogs when they begin feeding them a new food.
Another area we look at is whether or not the dogs begin to develop food allergies after introducing a new food to their diet. In our research, we were not only unable to locate any potential problems customers are reporting on, but we actually found out that a lot of customers reported these problems going away after they switched to Precise Holistic.
The only downside we were able to find is the fact that this food is not sold in most local stores. That means you’re going to have to properly manage your inventory and place a new order when you notice that you’re getting low — instead of waiting until you’re completely out.
Buying Advice
When your pet’s diet is as important as your own, you rely on the Precise Holistic line of dry dog foods.
You’ll actually save money over your dog’s lifespan because you’ll be feeding them less, while still getting the same great nutrition that requires larger servings from other company’s offerings.
Redpaw X-Series Dog Food
There’s been a lot of companies taking heat lately for the ingredients that they put into their dog food. The food that keeps your pet happy and healthy. Those companies have been putting their profits above all, instead of focusing on generating money through actually keep your pet’s health at the forefront of their business.
Redpaw X-Series Fitness dry dog food, though, has proven that they would rather take smaller profit margins to sell more of a high quality product. The time proven recipe is perfect for the proper development of brain functions, metabolic and immune systems, healthy bones & skin, and is formulated for your growing puppies and dogs.
Pros
- Multiple Nutritious Recipes: Redpaw has created 4 different recipes each tailored to the specific developmental stage of your dog’s life. Whether you have a small puppy who needs a diet to help them develop an immune system and promote proper brain growth, a growing dog that needs a recipe to build their skeletal system, an active dog that needs to maintain high energy levels, or a pregnant dog that could use help with vitamin retention and lactation, there’s a recipe that’s specifically formulated for every stage of development.
- Provides A Foundation For Growth: Every bag of Redpaw X-Series dry dog food is packed chock full of vitamins and nutrients to ensure your puppy has the perfect foundation to grow into a happy, healthy active dog. Redpaw created each recipe by selecting the ingredients that deliver a specific profile of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, fibers, vitamins, and minerals that are formulated to the needs of your puppy or dog and optimized for proper growth. Each bag is based on a 30% protein, 40% fat, and 30% carbohydrate balance.
- Prevents Coat Shedding: One of the biggest problems with low quality dog food is how your puppy or dog reacts to it — typically by shedding their hair. It’s your dog’s immune system’s way of letting you know that they’re not happy with the ingredients in the food. If your dog sheds a lot, consider switching to Redpaw to not only prevent the shedding problem itself, but also get rid of other problems associated with poor ingredients in the food, as well.
Cons
In our research, we were unable to find much wrong with the Redpaw X-Series dry dog food. In fact, other customers reported having issues with other brands of dog food, and only corrected the problems by switching to Redpaw.
If your dog has problems with flatulence, diarrhea, or upset stomach, you might want to consider switching their diet over to Redpaw. Choose the recipe that’s formulated for their current developmental stage.
Buying Advice
Redpaw is committed to bucking back against the trends in dog food with their X-Series line of dry foods. It’s formulated for various stages of growth, and has solved a lot of problems that are caused by lower quality dog foods.
If you need a formula that doesn’t change over time (usually as the company begins to profit more, they lower the quality of the ingredients to increase those margins) then consider giving Redpaw X-Series dry dog food a chance.
Tuffy’s Pet Food Dry Dog Food
“Try it, you’ll like it!”
That’s the slogan Tuffy’s has used for years, and for good reasons. Customers continue to reorder Tuffy’s NutriSource adult dry dog food because their dogs love it. They love the flavor, and you’ll love the nutritional benefits your German Shepherd will get from the food.
From young pup, to old age, NutriSource dry dog food has the specific ingredients, vitamins, nutrients, and proteins that your dog needs to develop healthy, functional systems, and maintain high energy levels to keep them active.
Pros
- Real Chicken Is The #1 Ingredient: While a lot of companies have a “Chicken & Rice” formula, when you stop and look at the ingredients you’ll notice that chicken itself isn’t actually the main ingredient. For that matter, rice is typically pretty far down on the list of ingredients, too.
- Tuffy’s NutriSource, though, is made primarily of chicken and rice, providing high quality proteins and carbohydrates to promote muscle growth, as well as help keep their energy levels up.
- Highly Digestible Formula: Each bag of NutriSource is specifically formulated to help promote your dog’s digestive system. That means the amount of low quality fillers and other indigestible products are kept to a bare minimum. These filler products do not provide your pet with any nutritional value, and can actually cause digestion problems that lead to other, bigger issues as your pet grows in age.
- Formulated With Quality Proteins: Chicken, in itself, is a high quality source of protein. When combined with other sources of protein, the NutriSource Chicken & Rice formula promotes the muscle growth that active dogs, like your GSD, need to stay active and healthy. From puppy to old dog,
- Contains No Animal By-Products Or Corn: Animal by-products, such as kidneys, liver, blood, bones, and fatty tissues are added by low quality manufacturing companies to help pad out the amount of food you’re getting, while forgoing the food’s nutritional value. Each bag of NutriSource, though, contains actual chicken meat to ensure your dog is receiving the highest quality protein.
Cons
- Contains No Grains: Grains are a great source of vitamins, minerals, and carbohydrates that your dog needs, but a lot of companies have quit using over the last few years. Due to a lot of dogs developing allergies to the grains, many companies have forgone using them inside of their recipes. If your dog doesn’t have an allergy to grains, this may be a downside for you because of the health benefits they provide to dogs who are not actually allergic.
Buying Advice
German Shepherds are active, long-living dogs that need proper attention paid to their diet and nutritional requirements. This means that if you want them to stay happy, healthy, and always curious about their life, you should avoid feeding them low quality dry dog foods that are full of fillers and low-protein animal by-products.
Tuffy’s NutriSource dog food aims to stay competitively affordable, while also maintaining high levels of active proteins, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that your growing dog requires for proper development of their internal systems.
