Last Updated: 05/06/2025
See our vets selection of premium foods to suit your Goldie's needs.
Author: Dr Brittany Ward BVSc
Reading Time: 50 minutes - long read
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Breed Diets: Are They Worth The Hype?
There is nothing quite like the majestic and loveable Golden Retriever. They are an ever popular breed known for their sweet disposition and glowing smiles. They are often full of energy, and love outdoor play, the water, and, of course, their food! While it might be easy to find a diet your Golden likes, you also need to ensure you are offering a premium quality diet that keeps the smile on their face and the spring in their step throughout their lifetime.
While owning a breed that loves food can have it benefits for training, it also means they can be prone to weight gain. So it is important to ensure your Golden Retriever is getting the right food to nourish them and satisfy their hunger without packing on the pounds.
As a large breed dog, choosing the right food can ensure they grow at the correct rate to avoid joint problems developing, and support their joints in adulthood and their senior years. Large breeds especially need a balanced and complete diet that is tailored for the nutritional requirement of their size, particularly for ingredients like calcium and phosphorus. The Golden retriever also has a gorgeous coat that benefits from a diet that offers nutritional supplements for their skin and coat.
Factors to consider when choosing a diet for your Golden Retriever:
Our Vet team use their health and husbandry knowledge, along with their own personal and clinical experiences to evaluate each product and provide detailed, informative reviews, free of any commercial bias. We then collate this information into our 'best of' recommendations.
Ultimately, providing your Golden Retriever with a high-quality, balanced diet is one of the most important aspects of responsible pet ownership. By prioritizing their specific nutritional needs, considering their life stage, and being mindful of potential health concerns like joint issues and weight management, you can help your Golden Retriever live a long, happy, and healthy life. The veterinarian-reviewed recommendations and insights provided in this guide serve as a valuable resource to help you navigate the vast array of dog food options and make an informed decision that will best support your beloved Golden Retriever's well-being.
Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space and we update our articles when new information becomes available.
Veterinarian
Dr. Brittany graduated from James Cook University in 2019 with a Bachelor of Veterinary Science and started working in her home town in the Wide Bay-Burnett Region. She has always been excited about working in the veterinary industry, but over the last few years has grown especially fond of dog behaviour and training, surgery and orthopaedic disease.
The Royal Canin Golden Retriever range is tailored to the specific nutritional needs of Golden Retrievers. It takes into consideration the most common health conditions seen in the breed and the support their diet needs to provide to keep them looking their best. It utilises multiple sources of omega fatty acids, EPA and DHA to support the skin barrier, add shine to the coat and support joints, alongside glucosamine and chondroitin. Omega fatty acids, along with taurine, also provide support for cardiac function. They even considered the tendency of Goldens to guzzle their food and their propensity towards Bloat and GDV by designing a kibble shape and size that slows down their eating.
The Royal Canin Golden Retriever Puppy food has the added benefit of ingredients like beet pulp for healthy digestion and anti-oxidants for immune system support. The addition of Yucca extract is also included and beneficial for reducing faecal odour while improving consistency. The combination of both the puppy and adult foods allows for an easy transition and convenience of a diet range from birth to senior.
"My two goldies love this food and we love knowing we're feeding them the best nutrition. Nothing is more important than our pets' health. A small price to keep them happy and bouncy. We have it on auto repeat."
The ADVANCE Breed Group Diets are a great diet option that tailors it's nutrition to the health requirements of a specific breed, while allowing the flexibility of application to similar breeds and crossbreeds. They use science based nutrition to provide support for a wide range of health conditions seen in Golden Retrievers and similar breeds, including joint support, healthy skin and coat and sensitive digestion. It even addresses less common health concerns like dental disease and heart disease. It also offers owners the reassurance of being an Australian made and sourced diet option.
"As a breeder of Golden Retrievers I highly recommend this product to my puppy buyers for when their puppy has reached adulthood, they don't get overweight and grow the most beautiful healthy gleaming coats"
Wellness Core is a naturally sourced, premium quality diet that uses a high animal protein, primal diet as the basis of their recipes. They provide nutritional balance through other natural ingredients like fresh fruit and vegetables, vitamins and minerals, but meat is always the first ingredient. To tailor their diet to larger breeds, like the Golden Retriever, there is added glucosamine and chondroitin for joint support, L-carnitine and lower fat for lean body mass and omega fatty acids, Zinc and Vitamin E for nourishing the skin and coat. As a somewhat uncommon inclusion, this diet has probiotics as well as prebiotics, helping to boost a healthy gut microbiome and improve overall digestive health.
"My dog has never looked better and he has tons of energy. You can see how much he gets out of this food. Also it looks expensive but I need to feed less kibble and he maintains a great weight."
Pro Plan is the premium nutrition, science backed food range from Purina. These diets are a cut above with premium quality, traceable ingredients and tailored nutrition for breed sizes and health conditions. The Large Breed puppy food uses chicken as the number one ingredient with the inclusion of Glucosamine and omega fatty acid for joint health, a carefully balanced calcium and phosphorus ratio for controlled bone growth and omega fatty acids for healthy skin and coat. Pro Plan places a heavy focus on digestive health, knowing that puppies are prone to gut upsets, with easily digestible ingredients and live probiotics to boost the microbiome. Pro Plan also includes colostrum to boost your growing puppy's immune system.
"My 32kg puppy seems to be thriving on Pro Plan large puppy. He is very healthy and happy and his coat is shining. I loved the prompt delivery service and the price was very competitive. Much easier than buying from a pet shop."
Ivory Coat Large Breed puppy strives to provide an all natural, Australian made, nutritionally balanced and complete, grain free diet that is free from preservatives, artificial colours and flavours. It contains a high volume of omega fatty acids for healthy skin and coat, as well as brain development. Antioxidants from superfoods like Kale and Blueberries are used to boost the immune system, while natural prebiotics and fibres, alongside high quality ingredients promote healthy digestion. Being a Large Breed Puppy food, it also includes Green Lipped Mussel to support joints. As an added bonus Yucca extract was incorporated to control that all important faecal odour!
Ivory Coat also offers a natural, holistic diet option that is not grain free: Large Breed Puppy Turkey and Brown Rice and a Puppy Lamb and Brown Rice Loaf wet food.
"My puppy Billie loves this food! We made the switch to Ivory Coat as she had really itchy skin, after a few weeks the itching has reduced, her coat is shiny and healthy, and she's happy and healthy! She's growing nicely and loves her meal times (but she's a lab so that's not surprising). Would definitely recommend this food."
This is a premium quality, highly digestible diet specifically designed for large breed seniors. It has added ingredients to support joint health, a healthy skin and coat and the inclusion of antioxidants to back the immune system and fight cognitive decline in ageing dogs. The kibble shape is uniquely designed to encourage larger breeds to chew and the texture and flavour are designed to tempt even the fussiest eaters. The high digestibility and increased fibre levels are designed to support the slower metabolism in senior pets.
The Royal Canin Maxi Ageing 8 Plus is preceded by the Royal Canin Maxi Adult 5 Plus to offer a better range of diets suitable for large breed dogs, who may start to show signs of ageing sooner. Large breed dogs are often considered senior after 5 years of age, and Royal Canin has broken this senior phase into two diets to tailor to their needs throughout their life. Royal Canin Adult 5 Plus includes joint support, omega fatty acids and high fibre content like Ageing 8 Plus, but also has added ingredients for dental health by binding salivary calcium to prevent tartar.
"My girl absolutely loves it! And I love the kibble size, she was always choking on the smaller nibbles cause she wasn't chewing. But with these she has to chew it! 10/10 would recommend"
The Hills Science Diet Healthy Mobility Large Breed is designed specifically for joint support and has been proven in clinical trials to improve mobility in 30 days. Hills back all their diets and ingredients with scientific testing to assure the food is achieving exactly what it claims to do. This diet is packed with multiple joint supplements, including omega fatty acids for inflammation reduction, glucosamine and chondroitin as the building blocks of healthy cartilage and balanced minerals, like calcium to keep bones strong. Knowing that obesity is linked to joint problems and the two are commonly seen together, the formula is also low in fat and contains L-carnitine to boost metabolism and promote lean muscle mass. This is all bundled up with premium quality ingredients in a nutritionally balanced and complete diet.
"Love this product, my two 10 yo golden retrievers have been transformed on this diet. Thank you Hills for this amazing product, my dogs love you for it!"
The Eukanuba FIt Body Weight Control Large Breed is science-backed, premium quality diet option for a Golden Retriever prone to weight gain or that is a little bit on the chubby side. They provide opportunity for weight management by offering a low fat, high fibre diet with added L-carnitine for lean body weight. There is added glucosamine and chondroitin for joint support knowing that additional weight increases the likelihood of arthritis. They also provide omega fatty acids, DHA and antioxidants for healthy skin, coat and brain. Combined with Eukanuba's DentaDefense kibble design which has Veterinary Oral Health Council approval for tartar prevention makes it a complete food option that covers all bases.
"This food is great. My golden retriever lost weight and she looks great, so lean and healthy. We are so happy to find great food that keeps weight under control. For me, it's a bit expensive but it's worth it at the same time. I give this food 5 stars out of 5. :)"
