i feed my puppy the dry puppy food. is it a good brand?

Before I went RAW that is what I fed and my dogs did well on it. I still keep a small bag for those "Oh shoot, frozen raw and I am out of THK" moments.

if the label says to feed a 3-5lb puppy 7/8- 1 1/3 cup each day but my maltese/shihtzu 3.5lbs seems to only eat about 3-4/8 cups each day is that okay?
I try to get him to eat more but he won't. and I dont want to develop habits where i have to hand feed him to eat more or throw them at him like a game to get him to eat more.

So i just let him eat til he's done. I leave it there a few min after he's done to make sure he's really done too.

He may be getting full.....I would feed the amount that he eats right now 3 to 4 times per day and then gradually increase to see if he eats more. Like Amber said, feed earlier to encourage "potty before leaving".
The "instructions" on the bag are a guideline and your dog may need more or less depending on activity level.
I would recommend finding a healthier dog treat though. Ed sells some really good stuff and I like Natures Balance food rolls cut up into treat size bites as well.

why is there something wrong with the jerky treats? I give litteray a tiny pebble cuz he's so small and i dont want to give him too many.

Not really anything wrong with them, just kind of like "junk" food in my opinion. I used to feed all the grocery store treats until I learned that there are more nutritional options.

I feed my boxer on it and my dog had some allergies to it...Its it was rated a good brand but the more i looked into it the more i disagreed...i would sugguest non grain kibble...Here's a threat that may or may not be useful for you...

http://www.leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/130939/page/0/fpart/1

from all the research i did on kibble food a few weeks ago, i found that the nutro "ultra" (hollistic blend) was actually the highest rated food carried @ petsmart. i was shocked...

i stopped feeding any of those mass produced foods anyway....

dogfoodanalysis.com was where i read/got most of my kibble info..it is a great comparicon site to read through....you will also get a ton of great info here...

I bought a bag of Nature's Variety for those emergency "I don't have time" things...

after feeding raw since getting our pup, I noticed a huge difference in the one or two feedings that I've given her of the NV dry food when she goes to the bathroom. First, it goes thru her system much slower. Second, much more of what she eats of the dry does not get digested.

Eating raw she has faster movement of food thru her system and much smaller amounts of poop. Sorry to be kind of gross, but there's no question in my mind that the raw diet is completely superior to any dry food knowing these two observable things.

Yes, raw is more expensive and a little more trouble...but to me, it's worth it. Brenna has no bad breath, ever...and her coat and teeth are beautiful. She's lean, strong as an ox, and has boundless energy. She's a trim, muscular 50lbs now and will be 6 months in 4 days.

There are definitely bad dry foods and better ones, though...do your research and pick the best if you do get dry foods or better still if you can't/don't want to do raw, get dehydrated foods like Honest Kitchen that Ed sells.

I have a friend that fed your food regularly to his dog. He switched to Innova and his dog's coat is MUCH nicer.

Nutro isn't terrible, like Purina. But if you're going to stick to kibble, you could try Innova. It's still kibble, but I think it's better than Nutro.

If it's sold at Petsmart...I don't like it!