Best dry food for 12 week old Beagle mix puppy?

That's a loaded question, because everyone here has different ideas. The best thing is to do some reading on foods and decide what ingredients you are comfortable with and pick a food on that basis.

[linkhttp://www.dogfoodproject.com/]This site[/link] has sections on reading labels, ingredients to avoid, and identifying better products.

[linkhttp://www.dogaware.com/dogfeeding.html#TopDry]This site[/link] and [linkhttp://www.greatdanelady.com/articles/criteria_list_of_better_foods.htm]this site[/link] list some of the better foods.

Personally I like Canidae, Nature's Variety, Natural Balance, Natura products (Innova, Healthwise, California Natural), Royal Canin, and Sensible Choice.

Hi! Welcome and congrats on the new pup!  Can we see pictures???

In regards to foods........ there is always a debate over the "best" food and I guess the answer is the best is what works good for your puppy.  I know, not what you wanted. 

Someone on here started a thread that you can probably find on the front page in this section about what foods people have tried and their dog's reaction to it.  It is very helpful to hear from experience what foods caused what.  I recommend you start there.  You will undoubtedly get varying answers to this.

The best things to look for in a food are basically no by-products, no mention of the word "animal" (ie, "animal fat" is bad but "chicken fat" is ok b/c you know where the fat came from, not a random animal), no BHT or BTA, no medanione (sp?), preferably no corn but that is sometimes a debate as well.  wheat usually isn't good, but rice is ok.  I'm sure there are plenty of other folks who will fill what I forgot, but I wanted to list some of the ones that first came to mind!

You will find TONS of information on here and links to  sites that will list the good and bad about dog food.  I can't reference it all here for you now, but try to look into some past threads and see where that leads you.  I will try tonight to find some of the better links and add them here if you want.
 
EDIT: Sooner beat me to it!!  Good work   Those links will help you more than anything I can say.
And btw, I feed Canidae if that helps you in any way.

My 6 month old bulldog likes Innova Puppy with 2 TBLS  EVO 95% meat canned mixed in.  She INHALES it!
 
The breeder sent Canidae All Stages home with her and she had a hard time eating it with her puppy teeth.  The INNOVA is just right size.  Beagles are about the same size.

There are so many foods to choose from that you can go crazy. One of the keys to feeding any food is not to overfeed. When you are trying to find a food that your dog will do well on ask for samples of several foods that look good to you and have your dog do a taste test. I usually mix dry with canned or raw frozen sometimes mixed very well and other times separate the dry and wet and see my dog's reaction. When I fed her Eagle Pack Holistic she would eat the wet and dry when it was really mixed well but would pass on the kibble when not mixed well. I have fed Solid Gold, Innova, Natural Balance, Artemis, Eagle Pack Holistic, and Timberwolf Organics over the course of 16 months. I am now feeding Nature's Logic with great results. It is one of the only foods that my dog will eat without mixing it with canned or raw frozen.
She loves it and is doing very well on it. It might not be for all dogs but it is working for mine.
This goes for many foods. It's a matter of what your dog likes and does well on and what ingredients you feel comfortable about.

Wow!  Thanks for the responses everyone!
 
I stopped by Petco today and picked up some of the Natural Balance Dog food.  I guess I'll try some of the better ones on the list and see how Tyson (My puppy ) likes them.
 
The links and info was outstanding!
 
Here's a pic of my puppy sleeping in the car on a drive:
 

Aw, cute!!

Good luck with the new food!!

There are plenty of opinions on here about dog food. I think some of them should be stickies, as looking through the archives, there are plenty of these threads. I personally feed my elderly dog and my puppy Nutro. Their coats are shiny, they have alot of energy, and I have had good results with it.
I guess if it were me I would read through this [linkhttp://forum.dog.com/asp/tm.asp?m=151532]http://forum.dog.com/asp/tm.asp?m=151532[/link] thread where the owners tell all kibble wise. Nobody downs anyone else over food choices, there are many foods listed, and you get to see how most peoples dogs react to the foods. Then check out some other sites mentioned here.  Good luck!

ORIGINAL: pitterchi

Wow!  Thanks for the responses everyone!

I stopped by Petco today and picked up some of the Natural Balance Dog food.  I guess I'll try some of the better ones on the list and see how Tyson (My puppy ) likes them.

The links and info was outstanding!

Here's a pic of my puppy sleeping in the car on a drive:

Cute puppie and Natural Balance is a great, great choice.

Three thoughts on the feeding of puppies: Make sure the food you pick has at least 25% protein from meat sources, preferably higher. Keep your puppy skinny, rolly-polly puppies may be cute but you're impairing their lifelong health by letting them get fat. And you must, absolutely must, supplement the dog food with a fresh source of omega-three fatty acids. Get a pump bottle of cold-pressed salmon oil and add daily. Essential for proper puppy brain development. Processed dog foods are deficient in omega-3's even if they claim they contain them because they are unstable and don't stand up to the processing/storage.

Great info Mudpuppy!  I have Monica Segals salmon oil and will start feeding it to my 6 month old pup.  How about multi-vitamin like Solid Gold seameal? 

if you're feeding a premium food I wouldn't supplement with an extra multi-vitamin. Too much can be as bad as too little when it comes to vitamins.