Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Puppies should be eating solid food and should no longer be nursing at around 8 weeks of age. At this tender age, puppies are ready for their new homes and life without their mother.

* Choose food designed specially for Puppies. Puppies over the age of 8 weeks no longer require milk. In fact many puppies develop diarrhoea if you feed them milk.

* Raw meat should not be given to puppies. Dogs are just as susceptible to Salmonella or Campylobacter diarrhoea as you are. If you feed your dog with raw meat and it catches these bugs, you might catch them from your dog too.

* Human foods should be given in moderation. There are no major reasons as to why you cannot feed your puppy or dog food such as breakfast cereals, table scraps and other titbits once in a while but it is best to avoid them for the following reasons:

- If fed in large quantities and regularly it causes an unbalanced diet.

- You will teach your puppy bad eating habits. It will quickly get used to tastier human foods and refuses puppy food.

- It will cause serious behavioural problems by elevating the puppy’s status in the household through the feeding of human foods. You should always start your puppy on less palatable puppy/dog food, not human foods. Dogs have a pack instinct, with a dominant leader in a strict hierarchy. You must train your puppy to know you are superior to him to overcome dominance and aggression issues in the future.

* Additional vitamin supplements and minerals should only be prescribed to your puppy following advice from your veterinarian to treat a specific condition. There is a high risk of skeletal damage when adding supplements that are unnecessary for a normal healthy puppy.

* It is important to measure the total amount of food given daily to suit your puppy’s nutritional needs. Dietary requirements are not fixed. Factors such as age, activity, the type of breed and health of a puppy play significant roles in determining the amount to be fed. But generally for a 10-week old puppy, it should be fed 4 times a day.

* If you change the type of food your puppy has been fed with, do it slowly over 3 or 4 days. Feed your puppy a proprietary puppy food designed to supply all the essential nutrients that a growing puppy needs. Check the package label to ensure it provides a complete and balanced ration, and that the Association of American Feed Control Officials (or the appropriate food control body) has approved the food. Their official stamp of approval ensures that the food has been tested and found satisfactory for feeding puppies that are growing rapidly.

* Your puppy can be fed both dry and wet food. Dry food is generally cheaper but is less palatable than wet food. Try mixing in a little chicken or beef stock over the dry food with a little warm water – this will make the food more appetising and softer for your puppy.

* Try not to make food readily available to your puppy (i.e. dry food always available in its food dish) as this encourages your puppy to over-feed and become overweight which puts undue stress on their soft growing bones and joints at a most vulnerable time. Not only it makes house-breaking much more difficult as there are no predictable regular feeding times, it also makes it harder for you to spot any problems with your puppy’s feeding behaviour. By 12 weeks of age, feeding can be reduced to 3 times a day, and by 16 weeks to twice daily. Try and keep to a regular schedule, as puppies are creatures of habit. An easy schedule consists of waking up around 7 a.m., with a quick trip outside to empty his bladder, followed by breakfast. After 5 minutes of feeding, take another trip outside to a designated potty area as your puppy will need to both pass faeces and urine, and when it’s successful, reward your puppy with praises.

* Nap time is next, followed by play time (you can include obedience training such as sitting and staying). At around noon to 1pm is lunch time, with the next meal at between 5 to 6pm and possibly a small snack or treat at bedtime. At 10 weeks old, your puppy is too young to go without food from 5pm to 6 or 8am the next morning.

* Be consistent about where you feed your puppy and keep to a time schedule for feeding. If your puppy gulps his meal down very quickly and then looks for more, the amount may need to be increased. If there is still food left in the bowl after 15 minutes, pick it up and feed a little less next time. Look at the size of your puppy. Viewed directly from above, she should appear to have the indication of a waist. If the puppy looks round with no waist, then she may be a little too fat.

* Treats may be used as a reward for good behaviour when training a puppy, but don’t over do them. Treats should be small and used sparingly; otherwise they could cause an imbalance in the diet. Words of praise work very well for housebreaking, reserving treats for when training the puppy to come when called and other basic training. At this age puppies get more than enough exercise running around the house and yard and do not need to be taken for walks. In fact, excess exercise may be detrimental to their development and predisposing your puppy to various joint problems later.

* Never feed your puppy scraps from the table at meal times, as this will lead to begging and pestering people at meal times. This may be cute in a puppy, but irritating in an adult dog, and once the habit has been formed it is very difficult to break.

* Do not feed raw meat to your puppy, as it may be contaminated with a variety of bacteria that can cause life threatening vomiting and diarrhoea. Many people do not feed any sort of human food table scraps as they think it leads to fussy feeding, but a few cooked steak remnants added to the regular meal does no harm, especially for Labradors, which normally do not develop any hang ups over feeding. Greed is more of a problem than finicky feeding.

Tags: Advice, Care, Crate, Dog, Dog Advice, Dog Care, Feed, feeding
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