Pica in chihuahua - am I feeding enough?

[LouietheChi]

Help! I don't know if I feel sorry for him being so hungry or not as he's just gutty.

Right, I've posted before about over feeding, I clearly was. Windy. Lots of poos etc. Loose.
Started weighing his food and that all stopped.
He has pica too, which is incredibly frustrating and hard to deal with.
He is 4.5kg, almost 8 calendar months old and had 90g of dry food (Wainwrights) in 2 feeds per day?
Am I starving the poor boy? Or is this enough? He always acts sooo hungry and eats his dinner sooo fast. Is this just all part of the pica? Any help much appreciated.

[Isthatwhatdemonsdo]

My 14 month old lab eats her own poo and our other dogs poo. I'm tearing my hair out. Not sure what the answer is. My mum has an 11 yr old chihuahua who still eats his poo occasionally.

[tabulahrasa]

My dog weighs just under 40kg and has 300g of wainwright's grain free a day...so it sounds like plenty weight for weight of dog, lol.

Is his weight stable? And is his body condition fine? If so then ignore him.

[tabulahrasa]

Acting hungry I mean, not completely...

[basildonbond]

My dog weighs 17kg and has 140g of kibble a day so would agree with tabulah that he's definitely getting plenty of food (possibly a bit too much)
Have you tried putting it in a food dispensing toy so he has to work a bit harder to get his meals - I know if I just put my dog's food in his bowl it would be hoovered up in seconds

[SistersofPercy]

My Scottie was a nightmare poo eater. I tried tablets, pineapple, food change (he went from one eye wateringly expensive food to another) but it didn't stop him.

Ultimately he grew out of it at about 15 months.

[LouietheChi]

Ok thank you. So he's definitely enough which is great. The food dispensing thing sounds a good idea as he literally takes about 30 seconds to eat it.

Do you think switching to Wainwrights wet food would satisfy him more?

He's not interested in his own poo, but any cats that poo in our garden-he's all over that. And the cat litter, when that gets kicked out of the litter tray, that's his favourite. I have to close the door on the cat when he goes and clear it up before Louie can get to it. We've had to get rid of all the bark in the garden as he got ill from that. We can't even let him in the garden without his muzzle on how sad is that? As he just scavenges. I'm so hoping he grows out of it as the summer will be a nightmare. Why oh why do the stupid animals ruin things for themselves!!

[SistersofPercy]

My Mums Shih Tzu was a scavenger like you describe, he'd eat the bark chip in the garden as well and anything he came across on a walk (it took 2 vet trips before Mum would have it that he needed muzzling for his own safety). He was an utter nightmare. If something fell off a worktop he'd be on it before you knew it had fallen.
He's 2 this week and again, thankfully has grown out of it over the last few months.

[QOD]

A friend uses one of these

www.amazon.com/Brake-Fast-Food-Slow-Feed-Bowl/dp/B000PE30MQ?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

[lougle]

We used this for Patch. It really helped to focus him, although he could still polish it all off in about 3 minutes!