Puppy feeding

[inappropriatelyemployed]

We have a 12 week old golden retriever and I have a quick question about food.

The breeder started them off on raw food - Natural Instinct.

We wanted to change to dry after some research and discussion.

We did this about two weeks ago - gradually. Mixing food and then gradually withdrawing the raw food part of the diet.

This went really well but within the last few days, pup seems very disinterested in his food. He had his last set of jabs this week and is healthy and fine so no probs there.

The dry food is smelly and it looks wholly unappetising to us but then we are humans! But from loving his food, he is now a but 'nah not so much thanks'.

We throw in some fresh carrots, curcumber bits and he seems a bit keener.

Anyone else had similar problems?

I have never fed raw but we had a similar thing with kibble. It was a battle to get him to eat it. When we changed to the same ingredients from the same manufacturer but wet instead of kibble he suddenly loved it.

Honestly as smelliness goes kibble is pretty dull. Now mine eats wet I have no issues at feeding time. I also alternate between three or four different wet flavours so I rotate them every couple of days. I know it is apparently frowned on swooping foods but we have had no issues feeding different wet flavours and after all if you fed me fillet steak every day even I would get bored of it eventually.

He's voting with his feet!
Mine started on kibble (by breeder). She didn't like it. We switched to raw.
You could try adding some boiled lukewarm water to make a gravy.
Or you could obey your puppy master and go back to raw!

Do you leave the food down or take it up after a short while? If food is left in the bowl on the floorit devalues it and dog will graze rather than eat a meal. If food hasn't been finished in 10mins remove the bowl until the next meal time.

Also at this age teething can be an issue - soaking the food in warm water to make it softer can help.

I know kibble is the food du jour but I can help feeling dogs must prefer something a bit more like meat.

After being fed on raw meat I imagine he's thinking 'what the hell is this'.

What kibble are you feeding OP?

Oh and the amounts the food packets say they should have are just a guide. Mine never managed to eat as much as it said. Watch if he loses weight.

As pp said i would soak the kibble in a little water 5 minutes before mealtimes. How often are you feeding him?

Thanks all. I have started adding water which has helped a bit.

We do just take it away if he hasn't touched it for ten mins.

We feed him Arden Grange puppy food.

I hadn't thoughyt about feeding or wet food either so thanks for this.

Mine used to "need" sardine or grated cheese or carrot on her kibble!!

I use Millie's wolfheart wet cans. They score highly on allaboutdogfood.co.uk and have a lot of different flavours. BiteyDog's favourite is turkey, closely followed by trout and duck

Omg wolfiefan I have been really struggling to get my pup to eat but have just grated cheese over his regular kibble and he has eaten the whole bowl, top tip thanks!

Mine ADORES cheese. And grated carrot. So glad it helped.

A diet of dog kibble is like what factory-farmed pigs get (poor things). Add something tasty like wet dog food or real meat.

My puppy is MUCH more interested in his kibble if I add a splash of milk. Some dogs are lactose intolerant though, so bear that in mind.

I'm not sure that is entirely fair about kibble (factory farmed pigs etc) ..... there can be more to it than that and I know some dogs love it. We didn't decide to feed him it because we don't value his health and wellbeing. The opposite in fact after looking at research.

But I think it is important to be aware of what suits the individual dog whilst perhaps putting human sensibilities to one side.

Bitey - do you they do Millie's wolfheart wet cans for pups?

We sprinkle a bit of cheese on and once a week he gets tinned sardines

Their food is suitable for puppies upwards so no special 'puppy' ones. They have a feeding guide online (as well as printed on the cans) so you can see how much you need to feed depending on age. Their help line is very good as well if you want to query anything.

We have used all 5 different flavours of wet excluding the low fat ones as we have no reason to put him on a lower fat diet. You can purchase a couple of tins initially if you want to sample them before comitting to a larger (and cheaper) order.

Sorry what I meant is that the more cans you purchase the cheaper the price per can. However, initially if you are just want to try them out you can purchase a couple of cans instead.

The reason we started on kibble at first was because I remember wet dog food made me gag with the smell when I was younger. However, the wet food we get now is nothing like it was when I was younger. Probably because it is better quality and not just full of cheap smelly jelly

Thanks. Looking at the feeding guide though, on predicted weight as an adult, which would be 45kg, it looks like we would need to feed 2.25 to 5 tins a day! Is that right?

Ouch yes that's a lot. My cocker is only just 13kg as an adult so we feed much less.

However, there is a happy medium which is you feed both wet and kibble. When we swopped to wet we still had a massive bag of kibble so we worked out how much he would need for wet only, how much he would need for kibble only then split it so it was 75% wet and 25% kibble.

You don't need to feed one or the other so now I feed wet but still throw a few bits of kibble on top for crunch. You could do the opposite in feeding 75% of their kibble with 25% wet (or whatever percentage you want). That way he gets the smelliness and tastiness of wet food on his kibble so that tastes better than on its own. It's no different to say sprinkling cheese etc ontop of the kibble but I like to think it's better as it's just of good quality complete dog food.

Thank you so much. Very helpful.

We've always found Barking Heads to be very appetising to our dogs. It seems to satisfy for a good while too. Firm poops. If dog is fussy we add the tiniest flake of chicken well rubbed in.

Thanks alot for this. Interestingly, we just picked up a few pouches of the Barking Heads wet food at waitrose as it was the only puppy wet food they had (and on special offer!). He loves it and has eaten everything with enthusiasim since.

Tinkobell - do you use the Barking Heads dry food too?