Confused?-which food for my puppy?

lemonade_lifestyle

Morning,
We have a 10 wk old pup who was weaned onto Royal Canin by the breeder. Now he is alittle fussy and we struggle at times to get him to eat it for us. We are doing the food down, then back up if not finished after set time. He also has fresh water out all day, but we take it up at 9pm to try help with weeing over night ( got this advice from a puppy training book?)
So apart from not being over keen on his food imho, he also does drink lots as its dry food.
My first question is-am I ok taking up his water later in the evening?
My second question is a general one-what food do u feed your puppy/dog? My mum swears by meat and mixer but so many people seem to use dry/ complete food. I know there is no right or wrong, but just wondered what everyone else does?
Thanks x

krlyr

It's certainly not easy to decide - far too much choice!

OK, firstly, re. the taking up water - personally I wouldn't. Not only do I think it's a bit unfair (if you were thirsty in the night you could fetch yourself a drink, but you're taking that choice away from the pup) but I've also heard it can sometimes actually hinder toilet training - pup learns that the water goes up at 9pm so drinks lots at 8.30, then ends up with a full bladder and has an accident! Whereas with free access he may only have a little drink here and there, and manage to hold himself until the next pee break.

The most reliable method with house training, IMO, is just to offer lots and lots of chances to toilet outside. You have picked an unfortunate time of year to have a young puppy, but it's a necessary evil in my books. Plenty of toilet breaks during the day - at least one an hour, if not more often. Overnight, you can stretch it a little more as he'll be sleeping, but I would start on a minimum of every 2 hours. if there's two of you, do a rota - so if you go up to bed at 11pm, let him out, then someone does 1am, the other does 3am, first person does 5am, then one or both of you may be up by 7am anyway. You both get a 4 hour stretch of sleep. It isn't the easiest of things to do but from experience it results in much faster toilet training, so you won't have to keep up the regime for as long. After a week or two you could stretch to 3 hours at night, then 4 (which will probably be just one break during the night), then eventually leave him all night.

Make sure toilet breaks, especially at night, are just that. Use a lead if possible (have a bit of slack - Halti do a double-ended training lead which can be used at various lengths so gives a bit extra to allow pup to wander yet not be too distracted), don't engage in games - simply go to the area you want him to toilet in and stand there until he goes. Once he's going, lots and lots of praise (imagine he's peeing gold, or pooing out £50 notes!), and you could introduce a cue word (Go potty, do your business, tiddles - whatever you choose, but bear in mind your neighbours may hear! We chose "well done" so that we could ask her to "do a well done", we weren't too embarrassed to say that out loud!). If he doesn't do his business, you could try moving to a slight more boring area of the garden, but if he hasn't done anything after 5 or 10 minutes, come back indoors. However, offer another toilet break very soon after - give it 3-5 minutes and try again. Puppies have very short attention spans so can easily forget to go to the toilet when they're enjoying the smells and sounds of the garden, but once they're in a less stimulating environment they will soon feel the urge, and that's often when accidents happen!

Also watch for the subtle warning signs, such as sniffing around, hanging around the door, disappearing behind furniture, going particularly quiet, etc. and call him to distract him and rush him outside.

Never punish an accident - interupt and offer a toilet break, and ideally have the other person in the house clean up the accident while you're out with pup. If that's not possible, just come back in and clean it up without a word. Pup may pick up any anger so be careful not to come across as angry, as this may cause pup to be worried about toileting infront of you. Using biological washing powder to clean accidents, or a pet-accident specific product from a petshop will ensure all traces are cleaned up (some household cleaners may leave invisible-to-you traces which may encourage pup to repeat his actions in the same spot)


In terms of diet - as I said, tons of choice! There are quite a few threads on the subject in the pet section so worth a search. I don't think there's any evidence to say you should definately, completely go with wet food, or with dry, or with a mix, but there are some general "rules" or tips to follow

- find a food with a high meat content (remember, ingredients are listed in quantity order, highest first). Dogs are carnivores, or at least a scavenging animal that will eat meat in favour of plant matter. Therefore a food high in meat will be better than a food high in cereals/grains. A bonus of having less fillers is that the dog will poo in smaller quantities, which can help with toilet training too (needs to 'go' less often, and produces less)

- look for specific ingredients. "Meat and animal derivatives" often means "anything and everything according to what was cheapest at the time". Labelling regulations mean that the label has to follow certain rules and by being vague it allows the manufacturer to chop and change. If they labelled it lamb, it has to have lamb, if they label it meat then they can use whatever they like. This can result in upset tummies if the food is changing from batch to batch, and make it hard to pinpoint the cause (for example, if your dog was intolerant of lamb, you could avoid buying food labelled lamb - but if it's labelled meat, how do you know if it contains lamb?)

- watch for a trick relating to the above two points, though. Some foods will split their "cereals" category down. So they might list it as "Chicken, maize, wheat, oats, rice, oil, flavourings, preservatives". You think, great, chicken is the first ingredient and they've been specific about their ingredients! However, what it means to them is - great, we've filled this food with 21% chicken, 20% maize, 20% wheat, 20% oats, 15% rice and the remainder a mix of the other ingredients. They've followed the labelling regulations, but it gives a misleading impression. Not to mention the "chicken" thing is another tactic - "chicken" refers to a whole chicken, including moisture content before manufacture. Chicken can be up to 80% moisture (often around 60% though I think) so the end result may be a fair bit less than 20%. "Chicken meal" is often favoured because this refers to dehydrated chicken, so 20% will be 20% at the start and end of manufacture.

- expensive isn't always costly. Sounds strange, I know, but never judge a food on its price-per-bag, work out the price-per-day. For example, if you fed Bakers at £20 for a large bag, you might think - great, bargain. Much cheaper than that £40 bag of James Wellbeloved! However, you might well have to feed your dog 6 cups of Bakers a day, because it's a lower quality food, whereas the JWB may only be 2 cups a day as the calorific content is much more contrated. Twice the price, but requiring 1/3 less, it actually works out cheaper to feed the better quality food! Not to mention the effects that colourings in food like Bakers can have on dogs, often causing a hyper behaviour much like the old blue Smarties!


I feed a raw diet to my current dogs, but my dog previous to them was fed on a dry food. She went through a fussy stage as a puppy, and although I did the bowl up after 10 minutes thing, I was a bit worried as she was a young, growing pup. I ended up buying some Naturediet wet food - it's a good quality wet food, and you can microwave it so it's warm. This really brings out the smell, and she went nuts for it! After a little while I slowly added her dry food back into it, and gradually decreased the amount of wet food and increased the dry food. In the end she needed just a slither of the wet food (and I also weaned off on microwaving it - did it less and less until it was served straight from the pack) to wolf down her dry food (she'd eat it without, but not half as keen). Pets At Home do their own version called Wainwrights - the trays, not the tins (different manufacturer and recipe, and far more expensive), and it's often on offer.

lemonade_lifestyle

Thankyou for your reply on the water. Will do this.
As far as toilet training, we are getting on ok (ish). Odd tiddle inside but we don't punish, just ignore but praise when outside.
During the night he only wakes once or twice, wimpering. We take him straight outside, he wees, we praise then back to bed.
It is a terrible time of year, flipping cold outside!
At what age can I reasonably expect him to control his bladder for a little longer?
He is a cavalier cross bichon.

krlyr

Was going to stick the stuff on diet in another reply but I edited it at the same time you must have been replying! So more info in above post

I think it can depend a lot from dog to dog, no set time, but it was only a matter of weeks for us. Better to take it slow and get it down to a tee, than rush and be battling with issues for months.

lemonade_lifestyle

I appreciate your time that you've spent replying.

I'm not new to dogs but out of practice. Its been 8yrs since I last had a dog and 15yrs since having a puppy! I am shattered _pale_
but i know we are getting there, gradually. 2 steps forward 1 step back.

will have a look on pets at home website.
Thankyou

BECKIN1507

We have just got a pup, we're feeding nature's way, its 60% meat. I wanted to feed raw but haven't got the freezer space this side of christmas. I've never fed this before but am quite impressed, have had to do a quick change over from the old food as she was pushing it to one side to eat this, i've not had any tummy upsets, and easy to understand the ingredients. Here's a link if you want to have a look http://grahamsmelt.wix.com/ultima#!ingredients there website isnt great, I found a leaflet about them in my garden centre.

BECKIN1507

Oh and I totally understand the shattered bit! I haven't had my own pup for 6years now, I had a litter of 9pups only 6months ago, I'm not sure why but that was easier than having my own 1 pup. I've found myself sneaking around the house when she's asleep just so I don't wake her up :-)

Philippa36

We got Wainwrights dry food from Pets at Home - it was on offer at the time. The breeder we got the pup from fed him quite disgusting stuff that made him smell revolting. He's been fine on Wainwrights though with the occasional Asdas own brand puppy treats to help with training. He's 12 weeks now and doing really well. It is exhausting though!

marlasinger

We feed ours Arden Grange as it is a good quality dog food that is still affordable (compared to Applaws, Orijen, etc which are probably beyond the budget of the average family). He's had nice solid poos and no tummy upsets (though the Lamb and Rice did bung him up a bit), but all pups are different and you need to find one that suits you. It's a minefield and I remember being so confused and so worried about which brand of food to choose. At the end of the day, as long as you aren't feeding him Bakers or Pedigree or something similar then you are taking a step in the right direction.

When ours was a pup (he's 11 months old, so not that long ago), we did the same as you with the water as it was recommended to us, and he seemed fine. Can't quite remember why we stopped doing it - I think he was holding his bladder for most of the night, so we figured it would be ok to leave his water down all night. I recall reading that the bigger the dog the better they are at bladder control (bigger bladder I guess). Ours is a labrador and could hold through the night (till about 5am anyway) by the time he was about 5 months old.

It's so exhausting and stressful when they are that young, but they grow up so quickly and once they are out of the 'difficult stage' they are so so rewarding. :j We turned ourselves inside out trying to do the right thing, and reading all the puppy books - but in hindsight, I think common sense is best especially if you have owned dogs before. Books these days make puppy-raising seem so stressful and they make you feel like you are dooming your puppy for the rest of it's life if you do one wrong thing. :mad:

lemonade_lifestyle

Just like having a baby, books help but go with instinct!

Luckily when oscar is can hoover, it seems he's used to all sorts of noises. I can't do it any other time as he is a constant chew monster.

lisa701

Don't bother with the books, we thought we were doing the right thing by following the books but it was a big mistake. Had a few behavioural problems with our puppy and everyone concerned (vet, behaviourist etc.) all agree its down to the techniques we followed from the books.

As for water, we never took his away at night, didnt see the benefit in doing so and its not been a problem.

As for food, I agree that cheapest isnt always the best option, but also don't assume the most expensive will be the best. We started our pup on James Wellbeloved thinking it was good but found it caused hyperactivity and stomach problems. Swapped him to Hills and he became a totally different dog - nice poos (if there is such a thing lol) and much calmer.