Feed Puppy | Feeding puppy

Feeding your puppy

Feeding methods vary considerably after choosing a puppy, so one must not be too dogmatic about them but, however you decide to feed your puppy, stick to a regular diet and regular feeding times. Feed your puppies with the meat, biscuit meal, milk and eggs.

A puppy at six weeks old should weigh from nine to ten pounds. You should weight your puppies at this age which is the age at which you should generally worm them for the first time. Never let the puppy leave the kennel before it has been wormed for the second time which is at about eight weeks old.

The diet for a puppy of eight weeks old would be as follows:

9 a.m. One quarter of a pound of meat either raw or cooked, mixed with sufficient fine biscuit meal which it will clear up readily. Increase the amount of biscuit meal as required. This should be soaked in gravy or stock of some kind such as Oxo or Marmite. The mixture should be allowed to stand for about fifteen minutes before serving to the puppy and it should not be sloppy or sticky. Do not use boiling liquid as this is apt to make it sticky. A nice crumbly consistency is best. Add to this crushed vitamin tablets. At this age puppies are too young to swallow tablets whole voluntarily but will do so quite happily when a little older. Extra calcium preparation such as 'Stress' should be added to the food. If you are using raw meat it should be either minced or cut up very finely.

This meal should be repeated again at 6p.m. At 2 p.m. and again last thing at night, give the puppy half a pint of milk or milk powder to which Farex, Farlene or similar baby cereal has been added to make a creamy consistency. Add one raw egg to every pint of milk that you mix, so that each puppy has an egg every day. At eight weeks old the puppy will begin to take an interest in chewing hard biscuits so give a few after the midday milk. Also give big bones to chew and play with. These are better raw and should not be sharp or splintery. No poultry, game or rabbit bones should ever be given. The amount of meat should gradually be increased so that at twelve weeks old the puppy is having six ounces in the morning and six in the evening. He should be sufficiently well grown now to go on to three meals a day. Leave off the milk last thing at night and give him a few hard biscuits instead when he goes to bed. If you are house training him you will find that this will enable him to be drier at night.

Continue this diet until the puppy is six months old when he will probably not require such a big morning feed. Discontinue the meat and biscuit in the morning and give the egg and milk instead. Increase the amount of milk and give a piece of baked bread or hard biscuit afterwards. The evening meal will now consist of one pound of meat and as much biscuit meal as he will readily clear up. An average amount would be half a pound of biscuit but condition and appetite must be considered and regulated accordingly.

At nine months old the puppy should be well bodied-up and no longer require the milk in the morning. Some puppies, however, are slower developing and it would be advisable to continue giving this milk as long as you consider it necessary.

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