Am I under feeding?

[Clover's Mom]

Okay Clover is 11 weeks old and weighs 18 lbs. I feed her Innova Puppy kibble and Innova Dog canned. I've looked on the back and it seems Clover should be eating about 2 cups of kibble...here is what I feed her:

Breakfast
1/2 cup kibble, 1/2 tea. pumpkin, 1 tea. canned, 5 tea. rice
Lunch
1/2 cup kibble, 5 tea. rice, 1/2 tea. canned
Dinner
Same as breakfast
Snack
1/3 cup kibble

It seems like if I give her any more her stools are very, very soft and runny, and with this amount, they are soft but still formed (does that make any sense). And she always seems hungry, I mean so scarfs down her food! Am I not feeding her enough?

 

[gmacleod]

It sounds to me as though she could use a bit more food, yes. For an 11 week old baby puppy, I think its best (within reason, of course) to be feeding them as much as they will eat - this is a high growth/development stage. So if she always seems hungry, then in fact she probably is. The rice/canned food/pumpkin you're adding is fine, but has minimal nutritional value for a growing pup so should be thought of as an 'extra'. Raw or scrambled egg would be a useful addition though, if you don't want to increase the kibble amount.

As for the runny stool: You could look into a different premium kibble - could be just that the Innova doesn't really work for your little girl, and she may be fine with something else. Its also worth ruling out things like parasites, which are pretty common in young puppies

 

[Clover's Mom]

Okay well Clover's stools have firmed up (somedays off and on, depending on any treats given) but now I can't get her to eat!!! Well let me state that differently, except for today she will sit at my feet while I perpare her food, just "wooing" away, when I go to put the food down, she slinks back, then comes foward, I make her sit then she can eat - well she'll eat maybe if I'm lucky half of the food in her bowl, then she's done, wants nothing to do with it...she won't eat lunch except of weekends, and dinner, she'll eat maybe 1/4 of what is in her bowl, I can get her to eat if I use a spoon and scoop a little at a time out and basicaly "hand feed" her!! So at night I just take the dry food and give her a snack she'll eat anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 cup then. This morning she wanted nothing to do with her food, so I tried my trick for getting her to eat her snack and still NOTHING! URRRRR She doesn't drink a lot of water either, maybe I'm just over-reacting but when I get up in the morning I'm so thirsty and Clover use to run to get water, now she doesn't care...so I've taken to putting a few ice cubes in her kennel just to make sure gets some water. She's 12 weeks and right around 20-21 lbs. I know she's growing and needs to eat, so how can I get her to??

 

[Lael]

Lael did very similar things when I was feeding her. It seemed to be just a stage, and she eventually got over it. At about 4 months, I started feeding her twice a day. She's eaten very well since.

As for runny stools, I've never fed Innova so I can't say.. Lael was on a good (but not premium) food when we brought her home at 8 weeks. We switched to Wellness Puppy at about 12-14 weeks of age, and any soft/runny stools completely when away (not to mention gas & eye-boogies going away also). Around the same time she was dewormed... so it might be a worm?? (Not sure what else causes runny stools.) A good idea would be to ask the breeder if they have any suggestions also.

And, I sent you a PM.

Cat & Lael

 

[Lael]

Clover's Mom,

I also wanted to mention that Lael went through a stage where she would not eat much either. What I did was I would put her food down, and after 10 minutes take it back up again. Whatever she ate in that 10 minutes is what she got for that meal. Pretty soon, she learned that if she was hungry, she had to eat when the food was there. Otherwise, she'd have to wait 'till the next meal. Haven't had any eating problems since.

Cat & Lael

(By the way, I tried to send you a PM today, but your PMs are disabled.)

 

[pipersmom]

low growth stage

puppies and children never starve themselves. We went through the same thing with Piper, but I have two young children and they have periodically gone through the same thing. The doctor told me that my children were doing it because they were at a stage where they weren't growing as much. I assumed it was the same for Piper and let her decide how much she ate. I think that if you insist on them eating more than they origanally decided they will either forget what feeling full is like or develop a bad relationship with you about food.