Eating habits and treats?

[evanb]

I just took home my 8 week old fawn last night. I am curious of 2 things:

1) If the dog does nto eat all of its food, should I pick it up?

2) How many treats should I be giving him? I want to potty train him as well as train him to walk on leash so I assume I will need treats to help. How many treats is good to give him a day?

 

[B-and-Z]

My puppy was really skinny when i got her and I fed her at 9am and 5pm 1 cup of food mixed with some soft dog food at each feeding. I fed her Wellness but its really expensive. At first she didnt eat it all at once and I didnt take it away from her. Now she eats a little more than that at each feeding and sometimes eats it all and sometimes doesnt, but i just leave it for her to finish in the afternoon if she feels like it. She's still skinny so i dont worry too much about it.

I gave Zoe about a quarter of a liver treat everytime right after she pottied, not when she came in. The liver treats worked wonders! And so did giving them to her right after she pottied. Now we have worked up to coming inside to get the treat so she kows we come in after she potties.

She sometimes has accidents but i just have to let he out about ever 2 hours, it was every 1-2 hours when i first got her.

Hope that helps, may not be the "correct" way but it worked for me.

 

[Fawn's Mom]

When we got our 8 week fawn (she's 5 months now) we "free fed" her and still do. She's not overweight - so she just eats when she's hungry.
In the beginning - we would add water to her food so it's soft obviously, so I would throw it out if it had been sitting there awhile...I didn't want my baby eating old, cold, nasty food! I'm just picky I guess!
We would feed throughout the day...whenever she needed more she would get more.
Treats - we gave them ALL the time whenever she did something that we told her to do (i.e. sit, shake, down etc.)...she never turned down a "treat!" and was trained very quickly...we also used liver treats.
Good luck!

 

[gmacleod]

An 8 week old puppy should eat a minimum of three meals a day. I prefer to see them fed four or even five times (the fifth meal might just be a snack before bed). And that can be gradually reduced down to two meals by six months or so.

Picking the food up after 20 minutes or so is a very good idea. You controlling the resources, food included, helps a great deal in teaching your pup that you are the leader (because leaders control resources). It also helps to teach your pup to eat when food is offered - reducing the likelihood of creating a picky eater.

As for how many treats - well that depends a lot on what the treats are. Avoid feeding too much of anything that has salt, sugar or molasses in it. Homemade treats are excellent (at least you know what's in them) and if you happen to have a very food-oriented puppy, then just bits of kibble will do on some occassions. Puppies do need to be rewarded when you're trying to train them, but not every pup is overly motivated by food. Keep in mind that "treats" can also be praise and they can be games as well