Advice required about puppy food - Page 1

Update photos added in last post


Hi

I'd appreciate a little advice on which puppy food (available in UK), other gsd owners consider to be the best. We have a gorgeous 9 week old pup who has been on i/d prescription food since we collected him earlier this week. The breeder had told us that he had had diarrhoea for a couple of days however i suspect that it must have been longer than this as he does feel very underweight. We took him to the vets the day after bringing him home - he weighs just 2.5kg which I know is much less than he ought to be. Thankfully he is getting much better - has more energy, a good appetite and mostly normal stools. I intend to start gradually introducing complete puppy food from tomorrow. Although I have already purchased food I wondered if there is a particular complete puppy food that is considered the best for this breed by other gsd owners or breeders.


Just to add... we got our pup from a well known breeder - all dogs registered, hip and elbow scored. We had visited the kennels on a few occasions prior to collection and all seemed ok. We are so glad that we have our little fella and that he is getting better however i am suprised that the breeder allowed us to take him home in the condition he was in and it does upset us that he is so very underweight.  
  

Our puppies are all raised on Royal Canin GSD Junior(cannot fault it) we have a litter going very shortly i have just weighed one of our puppies who are 8 weeks old so you can compare the difference in weight, by the way all our litter weigh around the same weight at 8 weeks,
the male i have just weighed is 8kg and that is an average weight for our litter(10 of them)
Your puppy is seriusly underweight, are you sure that is all it weighs ?
As a breeder we would not have let that puppy leave here at all weighing that!!
I wish you all the best, a word of warning dont try and overfeed him or you will upset his system more, you are gonna have to do it steady, he is not being sick is he after meals ? there could be more going on with the puppy than just having an upset tummy

Peggy, thankyou for your reply

The vet weighed him at 2.5kg and told us that the average weight for pups at this age is 3.5kg. I'm not sure why he told us this if yours are so much heavier - this is one of the reasons I wanted to get on here and talk to some gsd owners/breeders though. I have just weighed him again and he is now 3.2kg - so he has gained a little in the short time he has been with us.
I agree, the weight difference between our little fella and your pups is huge - if it wasn't for his fur he would look awful - it makes us so sad as you can feel his ribs and backbone when you stroke him.. I'm not sure how much difference it makes but he was the smallest in the litter - not a great deal smaller than the other pups though, only slightly smaller. Parents were both beautiful good size show dogs - not small gsds.

He isn't being sick after meals and he is passing most stools normally - my hope is that once we get him fully onto a good puppy food,  he will start to gain weight. We are due back at the vets in the next couple of days so that he can have his second vaccination and a check up - hopefully he will start to thrive - we have definately noticed a difference in his energy levels over the last few days compared to when we initially brought him home- he's been darting around the house and the garden all morning, wanting to play -  however if it is something more serious then we will do everything we can for him. 

I do feel very let down - I don't think the pup should have been allowed to become so underweight and as I said, I'm very suprised that we were allowed to take him (at least with us he will receive everything he needs though). Incidently - the breeder wasn't around the day we went to collect him - he was handed to us (at the kennels) by someone who didn't seem to know very much about the pups. All the other adult dogs looked to be in lovely condition though. 



 

 Hi Ronnie

I also have had a litter recently, and one is going today (held back so christmas didnt stress her).  She weigh's 7kg at 8 weeks.

I also wean onto Royal Canin, however I use the Maxi Babydog whilst they are tiny and then transfer them over to Maxi Junior prior to them leaving home.  Sometimes the vaccination can upset their tummy and for this reason, my vet recommends not starting vaccinations until they have settled in their new homes.  

To give you an idea of size, our pups were born at around 500g.  I would be worried that something could potentially be very wrong with your puppy, and as someone who has had the unfortunate experience in the past of buying an unwell puppy, I would strongly recommend getting back in touch with the breeder.  They should be involved (and if they are a good breeder they will want to be involved).  I also would say that the breeder should not have let him go in that condition, and should never have let someone else hand him over. - If I can be of any help please contact me.

Regards

Jo

Your pup looks bright eyed in the picutures.  His coat is good and his ears are coming up already.  From the sounds of it, he is energetic and healthy, just underweight.  Was he the runt of the litter?  I don't know anything about what kinds of foods are available there but I would like to put in my 2 cents worth.  Please do not overfeed him in an attempt to put weight on him.  Feed him at least twice a day, preferably thrice.  Three small meals a day are best for now.  If you give him too much it will give him diarrhea.  Too little weight is better than too much weight.  You need to find a happy mediium.  We had trouble putting weight on our girl when we first brought her home and she had the squirts for a month.  We fed her canned pumpkin to firm her stools up.  The next thing we knew, we had to cut her back because she was getting fat.  Don't keep him on puppy food too long either.  We took our girl off it at 3mo and started feeding an all stages food instead.  Search the message board for protein and fat intake.  There are lots of good threads advising what is proper for growing pups.  We chose to go with an all meat no grain kibble with lower levels of protein and fat.  Do your homework and try to stick to one food so the pup doesn't end up with an upset tummy from switching brands.  Good luck with him and keep us posted, preferably with lots of pics!
Deb

 A nine week old puppy that is underweight would benefit from 4 small meals if not 5.

The dog I was referring to was bright eyed and bouncy the morning she went into the vets with concerns she had swallowed something inappropriate (long story) the vet doubted my comments but fortunately xrayed her anyway.  He found something at the base of the stomach which was assumed to be the item swallowed.  An operation was started to remove the item, what was found was far worse - her intestines had gone sticky and had stuck together forming the mass that had shown up on the xray.  Some of the intestine was also dead.  I was told I was lucky to get her into the vets that morning as I would have come home to a dead puppy that afternoon.  

Unfortunately from the day I brought her home she had issues, and thanks to fate and a fab vet she went on to live a fantastic life, however it highlighted to me how important the little signs are in small puppies.  I was lucky in that my vet specialised in gastric issues as was a massive support during the troubled times.

Hearing that he is more energetic is fab news, I would also recommend using a crate so that his energy use is controlled, after all you dont want to wear him out too much.  I would still be getting back to the breeder and asking why he is small and what was the reason he was placed on ID diet, as it is not a diet you would keep a small puppy on for long.  Dont keep changing his food as that will cause him more upset to his system.

Thank you Jo, Deb and Peggy, for your advice - it really is appreciated

Jo, I will contact the breeder tomorrow - when we collected our pup we were told that they believed eating snow may have upset his tummy - do think he must have been ill for longer than they told us though. I've been giving him 5 small meals a day (just i/d food) but have today added a small amount of the complete puppy food - fingers crossed, it agrees with his digestive system - so far so good though. Thankyou for sharing your story - glad your little lady pulled through - we definately wont take anything for granted and fortunately we live just round the corner from our local vet practice - any doubts and I will be straight there with him.

Deb, yes he was the 'runt' . I'm taking great care to try not to overfeed him as I don't want to rush things and risk him getting the runs again - it's so difficult though as I know he would like more when he has finished his meals - he doesn't cry but he does sit looking longingly up at the area where I prepare his food -  he is sleeping through at night though and I do think if he was very, very hungry he would be waking and crying - hopefully we have got the balance right. I will take a look at the threads you mentioned - we just want what's best for him.

Thanks again - I'll let you know how he gets on  x

 Ronnie

Good luck with your baby - I look forward to hearing that he is doing well.

Regards

Jo

From what you said Ronnie as to how much weight he has gained since you brought him home it is more a case of  him not been given what he needed by the breeder, his coat and eyes look bright enough and you seem to be doing everything correct for the little chap so well done you, keep us updated with his progress, i have to say this though shame on the breeder, obviously not an animal lover
good luck

Aww bless, he looks a bonny little fellow. He's lovely.

When my dogs were pups they were fed 4/5 meals a day, slowly decreasing as they got older.

I feed my dogs Arden Grange and have always been pleased with the food. They also have a lovely nutritionist you can speak to if you ever want help and advice. I know quite a few people who feed Arden Grange and they are also very happy with the food.

Let us know how you get on with your gorgeous furbaby.

Kindest regards
 x