Puppy not eating

[olivethemini]

Hi everyone!
We recently got an 11-week old, mini, called Olive, who we love to bits already!
We have had her for 4 days now. In first day she ate everything given to her: which in hindsight was too much (about 80g per meal). We have since reduced to about 50g per meal.
In the last two days she is not interested in eating from her bowl. She's on a kibble. She has no issue with treats or when you hand feed her the kibble but has zero interest in eating from the bowl.

I have three questions:
1.) how much should I be feeding her? On the kibble packet it says 170-210g during first 2-6 months for an expected weight of 5-10kg. So if I assume she will eventually weigh 8.5kg, I would presume that means 198g, so 66g per meal. Is my maths right? If so, I wonder why she's barely eating!
2.) How long can you feed her kibble for as we have massive packet? Is there a point you should switch to raw food?
3.) Has anyone got any tips for getting her eating from the bowl?

Thanks so much.
Nick

[zeta1454]

Hi Nick and welcome to the Forum

Olive looks adorable

Re the food, it is possible that she ate so much in the first couple of days that she is now feeling too full. Kibble does swell in the stomach so can lead to a puppy going off food for a while. Teething and just changed circumstances in moving to a new family can also sometimes suddenly mean a puppy becoming more picky about their food. The advice on amounts on the side of packets can be misleading as they are a generalisation and often over-estimate what is needed.

If you want to switch her to raw food (and I do personally think this is the best food for dogs) you can move on to this at any time really. We wean puppies on to raw meat so there is no issue with feeding raw to Olive as regards her age. I would also not necessarily try mixing kibble and raw although some people do make a gradual transition by giving one meal of raw and one of kibble. When we moved to raw feeding from kibble over 14 years ago, we had three miniature schnauzers, aged 7, 11 and 12 years old and they all moved with no issues at all straight on to raw meals and no mixing with kibble.

If it is just the matter of having a large bag of kibble you don’t want to waste - you could donate it to a dog shelter perhaps?

Not eating from a bowl is an interesting one and not something we have had an issue with so couldn’t advise from experience. Some people find feeding dogs from a ‘lickinat’ more appealing and interesting to dogs and also slows down fast eaters although you maybe don’t have that problem

https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets ... dom-buster

[olivethemini]

Thanks so much for this response. I think it is because we overfed her in the first couple of days. She is still poo’ing despite having not eaten very much in last couple. We will assume she will become interested again in next few days. We previously were leaving the food out (in desperation!) but I’m going to start putting it out at fixed times in the day and hope this makes a difference.

[Dawnspell]

Jasper has never really eaten from a bowl. Dogs actually prefer to earn what they eat or the build up of anticipation of the food, its called contra-freeloading. Since I've started doing games based concept training he doesnt get any food from a bowl. His daily food allowance is all used in training, passive calming activites, or brain games. By passive calming activities I mean he can have a meal on a lick mat or stuffed in a hoof or stuffed into anything else, snuffle mats. Brain games he has food in empty egg cartons, food scattered in cardboard boxes filled with plastic bottles or packaging etc Jasper is a full on type of dog and this way of feeding has certainly helped him to be able to calm him self down.
Heres more info if youre interested https://game.absolute-dogs.com/ditch-the-bowl44143916 theres a raw version too.