When Should You Wean Your Puppy?
If you’re caring for a young puppy, you’ll have to begin weaning them at about 4 or 5 weeks old. After that, you’ll gradually switch your puppy to solid food instead of milk from their mom’s milk or a milk substitute solution if she isn’t available during the weaning process. That means combining the puppy’s dry food with the milk formula until they get used to it.
Weaning can take around four or five weeks, during which your dog gets used to eating more solid foods. This implies that by the age of 9 to 10 weeks, your puppy will be consuming (or should I say gulping lol) dry or wet food on their own.
When the puppy’s teeth begin to come in, the mother will automatically start weaning. At this time, please don’t be concerned about them overeating. Your puppy must drink and eat a lot to meet its nutritional requirements!
Puppy mush is a soft, porridge-like food made from puppy formula and dry dog food. It’s easy to digest and nutrient-rich, making it the perfect food for puppies during the weaning process. Your puppy will not nurse as much from their mom or be bottle-fed once you start to wean them.
The top reasons for giving mush to pups rather than feeding them simply dry food are as follows:
Feeding Your Puppy: A First-Year Timeline
When can puppies eat kibble without water?
A puppy can usually stop eating kibble with water to soften it between seven to eight weeks. A puppy should never be introduced to dry kibble immediately. Instead, the owner should gradually reduce the watery consistency of the pellets over about a week to two weeks.
That is, at six weeks, the puppy should still be eating kibble that has been left in boiled water and turned into soft gruel. Gradually, the amount of time the kibble is left in the water to soften can be reduced as the puppy becomes accustomed to chewing.
Here is a video of someone weening a 4-week puppy over to dry food using a blender:
Feeding Puppies 8 weeks old
8 weeks is the magic number where puppies are often adopted and brought together with their new human family. It is a time of puppy playfulness and rapid growth. Puppies at 8 weeks are learning important social behaviors that will define how they interact with the world throughout their life. During this important period of growth and development, it is essential to ensure that your 8-week old puppy is provided with proper nutrition.
It is also important that you as the owner have a puppy checklist that you can follow which covers all the basics of caring for a new puppy. Proper nutrition will not only help support a balanced and healthy physical development but also provide the nutrients necessary for cognitive and neurological development.
For new owners, figuring out what to feed a puppy at 8 weeks can be a daunting process. The truth is, there is a large body of information out there regarding what you should feed your puppy. Much of this information conflicts with other sources, leading to difficulty discerning the ideal food source for your puppy.
The single most important resource for new puppy owners is their veterinarian. It is strongly recommended to develop a close relationship with a trusted local veterinarian, as they can provide guidance about your puppies nutrition, exercise needs, and track their healthy development.
The first thing for new owners to understand when figuring out what to feed a puppy at 8 weeks is that puppies need more calories, when adjusted for body weight, than older dogs. Puppies are tiny bundles of energy that are constantly moving, playing, and learning. When they aren’t doing these activities they are probably snuggled up, snoring away to rest up for their next bout of exploration.
Because their caloric needs are so great, puppies generally need to be fed food sources that provide excellent nutritional density. Typically this means that food specifically marketed to puppies contains higher quality ingredients and fewer fillers than a similar product formulated for adult dogs.
Puppies at the 8-week mark are also in a period of transition as far as what they can eat. 8 weeks of age is the time where puppies have weaned from their mothers, and are eating solid food for the first time. Their food source can be either dry or wet food or a combination of both. Puppies that are feeding primarily dry food may need their kibble softened up with warm water at first until their teeth and chewing ability catch up to their hunger.
Unlike adult dogs, which are traditionally fed two meals a day, puppies will need about four evenly sized meals throughout the day. Puppies simply don’t have the body mass or capacity to keep up with their rapid metabolism and high exertion levels, and so will need to be fed more frequently. One common mistake new owners make is taking this into account when adopting a puppy, leading to them being caught off guard with the time demands that puppies can place on new owners. But, with proper planning, nutrition, and puppy training, your dog will emerge from this time as a playful, well-adjusted, and valuable member of your family.