How often should I be feeding my puppy?
It is recommended to feed your puppy four meals a day up until the age of 4 months (16-weeks), and then reduce their feed to three meals a day until they are 6 months old. They can then move to two meals a day, and stay on this routine for the rest of their life.
Do you need to soak kibble for puppies?
When you first bring your puppy home, they’re often a small and adorable ball of fur. You may find yourself wondering how this little baby of a dog could possibly crunch and eat dry food without it being soaked in water.
However, by the time you bring your puppy home, they are likely already capable of eating dry kibble without water.
Puppies first begin to have teeth around the time they are just a couple of weeks old. At this point, it’s ideal to start introducing them to food other than their mother’s milk.
However, because they are still so little and learning about how to eat, play, and move around, it’s important that puppies this young are provided a soft puppy gruel.
Puppy gruel recipes vary, but they often include dry puppy food that is soaked in water and/or puppy milk replacer.
When puppies are just 3-4 weeks old, they are given this soft mixture of dry food soaked in water or milk replacer, often in a low, shallow pan. The puppies tend to get quite messy as they explore this new and yummy food!
Initially, the mixture is much more water than kibble and is allowed to soak for plenty of time to be soft. As the puppies grow up, they gradually transition to solid, dry foods as their meals are mixed with less and less water and allowed to soak for less time.
What should I be feeding my puppy?
Most puppy owners don’t take their bundles of joy home with them until 8-weeks of age at the earliest. Puppies should not be removed from their mother and the rest of their litter until around 7 weeks, so if you’re buying a puppy that is being rehomed before this time, alarm bells should be ringing! If you are a breeder, however, it is important to know the stages a puppy goes through in those very early weeks, to ensure they get the right nutrients from the off.
Soaking Puppy Kibble with Water: Questions Answered!
When puppies are born, the first thing on their mind is finding their mom’s warmth and seeking food. But once puppies reach a certain age, it is time to help wean them off of their mother’s milk. The easiest way to wean a puppy is to mix dry dog food with water.
The dry food, though, should not be mixed with water for all of a dog’s life because it could cause picky eaters. The trick, then, is knowing when a puppy no longer needs their dry food mixed with water. We can help you figure that out.