How To Feed A Puppy

Just like infants, your puppies need different levels of nutrients than the adult dogs. There are two major stages: before 6 months old and after 6 months old. Basically, a puppy will grow fastest in their first 6 months old, which means they need a lot of nutrients.

This effects significantly to your puppy’s feeding schedule. In this article, I will guide you ultimately how to feed a puppy properly and healthily to help him grow rapidly.

Basically, there are two kinds of dog feeding: free feeding and scheduled feeding.

Free feeding

Free feeding is when you just leave the bowl out and just lay it in the dog crate. I see that many busy people usually choose this way. Can’t deny that’s it’s convenient for us to not mind a lot on our dog’s feeding schedule. However, the biggest drawback is really serious and dangerous.

Imagine, what if your dog stopped eating one day? Would you know that right away to have the best solution? I bet it’s a no because we can’t manage tightly that issue. Or, we don’t pay much attention to how much they are eating, which leads to some difficulties of something wrong and also the untimely medical conditions.

That’s the reason I always advise you to schedule your dog’s feeding!

Scheduled feeding

If our dog is in schedule that every day in 7 AM in the morning, we give our dog breakfast and we know that everyone eats at all. Then, every night in 7 PM, they get their dinner and it’s been carried out for a couple of months till one day, he doesn’t touch it. that’s a clear signal that we know “Okay, something is wrong. It’s time to go to the vet”

Now, how often should your dog be eating?

Great question! It depends on the age. If you have a puppy who is 8 weeks to 6 months old, they should be giving food four times a day. Now, you want to do your best to split that up for whatever works for your schedule. Might be a breakfast in 7 AM, a lunch in 11 AM, a snack in 3PM and dinner around 6:30PM.

While puppies are growing, they need to have a lot of nutrition constantly in their bodies. Once they get to 6 months, you can cut back to 2 or 3 times a day. Realistically, 2 times a day is fine, which is the same schedule as an adult dog.

Aside from quickly recognizing your dog’s health condition, there are also some other benefits, especially if you have a puppy that you’re trying to house train. If you feed them at the same time every single day, it makes house training easier because you’re going to know when they have to go to the bathroom, or what time is ideal to carry out exercise on your dogs.

If you are just even available of food out and don’t know when that puppy is eating, house training is a lot more unpredictable. If they just eat 10 minutes ago, but you thought it was 8 hours ago then you don’t know when they are going to poop. It’s like you are playing guessing game.

When feeding your dogs, there are two options in food container for you to choose from: food bowls and food puzzle toys. If you are looking for the best type to feed your puppy, I highly recommend the puzzle toys so that they can get mental stimulation from the food while getting physical exercise from playing with the toys. And after his meal, he’s tired and starts resting.

On the contrary, if you do feed your dog in a food bowl, the food will be gone after 30 seconds.

So, compared between two method, with a puppy who is growing fast day by day, feeding him in a puzzle toy will help him grow more healthily.

Be aware of this common case: When feeding your dog at a certain time of everyday, if he/she doesn’t touch it, some people will take back the bowl. And in the next meal, they put down the bowl, if their dog doesn’t show any interest in the food, they will (again) take back the bowl, thinking that their furry is so picky.

You should know that dogs never starve themselves! It’s never the case that your dog would let himself die just because the food was salmon flavor while his favorite was chicken. It must be some problem in their health or metal aspect and you need to find it out as fast as possible.

Now, what if your dog has some trouble eating?

If your dog suddenly doesn’t be interested in the food when it comes to his meal, don’t quickly panic. Wondering yourself if you fed him/her before with treats? Might be your dog in a training session with treat before his major meal or you treat him during the day, which makes they fill up.

From that point, to keep your dog’s feeding schedule, consider treat him around 10% of his daily diet. That’s it! 90% should be their kibble or food and 10% can be treats. It’s a good way to keep your dog out of healthy weight.

Now, that’s all of this article.

In briefly, I highly recommend you to feed your puppy in particular saying and dogs in generally scheduled in a dog food puzzle toy. In detailly, feed them 90% food and 10% treats to keep a healthy daily diet. Due to different stage of age, consider a particular feeding schedule for your dog. There are two major periods: when your puppy is 8 weeks to 6 months old and when he/she’s older.

Another thing you should bear in mind is the quality of your puppy’s food. To boost him/her to reach ideal height and weight, you should give him/her premium dog foods with proper portion of nutrients.

Hope this article help you out on how to feed your puppy in proper way. If you want more articles about puppy, kindly take a peek here: