softer poo!

Hi i posted a few days ago about our 7 week old puppy, so she's still having scrambled egg and rice pudding she wont eat the dry stuff at all now, this isn't to much of a problem as we want to get her on the raw diet asap as i fear she may not be getting everything she needs from just scrambled egg and rice pudding! the thing is her poos are quite wet (very soft) is this normal in a pup who isn't having much dry food? i want to get her straight on to raw so i can start giving her more variation. also she keeps eating her poo! is this normal? any advice appreciate thanks

pups can sometimes have loose stools which isnt always something to worry about unless its prolonged. the current diet isnt ideal tbh and probably isnt giving her all the nutriants she needs. at the moment she will be growing like mad so a more balanced diet would be better for her. I cant advise on how to achieve this with raw as I dont feed raw but there are some good posts on the forum about it.
here is a good one for starters
https://staffy-bull-terrier.niceboard.com/t12752-raw-food-menu-for-a-puppy

How are you making up the rice pudding? If it's with milk, that may be the cause! Most dogs are lactose intolerant as soon as they are weaned.

I'd try her with ordinary boiled rice plus a chicken wing. If you're worried about her swallowing the wing whole, you can either give it to her frozen, or hold on to the end to encourage her to crush & tear it.

we've been using tinned rice pudding, i tried her on some boiled rice and mackrel a few days ago but after a hour she sicked everything back up i think maybe the mackrel was to much for her.
shes also having goats milk, i've given her a puppy mush we made today for dinner and so far shes kept it down, it had mince meat veg etc in it mostly meat though

The tinned rice pudding will have been made with cows' milk & could well be causing some part of the problem. What about changing to mashed potatoes or some boiled sweet potato?

Yes i'll give that a try didn't think of the cows milk in the rice pudding. i was thinking of maybe boiling some rice and adding a little goats milk and some natural honey? also kind of silly question but how much should i give her? shes 7 weeks, i'm not sure if maybe i over fed her which is why she was sick when she had the mackrel.

Is the scrambled egg & rice all she's having? If so, that isn't good at all.

You need to be feeding her 4 times a day - at least two meals should be meat of some kind (minced beef or chicken are the usual, with some puppy bite biscuits, or a dry complete puppy food) and maybe some porridge made with goats milk for one of the other meals. Then the remaining meal should either be meat again or a little fish (white fish, steamd with the bones removed).

Egg and rice really isn't enough for a growing pup!

I might have missed something, but why did you get her so young?

Caryll thanks for the advice, we have done a lot of researching up on BARF/RMB feeding and have read several of the books by Ian Billinghurst so we know the theory of diet - it's just all new to us and putting into practice is harder than it looks (and the last thing we want to do is make her ill).... we will start adding some more variety into her diet; because we've only had her for a couple of days we didn't want to do anything drastic.

With regards to her only being 7 weeks; she was from a small home-bred affix and comes from well recognised line with many champs; the breeder said as per the usual rules he would usually insist on letting them go at 8 weeks as standard; but as she was doing well and the rest of the litter seemed strong he was happy to let her go a little bit earlier.

She was from a well planned and thought out pairing not a back yard breeder if that makes any consolation?

lillytom wrote:With regards to her only being 7 weeks; she was from a small home-bred affix and comes from well recognised line with many champs; the breeder said as per the usual rules he would usually insist on letting them go at 8 weeks as standard; but as she was doing well and the rest of the litter seemed strong he was happy to let her go a little bit earlier.

She was from a well planned and thought out pairing not a back yard breeder if that makes any consolation?

Whether she was doing well or not, 6 weeks is far too young for her to leave her siblings, she's missed out on two weeks of valuable learning from them, including bite inhibition.

Are you giving her no meat/meat based products at all at the moment?

Caryll wrote:

lillytom wrote:With regards to her only being 7 weeks; she was from a small home-bred affix and comes from well recognised line with many champs; the breeder said as per the usual rules he would usually insist on letting them go at 8 weeks as standard; but as she was doing well and the rest of the litter seemed strong he was happy to let her go a little bit earlier.

She was from a well planned and thought out pairing not a back yard breeder if that makes any consolation?

Whether she was doing well or not, 6 weeks is far too young for her to leave her siblings, she's missed out on two weeks of valuable learning from them, including bite inhibition.

Are you giving her no meat/meat based products at all at the moment?

I can understand what your saying Caryll, but she's here now so we have to work with her .... incidentally there are puppies that are born with no siblings so does that mean they miss out on valuable learning lessons and grow to be bad dogs?

We have been offering her some BETA dried complete puppy, scrambled egg wit goats milk and honey, and rice pudding .... we tried her on an oily fish with rice but it didn't seem to agree with her.

lillytom wrote:


I can understand what your saying Caryll, but she's here now so we have to work with her .... incidentally there are puppies that are born with no siblings so does that mean they miss out on valuable learning lessons and grow to be bad dogs?

We have been offering her some BETA dried complete puppy, scrambled egg wit goats milk and honey, and rice pudding .... we tried her on an oily fish with rice but it didn't seem to agree with her.

I dont think anyone said they would be bad dogs, its just they do benifit from being with mother and siblings and may require a little more work. Lone pups will learn alot from mum as well and yes they will also require a little more work for the things they havent been able to pick up on naturally. anyhow we digress from the first question.

your list of food is making me feel hungrey let alot the dog (minus the beta dried of course ) maybee try again with the fish but small bits and gradually work your way up with it as it really is a good food for dogs. May have just been a bit to rich for her tum first time around.

[/quote]
I dont think anyone said they would be bad dogs, its just they do benifit from being with mother and siblings and may require a little more work. Lone pups will learn alot from mum as well and yes they will also require a little more work for the things they havent been able to pick up on naturally. anyhow we digress from the first question.

your list of food is making me feel hungrey let alot the dog (minus the beta dried of course ) maybee try again with the fish but small bits and gradually work your way up with it as it really is a good food for dogs. May have just been a bit to rich for her tum first time around. [/quote]


Thanks, and I understand what's been said with regards to her perhaps being too young to take home and again that has been acknowledged; but in the same breath it's all new to us and you learn and move on.

With regards to the feeding, I did think that at the time that the fish may have been a bit rich - we have bought a boat load of meat, offal, veg and oily fish in before we got her, we even spent a couple of hours preparing some meat and veg "mush" mixes for her. Our concern mainly is whether it's a gradual change or do we stop with the kibble and start on raw straight away?

We just don't want to upset her tummy or make her poorly as it can lead to a downward spiral if she starts to lose weight etc.

Hiya.

7wks she will need 4 small meals a day.
Ideally if u wanna get her onto raw u can start introducing it gradually now.

She sounds like she hasn't settled on a particular food at the moment, u could try her with chicken, I reckon she will love it. My girl was weaned on raw food and would down a whole chicken wing by 8wks.

The rice pudding isn't great for them, and the scrambled egg, whilst good isn't ideal everyday.
BETA dry food is sh1te, same as bakers, pedigree chum, butchers, webbox and wagg.
A middle of the range dry is Wainwrights from pets at home. U can drizzle some natural yogurt over it to encourage her to eat it.

But if u do decide to go raw there's loads of info on this forum to help.

Just a thought, but I've seen cartons of "Puppy Milk" on the dog food shelves at my supermarket. I don't anything about it all, but I would imagine that it's formulated specially for puppies' stomachs - along the lines of (human) baby milk. Has anyone here used this milk?

Could she have a little boiled chicken breast and brown rice at that age? I'm not too up on puppycare just thinking of some of the things dogs are ok to eat with any sort of upset tum?

Goats milk is good. Mine have a cup ful everyday. X

lillytom wrote:I can understand what your saying Caryll, but she's here now so we have to work with her .... incidentally there are puppies that are born with no siblings so does that mean they miss out on valuable learning lessons and grow to be bad dogs?

I never said that, so please don't put words into my mouth. You have to understand that so ofyen on here we hear all the excuses there could possibly be for a bad breeder to get rid of the pups early so that they don't have to bother with the extra feeding (mum has stopped feeding them) and don't have to pay for worming. Singleton pups with no siblings, although not bad dogs brought up properly are known to be very difficult. I know she's there & you have to make the best you can from that. I'm just saying that it was wrong - not your fault, but the fault of a bad breeder.

new Staffy owner wrote:Just a thought, but I've seen cartons of "Puppy Milk" on the dog food shelves at my supermarket. I don't anything about it all, but I would imagine that it's formulated specially for puppies' stomachs - along the lines of (human) baby milk. Has anyone here used this milk?

It's very expensive, and is basically goats milk. Cheaper to buy a 2 pint carton of goats milk from the supermarket!

I still say that your pup must have meat of some sort - preferably minced fresh meat or a good quality complete dry puppy food - four meals a day. Two of the meals at least should be meat based.

noah had no siblings and we had him at 7 weeks, and to be honest his biting is a nightmare, he is now 14 weeks and despite all the ignoring, telling no etc he still bites (only me) and the bites are getting stronger and more painful.
so there's a lot ot be said about time with siblings etc......

astubliffhacked wrote:noah had no siblings and we had him at 7 weeks, and to be honest his biting is a nightmare, he is now 14 weeks and despite all the ignoring, telling no etc he still bites (only me) and the bites are getting stronger and more painful.
so there's a lot ot be said about time with siblings etc......

Are you teaching him bite inhibition (high pitched yelping {from you!}, withdrawal of play etc) as advocated on these pages? Noah is still very young and will still mouth when playing, the trick is to teach him gradually, and it won't happen overnight, what is acceptable and what is not.

But I have to say, Kuchar is our first Staff and we have found him to be much more excitable than other dogs we have had, so he is taking longer to learn this lesson (and hasn't learnt it quite yet, although our yelps now result in him being VERY sorry and hugging and kissing us).

yea tried everything, 7 weeks of it , and he is getting worse, but only with me?
and noah licks my chin , then sinks his teeth into my lips, nose chin etc.......

Do you "rough house" with him?

yes.

There you go - you're his tough buddy. My son's the same (you men! )

Got away from soft poo haven't we?

Soon as ur pup nips, high pitched yelp, scream, ouch followed by a bellowing NO! Stop what ur doing and ignore them.
Be consistent, dont rough play with him, u can do that once he's learnt right from wrong x

Jackieb wrote:Soon as ur pup nips, high pitched yelp, scream, ouch followed by a bellowing NO! Stop what ur doing and ignore them.
Be consistent, dont rough play with him, u can do that once he's learnt right from wrong x

What I said (only Jackieb put it better!)

whatever you plan to feed eventually then advice given already is good , astibluff..... Tommy is still an "excited nibbler" at 6 months but we work on it,love him to bits just wish he'd stop eating us