Hello everyone,

Daisy is 36 days from first mating and for the last couple of days she is refusing to eat any of her dog food, i have tried various brands but she hust turns her nose up! 

The only thing she will eat (with gusto) is cat food.  Does anyone know if it is ok for her eat this?
I have also been giving her chicken and ham slices which she is eating.
Im just worried thats shes not going to get all she needs form the cat food, she will not touch puppy mix.

Any advice appreciated.
Thanks

I don't think the cat food will harm her, but I can't say on nutrition grounds.  If I remember rightly, dogs can eat cat food, but cats eating dog food will be sick.

If she were my bitch I would stick to her normal food at this point - possibly with something nice i.e. gravy, chicken stock poured over it. She will eat it when she's hungry, if nothing else is offered. It's still quite early on in her pregnancy to be spoiling her. This is just my opinion, and I don't have much experience with whelping, so it will be interesting to see what the experts say. I gave my bitch tempting things the first few days after the pups were born to get her eating again but I would worry that if you start feeding her these things now she won't go back to 'real' dog food.

Many years ago one of my preganant bitches decided that cat food was only thing she was going to eat and she was so determined about it that I gave in. :) Apart form having a cat breeding friend on hand just in case, everything went fine, the bitch went back to eating all that was put before her when she started to lactate and the litter was grand.

Why not try a couple of spoonfuls of cat food (the sort in gravy) well mixed through her normal food? Since that bitch I've found that most dogs that are off their food for whatever reason, become more interested if it is flavoured with a bit of cat food.

Hi Clair

Phoebe had this problem when she was around 4 weeks pregnant for around 7-10 days; she only wanted my neighbours cat's food; however she is now eating for the 5 thousand  :-) - basically anything and everything; but I'm keeping her on her normal dog food and have increased it to 3 x's her normal intake.

Her puppies are due on the 4th from the 1st mating / tie.

I wouldn't worry too much about her going off her food for a bit at the moment.

Good luck :-)

XX

My Bitch was exactly the same at 36 days into her pregnancy and in the end the only thing she would eat was tuna mixed with pasta and raw minced beef.This continued until her puppies were 1 week old but I think this was just because she enjoyed it so much. I did offer her other things but she wouldn't touch it but now she's back on her usual dog food with just 1 small meal of raw minced beef a day.

Thanks all, my minds been put at rest now, i will try mixing a few spoons full of cat food with her normal meat and see how it goes. Do you normally switch completey to puppy food in the last few weeks or just add some to their normal meal?

I change them over completely to the food the puppies will be on at week 6.