My new pup is about 9 weeks old, she's a beardie x and i got her from a rescue. she's on Arden Grange puppy 4x daily.

She's not been eating it very well. I wondered wether she should have any milky meals at this stage or is it ok just to feed her kibble.

She is a bit ribby and has today been loose, this could be just settling in.

Any advise would be most welcome.

Julie

Puppies do not need milky meal if they are on a complete.  The complete will contain all the calcium or whatever that they need in their balance.  As you say, disturbance to appetite and upset tummies can often be the result of a change of home, routine and even the tap water so I would be inclined to see how it goes :)

Hi :)
I'm feeding my pup AG, I just leave it to soak for hours then mash it up with a bit of raw meat, she just loves it :) No milk meals, and just water to drink.
Was your pup given AG at the rescue do you know? If so maybe she just needs time to settle in :)

Hope it all goes well for you

Dee

>I just leave it to soak for hours<

I don't know about soaking kibble. I would add water,but I would not soak it. In a grain based food it could cause fermenting,which would only take around 2 hours.

My pups always had a little water added to their food as they struggled to eat it dry.  I would add about 3 tablespoons, I guess, of water to their kibble.  Went down a treat!

She's only 7 weeks Ktee, its what I have always done. As time goes on less water for less time, in a few weeks she will probably be eating it almost as soon as the water is added and in a few months no kibble at all :)

There is no need to soak kibble, even 7 week old puppies have teeth which are designed to cope with raw meaty bones; they do not need assistance to get through man made food! :rolleyes:

Nothing wrong with re-hydrating dehydrated food - or should people eat their packet soup dry? ;)

And I've never had a 7 week old puppy that actually chewed/crunched every single piece of kibble before swallowing. Are they supposed to gulp it down whole?  I soak it for pups, always have done, always will :)

>She's only 7 weeks Ktee, its what I have always done.<

Missie i wasnt referring to age :) I just wanted to make you were aware that soaking kibble for hours,or an hour even, may cause the kibble to ferment,especially grain based ones which could cause havoc with the digestive system,i'm not sure what other problems fermented kibble would cause..Adding water and serving straight away wont cause this problem however :)

Ok, got any links for this info ktee please?

Don't worry if it had started to ferment, Missie, you would know as it would start to froth as gas was created.  When I am weening pups I make up 24 hours worth and refrigerate it before bringing it back to blood heat and feeding.

Pasta is grain-based, and I don't know anyone who doesn't serve it well soaked and rehydrated! Even when prepared in advance and served cold in salads it doesn't ferment. :)

Thank you ladies :)

I was beginning to think I was fermenting my dogs

Dee,
you'll find the 'info' (inverted commas) on quite a few (predominantly American) articles in the Raw V Commercial arenas.. (usually comes up to support 'Bloat/Torison' arguements)
My personal opinion is this is a tad outdated now, I know of one feed that isnt even around anymore that was guilty of fermenting (yellow grain based..came out the other end the same way!) but these days with extrusion being around more than raw grain and Meat protien being higher in commercial its just not comparable anymore.
also, the greatest proponent of this arguement readily admits her opinion is based on research findings in Farm Animals (ie: Not Canids) (quoting her:  >It was explained to me that farm animals bloat when they consume a diet too rich in nitrogen in relation to the amount of sulfur in their diet.
Grains/cereal products are high in nitrogen and ferment quickly and raw meats are high in sulfur.<)
...... tenable.

too late to edit!
I meant to say Tenous...not tenable!!! (duh!!! :rolleyes:)

you've been soaking your kibble again haven't you Liv :-D

whether you meant tenable or tenous Liv, you lost me on both counts :D :D 
;)

I had a word with the breeder of my puppy and she assures me I need to soak it :) so until the kibble is off the menu thats what I am going to do.

pass us some of that beer Lori :)

ok ok HG I will get back to my village in the outer hebrides now :P

Oh darn it! Does that mean the AG chicken beer I made this morning won't be ready tonight??

If it will ferment externally when water's added, won't it ferment internally too?

From Linda Arndts website : http://www.greatdanelady.com
: Do I need to soak my dog's food in warm water first, so they won't bloat?"

>.. Soaking kibble before serving has nothing to do with preventing bloat and in fact, in the early days of grain based foods, it actually promoted bloat. This was due to fermenting grains since the kibble sat for a while and soaked up the water, which allowed bacteria to develop, then it produced gas in the stomach! ..<

Along these same lines, Dr. Lowell Ackerman, DVM, PhD, states:

>"... when a very large meal is eaten, the stomach absorbs much of the acid and the pH then rises making it more hospitable for bacteria. If the food does not make its way to the intestines quickly, the bacteria start to ferment the food in the stomach. This produces gas and the stomach distends (dilates). If not treated, the dilated stomach can twist, compressing the blood vessels...."

>"...Also, do not give him water for thirty minutes before or after eating, because this may cause the stomach contents to swell and more time will be needed for the contents to empty into the small intestine...... "<

What I get from this is that, by adding water or large amounts of food, you raise (or dilute) the pH of the stomach, which then allows bacteria to grow, fermenting the food and creating gas. I can see this logic.This issue has also been discussed on other forums i belong to who's members include canine nutritionists.

I dont particularly agree with with holding water at anytime however.A litle bit to soften the kibble and if fed straight away hopefully shouldnt cause any problems.However personally,i add meat/naturediet,naturesmenu/prizechoice etc to my dogs dry food to provide moisture plus extra goodness that plain water does not provide.

Also, do not give him water for thirty minutes before or after eating, because this may cause the stomach contents to swell

Because if you fed dry kibble, then your dog drank water, the kibble would swell, filling up the stomach more than the dry did, so therefore by wetting it first its already swollen before they eat so drinking after won't make any difference to it.

Soaking kibble before serving has nothing to do with preventing bloat and in fact, in the early days of grain based foods, it actually promoted bloat

I didn't believe it would prevent bloat. I don't believe it can cause, on its own, bloat anyway.  A dog can bloat on a cooked or raw diet, (mine did) 

Is Dr. Lowell Ackerman, DVM, PhD, in your second highlighted quote, talking about kibble? Or is he talking about any food being fed in large quantities?

Remember I was talking about puppies and wet kibble. Not junior or adult dogs.
I've read some of the link you posted, she gives a lot of good advice and her opinions on such. But it is just her opinion.

I'll read some more later, ;)  :)

When you have seen a, just fed, bitch bring up the lot in attempt to feed puppies you would know that the food swells very quickly in the stomach anyway.  As you say, bloat has never been attributed conclusively to any particular diet. Personally, I have never heard of it occuring in young puppies and considering that a very high proportion of puppies are fed on soaked completes these days you would imagine if this method of feeding was a problem that we would be hearing a lot of it.

Ktee, please read the Terms of Service :

No press releases, newsletters, Webpages, or copyrighted content may be inserted into posts. Minor excerpts of less than one paragraph (5 sentences) may be used. All other forms of inserted content from Press Releases, Newsletters, Webpages, or any other copyrighted content placed into messages will be removed without exception. A link to the content is appropriate

You exceeded the "less than one paragraph" by a long way so your post has been edited accordingly.

>Do I need to soak my dog's food in warm water first, so they won't bloat?"

Nobody has asked that question though.  A more apt question would be "Does it do any harm to soak food?" or even "Is it necessary to soak food for puppies?"  My answer to the first is just as I said above, you would soon know if fermentation was happening and can therefore judge when it is OK and I think the answer to the latter for most people, certainly in the first few weeks, would be yes.

Taken from the link above: WATER ON KIBBLE - Puppies 8-10 weeks use 1/4 - 1/3 cup water + 1-2 tablespoons canned meat. You want the food moist but not floating and sloppy. For older puppies and adults I will use 1 cup of water per meal Do not microwave, soak or use hot or very warm water on your kibble. It will destroy the integrity of the friendly yogurt type cultures and the fragile vitamins/minerals and amino acids on the food.
You want the food moist and how else do you do this if you don't leave it for a while, kibble is hard, it doesn't go moist straight away which is what is suggested.

She does say that the suggestions on her site are only her opinion. Well she got that bit right :) Not that I disagree with everything, but different breeds/breeders have different opinions and what I mentioned to the OP was just a suggestion because its what I do, what I've been advised to do, and what I know others to do. So instead of telling me I'm doing it wrong, make some of your own suggestions to the OP (Julie?) and help her instead :)

In my experience dogs do not chew food, they do not have flat molars like herbivores or omnivores ;)

Dogs are designed to rip, tear and swallow whole chunks.

If you WANT to soak food for your dogs, that is your prerogative, want is different from need........... ;)

tohme I would rather the kibble be the size it is going to be before it gets into my puppy.
When one of my older girls' had dry kibble, she would often bring it back up as late as 6 to 8 hours later after a good drink of water if we had been out walking or ringcraft etc. It was always whole swollen kibble, looking just like it is if I soak it for puppy. To me that wasn't digested food, it wasn't mushy or sloppy like you'd expect sick to look like. It was whole unbroken kibble. All of it. Nothing could be found to be wrong with her at the vets (regular occurance) which is one of the reasons I switched her to raw food. Now, if kibble can swell and sit in the tummy for that long then come out whole, to me that wasn't good. Ok, puppy won't be on soaked kibble for long, but for the first few weeks or more letting them eat the kibble the size it is going to be is better than giving small pieces for it to swell to twice its size in the tummy.
I want to soften the kibble because I think they need it to be softened :)

> Dogs are designed to rip, tear and swallow whole chunks

Adult dogs, certainly. But younger puppies the bitches will regurgitate food for, and wild dogs etc carry food back in their stomach and then regurgitate it for the youngsters - so would younger puppies not be designed to eat mush?

my pup mav is 9 weeks ,he is having a large handful of Gensis puppy 3 x daily.
hes not have it with milk & infact id just having it dry now (as i was wetting it at the start)
Do hes just getting small puppy kibble.
He wont do 4 meals a day, even titchy ones.

Hi Julie, I won't give you any recommendations on which food to use for your dog but will repeat the best bit of advice I was ever given on here. 

The idea is to train your dog, not have it train you and if you add lots of different things to the food or chop and change the food because your dog goes off it after a few weeks the dog is well on its way to training you to pamper it!  I fell into this trap when my dog was a pup and she would hold out for what seemed like ages and not eat her food so I would tempt her with delicacies (chicken and steak etc) which she wolfed down rapidly - cue one trained owner.  A few of my friends who have pups in recent years are still in the trap and the dog gets different food every few weeks because they think it will starve.  Good luck with your pup, I've got all broody just thinking about puppy breath.