I have a 3 and a half month old lab puppy. She'll eat anything, cat food,horse muck, cow pats, mud etc etc. What she won't eat is the dried complete Skinners puppy food which the breeder was feeding her on and which I now have a nice big (expensive) bag of. Today I bouht a tin of Pedigree Puppy food and mixed a third of it with some of the skinners and she scoffed the lot.
Three questions
1. In your experience is a puppies 'output' less bulky and unpleasant when fed on dried than tinned food?
2. While we're on the subject any bright ideas for stopping puppy eating said output? I stand behind her with a plastic bag and 9 times out of 10 manage to grab it B4 her, but it's not endearing behaviour in a pet (or owner probably)
3 Alot of dog food bases feeding guides on adult weight . What's the adult weight of a Labrador? She's a small breed - from a working gundog strain-quite fine.
All advice to a first time dog owner would be gratefully received. Thanks alot
Jane

Hi Jane most puppies will eat cow pats etc but in my experience
its rare for them to eat their own turn outs I beleive I read somewhere that its a deficiancy of some kind but go to A vets on line site for more info on that, If it was my pup I would change to another complete food such as Eukanuba they do puppy food according to breed size sml med lge . tinned dog food will turn out more waste because thats basically whats going in !!! although I do use tinned butchers tripe about 1tbl spoon ,for smell because thats what dogs eat by ,not taste generally.Things should settle in time, some puppies are justy greedy eyes bigger than their bellies you could also try bulking out the meal with brown rice or wholemeal pasta Pawla

Loads of pups eat their own poo..its a teenage rebellious thing! Just ignore it & she will soon forget about it & move onto some other disconcerting habit....all of mine did!!!!

Ask your vet for some 'deter' tablets to stop her eating her own output if she doesn't stop herself - I find I have to use it with one of my bitches after her puppies have left her - she eats everyones, the older dogs get quite indignant when she's trying to 'clean' them. A 2 wk course usually gets her back on the straight and narrow.

I feed a BARF diet and output is less than input and a lot less smelly than when they were on either tinned or dried complete food.

TH refused point blank to eat Skinners Puppy Food, even though that was what the breeder fed her and like you I ended up with a full bag! She survived on puppy milk for a bit, with the odd mouthfull of puppy crunchies.

We then tried James Wellbeloved to the same effect. Finally she settled on Eukanuba puppy and junior for large breeds which she is still eating 15 months later. This comes with a feeding guide depending on the age and weight of the dog, but the advice line will tell you to watch out for the end product and if he'she is producing more that 2/3 lots of poo a day, then they tell you to cut down the amount fed.

Their advice line was very helpful.

0808 100 70 30

http://www.eukanuba.co.uk/

Thank you all for your help. Can anyone tell me what her adult weight should be?
Jane