hi,
im hoping someone can help me.i have a 20 week old bullmastiff bitch who has ALWAYS been a finicky eater,i have had to leave food down constantly(yes i know this is wrong) otherwise she wouldnt eat enough to keep a mouse alive(by the way i did try taking food up for a week and she didnt put any weight on that week and didnt eat alot!)
Anyway ive heard people talking about tripe so i brought 2 bags of green tripe yesterday and she absolutely loves it,the bowl was empty within 5 mins which ive never seen before(other than when she has a cooked dinner with us.)to get on the subject of this email is this enough for a growing bullmastiffs diet,previously she has been on eukanuba large breed puppy as then i know she is getting all the nutrients she needs,can meerly green tripe be enough for her?i dont want her not growing up properly and having any vitamin deficiancies!!
she is in my opinion already underweight for her age(when we brought her as a puppy she was alot lighter in weight than what the bullmastiff books said she should be for her age)she is now 56 lbs and puts on about 4 lbs a week(as we weight every sunday)
by the way i do give her 2 weetibix,tea spoon of honey and goats milk for breakfast,and then 1/2 pint goats milk for afternoon drink,and 1 cod liver oil tablet per day.
would really appreciate it if bullmastiff or largebreed owners could give me some help and advice!!!!!!!!!
The breeder i got her from wouldnt be any help as i dont think she quite knew what she was doing herself!!!

Hi Sambull, I also have a picky eater and have used the leave it out all day method of feeding. I found easy availability bred contempt - my pointer wouldn't eat properly and also became hard to train using food rewards. Tripe is brilliant stuff I feed it mixed with his usual complete food, and put down food for limited times only. After 10 minutes I say " Are you no wantin this, son?" then remove it until next meal.
My pointer is 9 months so maybe this is inappropriate to you, but try and chill out about weight. A healthy child/dog in my experience will never starve itself, and staying calm yourself will prevent her catching your anxiety over food. Our vet agreed to weigh our dog monthly for free to help us out about his growth - has your pup grown taller and maybe stretched before she filsout? If you buy worm tablets from the vet this is a good time to have her wieghed and seek advice. Our dog scarfs up his food now, but does rtry to pick out the best bits. I got lots of helpful tips from this site, so good luck.

Hi I have owned Bullmastiffs for over 23 years now so i think i can give you abit of advice tripe alone is no good you must give a good natural meal as well what i do for mine is tripe and meal in the morn and then a dryed food in the evening about 5pm the dry i use is Autarky i have had them on this dryed food for 4 months now and am very pleased with it. Iwould not use Eukanuba at all and not some thing that forces growth give live yogurt in stead of weetabix the goats milk is good dont give cod liver oil tablets. lots of luck Jackie

to jackie,
why wouldnt you recomend eukanuba as it is for largebreed puppy,which i have!?

Hi sambull
Do a search on eukanuba, to bring up past threads.
Alison

Hi sambull please go on to www.bowchow.com it will tell you all about large breed foods and how damage can be done to bones at a young age, i would not feed cod liver oil that again can do harm on its own you do need vitD with it for it to work so i would not bother, you need omega 3 oils but please read all on this web that i have given you( you will learn alot, best of luck Jackie ps it tells you the best foods to use and what to look out for in all dog foods the good and the bad.

Why don't you recommend cod-liver oil tablets? I thought they were a good thing to give a dog? :)

liberty