We bought our Westie at 12 weeks. He is small for his age. The breeder told us to feed him scarmbled eggs and weetabix for his breakfast but he doesn't like the weetabix and the eggs are making his bowel movements watery. What else could we feed him?
For dinner and tea he has Cesar but over the past few days he seems to have gone off it, and the only thing he will eat is the mini mixer. What other food would be suitable for a puupy of his age as we are becoming a little concerned.
Hope you can help

As he seems to be happy to eat the mixer bisuit I would introduce him to a good quality puppy dry complete food.

There are many to choose from. Teh best thing is to read the labls, and if meat is the first named ingredient it is likely to be a quality food, as met protein is more expensive than vegetable.

It staggers me what some breeders feed their puppies!! No offence to you as I realise you are just following the breeders advice, but weetabix, eggs and Caesar is not a very good diet!! I agree with the former poster. Start him on a complete food especially for puppies. I would try Burns mini bites asap - Burns is a very good complete diet for Westies as it is less likely to be the cause of skin problems that some Westies can suffer from, (some high protein pupy diets are "too much" for a Westie). You can feed it dry or pre soaked. Or you could investigate the BARF diet - bones and raw food- lots of info on the web about it. I would stop the regular egg at once. Ask your vet about Burns as they often stock it or if your local pet shop doesn't sell it search on the web for stockists. There are many suitable puppy completes but I dont feed Beta - ever!!

Hi Westie Lover,

I know that food can cause skin problems, however, I expect that clipping -- rather than stripping -- is the biggest contributor to skin problems in Westies.

Stacey

My feelings are that its an ineffiecient immune system that starts most skin problems/allergies in Westies and can be triggered by many things - diet can be one of them. At least we agree on the Burns!! :-)

Yup. I am going to buy a bag of Burns at the Richmond show. Curious me.

I do not know Westies, I know Cairns - although the breeds are "kiss'n cousins". Cairns are also prone to skin problems, although somewhat less so than Westies. Stripping usually goes a long way to avoiding them, although it does nothing for allergies if they are at the root of the problem.

Stacey

HI, I have never clipped my dogs so am not very up on that side of it, but have asked several breeders ( who clip their oldies/non show stock) and none of them have had skin probs. ( which is why I recommended it in a previous recent thread on trimming Westies) I had asked these breeders - about 4 altogther, as I was thinking of clipping some of mine recently, but could not bring myself to do it. More because if the way they would look than to avoid any skin probs. Is it because some pets are clipped much too short do you think - so they wont have to return to the groomers so soon, that sets the problems off? Or is it because they just eventually just grow more undercoat and less top coat/ Maybe if they were clipped to a longer length, which may not compromise the double coat so much, they would be okay?

Skin problems can develop from clipping because the hair follicle gets "clogged" and irritated when the dead outer coat has stopped growing, new coat is trying to grow up and out, but the dead hair cannot fall out on its own. Stripping removes all the old and dead outer coat, of course.

My Cairn broke her leg when she was 5 months old and the leg was shaved. Basically the same as clipping in effect. The difference between the coat on that leg and the rest of her is absolutely amazing. It is all soft. It is slightly wavy. Nothing seems to fall out in comparison to the rest of her coat. I cannot tell the difference between outer coat and under coat. I thought it was a load of old tosh when I read that sometimes clipped coats can never get back to being hard again, but now I believe it. And my Cairn has a proper, hard coat. I've started to pick at the leg - whatever comes out comes out, in the hopes that some year or other the coat will return to normal.

I think if a harsh coated breed has coat problems that stripping should always be tried as a possible solution. If there are no problems than I don't see what's wrong with clipping. I had a Cairn that I used to show and never knew anyone that clipped, but that's just because I did not know any pet owners. Retired show dogs were always stripped completely twice a year, rather than rolling the coat.

Stacey

Many dogs are allergic to wheat, more than have problems with eggs .. and it's more likely that the Weetabix are causing a problem.

Especially with a small dog you can feed the best quality of dry food, there are several good brands. Pick one that says it is does not include ingredients commonly known to cause allergic reactions or skin problems. If I was to continue to use dry food I would most likely try Burns. Besides the fact that it seems like meets all the requirements for a healthy food, on the web site for Burns there is actually a recipe for home made dog food. I thought that was great .. and I may be naive, but to me it indicates a company that is at least as interested in dog health as it is in selling it's own food.

As an alternative to dry food, Nature Diet for puppies would be much better than canned food or eggs. You can buy it at Pets at Home.

Stacey