I am soon to be the proud owner of 2 Westie puppies. I have been advised by the breeder the best diet until they are 6 months old is.
Breakfast-Egg and Toast
Lunch-Minced Beef and Puppy biscuit
Dinner-Chicken and Puppy Biscuit
Supper-Porridge

My only concern is that they will be so used to having fresh meat that at 6 months they will not take too kindly to having tinned or complete food as thier diet.

Thanks
Sadie

There are Westie specialists on this forum who will be able to give you the best advice for the breed, but to be honest that seems a most unsuitable diet for any breed. Westies can be prone to allergies and itchy skin conditions so need their diet considered very carefully; I'd be particularly concerned about the toast and the porridge. Was nothing mentioned about cutting down the number of meals as the pups grow?

I'm also concerned about any breeder who would sell anyone two puppies at the same time - it's about four times the work of having just one! If you're experienced dog owners you might just get away with it though.

I have had dogs all my life so I know what I am about to take on and I did think about getting two very carefully before making the decission to do so.

Nothing was mentioned about cutting meals down as the puppy grows but that is just common sense really.

I have had westies before so know that they are prone to skin problems.
Why do you find it so hard to believe the porridge?
I have always given my dogs porridge when they are pups, although I have never fed them toast.

I suppose different breeders have different ideas I don't know that is why I asked the question.

By 6 months old most pups are down to two meals a day.
:)

Egg on toast is a new one!  I am picturing the puppies lined up in front of their little egg cups waiting for the toast to be cut into soldiers.

They are your puppies and you must feed them to suit you (and them).  Whatever you decide to feed them, make the change gradually.  If you want to feed a dry complete food, make sure you get a very good quality food - not something from a supermarket.  Read ingredients avidly.  Make sure the main ingredient is meat, and look for as few bulkers and by-products as you can.  In order to get them to eat it you may have to add a little meat (tinned or fresh) to encourage them for a few weeks. 

If you decide to feed tinned meat and biscuits, it is better to feed the terrier type of biscuit meal rather than a mixer food.  Generally if you look for bags of dog meal rather than dog mixer, you can be more confident of what you are getting.

Whatever you feed, initially at least it is better to soak it first.

There is no need to soak it first at this age, all my puppies have been on dry by 6 weeks they love the crunch :) of course it is important to supply fresh water at all times.

our Staff girl was given scrambled eggs for breakfast,then either fresh cooked chicken or good quality puppy food and a bit of mixer ( same brand as breeder was using) then again the same and then milky food for supper, 4 meals to begin with. Then down to three at 5-6 months,ours is still on three at 10months now becasue she still loves her eggs and in fact has toast with a little butter about twice a week as well. She still has chicken but also mince and fish as well now and we have a different dried food to give her now that she is older and we combine it with the meat

Would having an egg a day not be quite a high cholesteral diet?     Humans are told to limit their weekly egg intake, surely a dog being smaller should do too?

Not sure that dogs suffer from the effects of high cholesterol, Christine, not sure that they live long enough, however, with a small dog this could make up too much of their diet for my liking not leaving enough room for the other necessary elements, constipation may be a problem too :D

No dogs do not suffer high cholesterol like us :) whole Eggs are the perfect protein to which all others are compared.
I've given my dogs whole eggs,sometimes everyday for well over 20 years.

Hi Isabel  :-) I think it depends on the breed what age you can stop soak the puppy food. At 6 weeks I still soak mine for my westies as I have only started to wean them really a few days before this .  At 7 weeks they have started to go onto a little food but any biscuit/kibble form still is soaked to a degree.   I have had puppies choke on puppy food at this age. My puppy bitch is 6.5 weeks just now and her teeth are just breaking the surface where most bigger breed dogs are a lot further on with the teeth. Westie generally don't even have to start being weaned till 5-6 weeks as they are so small puppies.  :-))

I hand reared this little girl and even though she was bottle fed she would not even take proper puppy porriage until she was 6 weeks. :-))

We have to remember that breeds are all so different.

I have said to Sadie that 2 westies is not a good idea also , training takes far longer with 2 than 1 but if she is happy and the breeder is I guess time will tell.

What diet do you give your westie puppies?

I am getting conflicting replies to this thread.

You know the breeder I am getting these puppies from and it is she that has given me the diet.

My only concerns really is weaning them off fresh meat onto tinned or complete at 6 months old.

I will keep you informed how I get on once I have the puppies hopefully I will be able to train them without any problems, I do not work so I will be able to devote all my time to them.

Hi Sadie, can I ask you, why would you want to take the pups OFF fresh meat and put them on to tinned?

I don't know if I will take them off fresh meat but tinned meat is more convienient as we have a touring caravan and in the summer will be off with the van a lot and taking the dogs with us.

Mine are fed fresh but when we go camping we feed them on nature diet, this doesnt cause upset tums at all and is a complete food - just a suggestion :)

In our house we prepare and take as much time ( if not more) over the dogs food as we do our own.  I tend to get a better reaction when I put the dog bowls down than when I put the dinner plates down :-)))))

Everyone is different but I could not feed or select a food because of convience.

I also have a caravan and take one or 2 days food with me and if I was to be away more than 2 days then I would nip to the shops and pick up fresh food when I am away just like I would have to for our own food.

I always find diets a bit hard to talk about as I have my own way of doing things and it isn't by the book being most raw stuff.

I don't do a set balanced diet daily but like to acheive it over a few days. Sometimes when thinking what to give them I think back what they have had over the last few days then take whatever my choice is out the freezer..           Not as complicated as it sounds. 

We dont have a fridge for our tent and tend to camp in remote places so have found the best food to feed whilst camping is nature diet - obviously if we stumble accross a butcher nearby then it would be rude not to pop in ;)

Forgot about the remote places :-))   I hear a few good reports on the nature diet.

Its the closest I think to feeding raw (although its cooked :D ) and mine are dead fussy.  The problem is its going to take up a lot of room in the car this year as we now have two Irish Setters and they will probably have to have about 4 packs each per day !!!  the only other one which is good is natures own which is made by AMP and doesnt take up as much room as its foil packed.  Last year we took some turkey necks for Fagan to eat when we got there and whilst we were putting up the tent he dug a big hole behind the car and buried them luckily the campsite owners were used to dogs and didnt mind the craters which kept appearing on the campsite :p

Hi Sadie, :-)

I/we can only tell you our opinions but I don't personally don't feed my westies complete food regularly or tinned meat.

I feed them a very wide choice of food from quite a young age.   

Approx 60%- 70%  of the time I feed them raw tripe,  approx 30% of the time I feed meat, chicken wings , and veggies to be honest bits and pieces of all sorts but they are used to the variety of foods. 

Whatever your breeder feeds the puppies you would need to continue for a while anyway as you do not want to upset their
tummies.  Changes can be done slowly and gradually. Your breeder should really be the one you discuss all of this and any concerns with.

BTW Sadie I have to say I do not know the breeder of your puppies at all. You only mentioned the stud dog owner and I know they are respected breeders.They are not really involved in the rearing of puppies so to speak.  

I know you don't know the breeder herself but the stud dog owner you do know the breeder of the puppies is following advice from mrs ***** including diet for the puppies prices to charge for the puppies etc

Hi Sadie,

I was merely correcting you because you said , "You know the breeder I am getting these puppies from and it is she that has given me the diet"       When I dont :-) . Not being ackward.

Good luck with your pups.

Gosh Blue, no I didn't realise Westie were not weaned till that age :) if I left my cocker puppies till that age they would be chewing my leg off as I walked past :)

It's funny Isabel , I don't know about other breeds as never bred any other but I find a westie puppy matures over night between 6.5 week and 7 , they 3 days seem to change them incredibly.

I think if someone had a large litter for the breed say 4 plus they may consider weaning earlier but ( I think) most people I know and believe me I asked loads and loads when I was first thinking about having my first litter said around the 5 weeks as starting weaning.   They are still so small at that age.   :-)

Funny Sharon on the board sent me pictures when her puppies ( cockers also) were growing and hers appeared to be similar sizes to mine at a day old but after 3 weeks gosh they were totally massive in size to mine. 

I wish I had the technology to send you some of mine, my poor bitch had none under 10oz and most were between 12 or even 13 oz cookoos! you would not want to meet them on a dark night if they were hungry :D

My body cringes when I think of the poor dams boobies, they probably feel like they are ready to be pulled off arrrrr :-))) LOL

Fortunately they were not big litters, 5, 1 and 4 but yes, apart from the singleton, she was very grateful when I started weaning :)

Hi Sadie,

Thought I would come back and tell you of a situation I know of that has had an unhappy ending with buying 2 siblings. It is not personal ,  I know it is exciting to buy the two of them but I do think you are best to see the down side also.

I groom for a lovely couple who own 2 westie brothers. " Archie and Jocky" Lovely, healthy, happy 100% sound dogs.  They are both just over 2 years old.  They have gotten on like a house on fire for about 18 months but then all of a sudden they started to fight, little by little it has gotten worse and worse. 

The decided rather than rehome one of them because they love them so dearly they would get one spayed, nothing changed, they got the other one spayed , still nothing has changed. They have had all different people in trying to help them over about 8 months but it has become a nightmare for them and all of their lifes are miserable because of it.

She called me lastnight to say that they have taken the sad decision to let one go to a family freind.

They are gutted.

BFN

That's a sad tale, and not uncommon. I wonder if they had the wrong dog (the less submissive one) castrated first? Unfortunately we'll never know, and there's nothing that can be done to put it right. :(

Yes it is very likely the castrated the perceived most uppity oen which of course makes things worse as the reasoh for the fights in the first place is that there is no apparent difference in their status.  there needs to be an obvious gap sao one can be top dog over the other.  This is the main reason for needing a good age gap between same sex dogs, especially in the confident/dominant/exciteable breeds.

Hi Jeangenie, Brainless.

I spoke to them at the time when they were decided to get one done first and they got the one that appeared more subbmissive done so I think they did everything that they could right.  They spoke to various people and there seemed to be agreement this was they way to go. They wanted to give it a try and see what happened.   Shame really. Lovely people and both lovely dogs. At the end of the day I guess there is only so much humans can do. They did diaries of behaviour you name it and over I think about 8-10 months so it wasn't rushed.

The other is away to a good home also but it is such a shame for it to end like that.  Should hopefully make people think.

Westies are not the lap dogs people sometimes mistakenly think they are.

How true about Westies not being lapdogs! Just because they're physically small people seem to think they're toy dogs, when in fact they're terriers through and through, with all the terrier instincts and need to be active. JRTs and cairns also suffer from the same misunderstanding.

Anyway I hope both dogs (and sets of owners) are happier now. Years ago friends of mine had to rehome one of their dalmatian bitches (not a sibling, but the same age from a different litter - I met them at ringcraft) when the adult fighting got too bad. They were very upset to do it, but it was for the best for all of them in the end.

Getting back to the original post;
The diet these pups are being fed by the breederis not suitable. Eggs every day is not a good idea and there is no need to feed beef and chicken unless you want to.

I do feed Westies complete food, sometimes  plus a little meat and have done so for many years with great results. I would highly recommend Arden Grange or Burns puppy bites.  When you get your pups ask the breeder to give you some of the biscuit they are used to - enough for a week or so. Buy it if need be from her. When they arrive give soaked biscuit and cooked fresh/frozen chicken about 50/50 by volume with a very little ( desert spoon) of one of the above complete foods. At every meal increase the complete food and decrease the biscuit/chicken by a tiny amount so that by the end of 7 days the pup is on 100% complete food - still soaked. Feed to appetite, as much as they will eat up in 5 minutes or so and then remove the bowls until the next mealtime. Feed in seperate bowls, not too close togther and make sure they dont pinch each others food. If you feed one of the above foods they will not need any additional vitamins or minerals, and may be harmful if they are added.

Westie puppies can be fussy, if they are, you could add a heaped teaspoon of Butchers Tripe(tinned)or Pedigree Chum Puppy Food to each meal. You can also put a teasp of evaporated milk on the top of the meal to get their noses in. Dont worry if they dont eat well for the first few days or even a week or more as long as they are lively and bright and their tummies are ok.

Feed 4 meals a day from 8-12 week
3 meals a day from 13-24 weeks during this time start feeding the food dry.
Puppies will start teething around 20-24 weeks, you may need to soak their food again for a week or two if their appear uncomfy when they are eating.
2 meals a day from 25 weeks
If I had not started to wean at 4 weeks my pups would have already finished the table legs and started on the sofa, though a very small litter can be left longer without real food!!

Hi Blue,
I have read your post with interest and symaphise with the owners of the dogs who have had to be split up. It must be really heartbreaking for them.

The puppies I am getting are not sibling sisters although they are really close in age 1 week.
They are from the same breeder.

Before we made the decision to get 2 puppies we spoke to a breeder as we were thinking of getting 1 pup from 1 breeder and then a month down the line looking for another one and was advised to get 2 from the same litter as if you get 1 later the older 1 could be the dominant one. She told us that if they were brought up together from the same litter they would run together and it would be less likely to be a dominent one.
This other breeder as completely different views to you.

Anyway as dogs are pack animals it is likely that there could be a dominent one we will have to wait and see.

>The puppies I am getting are not sibling sisters although they are really close in age 1 week.

That sounds very like the situation my friends had. The bitches were fine until they were about 18 months old, then the competiton for status started. In fact the problems generally start if the dogs are of very similar status - one more 'dominant' and one more submissive is ideal.
:)

"She told us that if they were brought up together from the same litter they would run together and it would be less likely to be a dominent one. This other breeder as completely different views to you."

I have given you what I would consider good sound advice and others have also.  What you have said I have never heard before and it goes against all the advice I have received from loads of breeders over the last few years.

If we didn't give you advice or point out possible issues about buying the 2 together then that would be unfair. I have given you the advice and it and it is entirely up to you to take it or not. I can assure you though.

I used to think 2 would be Ok myself and asker here a few years back what the fuss was about until I had 2 bitches 5 weeks apart in age , boy was there trouble when one was mated. I had baby gates everywhere to keep them apart.

Sadie good luck anyway, and I do hope the next time you post 1 year down the line it is not because of troubled water .