Wet vs Dry puppy food

I've only had Anna some 50 hours now, but I've noticed that her number 2's are pretty gooey. I'd like to firm them up some with her food. I am currently weaning her off of the wet food with a mix of 50% wet 50% dry. Also when I take her out, she know right away that she is supposed to pee and does it within 30 seconds or so, but about 10 min ago when I took her out, she peed right away and then came romping back. As soon as we were in the house, I put her down and she marched right over to the carpet and then dropped her rear end and pooed . Am I just not giving her enough time?

Also what is the suggest consitancy of the poo? I tried looking, but the site kept giving me an error.

Thanks for the help.

-kmatt:dgwlk:

I'd get a puppy off all wet food asap. A mix is fine but all wet food is not great for dogs -- can be a big contributor to poor tooth and gum health.

On training -- you need to always have your dog at arm's reach when housetraining so she never even has the opportunity to make a mistake in the house. If she cannot be at arm's leapngth then in a crate or asleep or on a lap but never able to roam about freely. Most puppies have to do lots of poops and need to be taken out to do this and given time. Id take pups out on a lead. They generally need to pup when they wake up from a nap, after a playing session, after every meal.

There are lots of links on housetraining at the sites pinned at the top of the training section.

Also I advise reading this thread and getting the two books:

http://board.cavaliertalk.com/showthread.php?p=316458#post316458

On poops -- puppies tend to have more sensitive stomachs and merely changing her food around will likely cause some stool softness as will the anxiety of being in a new home away from what she has known. Give her some time to adjust to these things. It probably isn't the food.

Our breeder was giving our Abigail wet food mixed with dry in the evening. After several weeks of Abigail getting up to poo at 4:30 AM I cut out the wet food( substituted some sweet potato) and she slept through until 6AM or later.

Heather R

Well here is the update. I'm giving Anna about 3/4 a cup of food (75% dry 25% wet) 2 times a day. She doesn't eat all of it, but most of it. She weighed 3.6 lbs at the vet during the after-pickup visit. Am I feeding wrong or anything? Teddy could just leave his food down on the floor all day long and he was fit, but not trim. He could run and play as much as he wanted, but he wasn't a sports star. I want the same with Anna, am I doing anything wrong? I've talked with the breeder and the vet and they both said to just make sure she is eating and gaining weight and gets plenty of water.

Is there anything I'm doing wrong or need to improve on. This is technically MY first puppy and I feel like i'm not doing anything right and am super afraid I'm doing something totally wrong!:?

Karlin said:

On training -- you need to always have your dog at arm's reach when housetraining so she never even has the opportunity to make a mistake in the house. If she cannot be at arm's leapngth then in a crate or asleep or on a lap but never able to roam about freely. Most puppies have to do lots of poops and need to be taken out to do this and given time. Id take pups out on a lead. They generally need to pup when they wake up from a nap, after a playing session, after every meal.

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Karlin, no joke I just put her down turned around to close the door and lock it and by the time I had turned around she was doing it. She was maybe 3-4 ft away. :*gh: But today We've done much better, just one little pee accident.

kmatt said:

Well here is the update. I'm giving Anna about 3/4 a cup of food (75% dry 25% wet) 2 times a day. She doesn't eat all of it, but most of it.
Is there anything I'm doing wrong or need to improve on. This is technically MY first puppy and I feel like i'm not doing anything right and am super afraid I'm doing something totally wrong!:?

Click to expand...

Twice a day feeding for a 7 week old pup is not ideal, they need food divided between 4 meals a day, in effect they get the same as an adult but in smaller quantities. having all that food in one go could be upsetting her tummy.

Nanette

I agree with karlin, i had a cocker spaniel years ago, and she had wet food as recommended by her breeders and gosh what a time i had with her teeth, she had to have them scraped and cleaned several times. So with harley has nearly always has dried food. di

Just reciprocate what has been said - wet food alone is a no-no. When they get older the difference in tooth and gum health is shocking between dogs with dry and dogs on wet only. The dry food toughens up their gums and provides the essential crunch needed for tooth health. Any dog I have had has been fed on dry food from the get go, sometimes they take a while to adjust (but this tends to be the case with any change of food during their lives) but it's a much better choice in the long run. Plenty of people feed a mix of wet and dry, which is fine too, but I have found that if mine are fed wet for whatever reason their poo has the same general consistency as the food :grnyuk:

im with everyone else here, i do wet food mixed with lots of dry tho she's a monkey & sometimes she manages to eat the lot but with all the dry left in the bottom of the dish! when it comes to treats i give her a dry biscuit, she tries to not take it so the treat bag goes away again until she's eaten that then she gets a softer chickeny thing& so on until the dry one is then the last.hope that helps