9 week old Pom/ Shitzu wont eat 1/2 cup Innova puppy food or all of his water

Question
i have a 9 week old male pom, half shitzu named Tucker. Tucker is a pretty mellow dog except for a hyper playful hour every 3 or 4 hours. he naps a lot a doesnt eat or drink as much as i think he should. he should be eating 1/2 cup of food and i guess at least a cup of water. i have taken him to the vet for his first check up. he had hook works and was medicated and was doing fine until 2 days ago he had diariah i took him to the emergency clinic and the did a fecal test which was fine.

is he eating as much as he should, should i be worried? i am also giving him nutrical twice daily as the vet recommended. his stool has alway been on the soft side...should it be like this?

he is 1.9lbs and i got him from a friend of a friend who supposedly loves dogs and has about 6 of them.

Answer
Hi Crystal,

If Tucker had hook worms you might want to treat him again even if the fecal turned out negative. Fecals are not so accurate and hookworms are notorious for coming back. Diarrhea is a good indicator that it's still around. It surely won't hurt. You might want to get some food grade diatomaceous earth and give him a little each day for a few weeks. It's very mild on the stomach.

The best way to tell if your dog is the right weight is to feel for his ribs. You should be able to feel them a little but not severely. Also since this is a very small dog I'd recommend weighing him about once a week to make sure he's growing. You don't want him to grow real fast, just a steady increase.

Dogs are carnivores and the food you are feeding him has a lot of thing in it that are not appropriate for dogs like barley, flaxseed, apples, tomatoes, carrots, cottage cheese and lots more. Not only are they not digestible but they are taking up space that could be filled by meat and could cause him not to gain as fast as he should. They take out the bones (best source of calcium) from the turkey and chicken then try to put calcium back in using other ingredients like that cottage cheese. I'd suggest changing him over to a species appropriate diet of real meat, bones and organ meats. Also, poultry doesn't contain enough zinc and iron like red meats do so if you've looked at the ingredients they add a whole bunch of vitamins and minerals back in to make up for the shortcomings. A raw meat diet does not have to be supplemented like that because it's all in there.

Now, dogs drink a lot more when they are kibble fed than fed something more natural because it is so dry. Even so I don't think you should expect him to drink an entire cup of water. If he's playing around every few hours he's feeling good and I'd not worry. Puppies will sleep a lot, especially at that young age.

As for the Nutrical, I'm assuming the vet thinks he's a little light on the weight too? You don't want him to grow too fast but if he's behind it's a great product. If you switch to raw you probably won't need it any longer once he's eating well. Did the vet feel Tucker was thin?

Here are some links on feeding species appropriately. They answer many questions and have links to a lot of other great websites. I have a puppy right now that has always eaten raw and he's doing fantastic. There are a lot of Yahoo groups and other websites that can guide you through the transition and answer questions for you as well.

http://www.rawfed.com/myths/
http://www.rawlearning.com/rawfaq.html