Not eating enough???

[Anne G.]

Our 6 month old female pup Murphy has suddenly become a picky eater and barely touches her morning meal. She picks at it throughout the day but I worry that she's not getting enough nutrition. We are feeding her Natural Balance dry food mixed with Natural Balance wet feed. Tonight I added about a 1/4 cup of chicken broth and she loved it and ate everything!! That's good news but wanted to check with all of you to see your opinions on adding this chicken broth. I know it is quite high in sodium but not sure if this is a concern. What do you think??? Thanks so much!!

[Michael Gurley]

Someone I work with told me that the guidelines are also for unspayed/ un-neutered dogs, not spayed or neutered dogs, so the guidelines should be reduced 15-20% for spayed/neutered dogs. I don't know if that's true, but it seems accurate.

[Anne G.]

That's funny because she is actually being spayed tomorrow. Hmmm ... maybe the problem will be self-correcting? :-)

[J and Riley (and Luna)]

Just a warning about the spaying - Luna got a little chubby after her spaying because of the decrease in hormones :p  She's back to a healthy weight now, but monitor Murphy's body condition for a while after the surgery!

[Anne G.]

OK thanks for the tip. Right now she weighs 30 pounds and is 19 inches tall so she's at a good weight for her height. I know growth slows down so she probably won't gain a whole lot more.

[Anne G.]

Thanks! This is our first puppy too. She seems to eat about 75% of what is recommended so maybe that's OK...

 

[Heather & Brinkley]

I can't remember at what age but there was a time when I noticed Brinkley slowed down and we switched from the three smaller meals to two meals... which helped.  Now he's 1 1/2 years old and as of a few weeks ago he's piggin' out!