Do growth spurts happen at 6 months?

[Alex & Mattie]

Mattie was growing steadily for a long time until several weeks ago, when she started to slow down.  Then, this week she's been taking to her food as though she's just famished.  When before we had to coax her to eat from her kong, now she bats at it with gleeful abandon with the look of a starved puppy in her eye (even though I can assure you, from her round stature, she's far from starving!)

Has anyone had experiences with growth spurts happening around 5.5-7 months?  Or has she just begun a love affair with kibble all of the sudden?

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

That's interesting, Alex. Oscar (7 months), has always had a very, very healthy appetite, which never changes (he ALWAYS seems hungry!). His first 5 months he gained about 2 lbs a week. He's on the stocky side (the vet called him, "couch potato healthy") so I've had him on 'the green bean diet' for the past month or so. He gets about 2-1/4 cups of Acana dry food a day with 1 cup of canned unsalted green beans each meal for volume. I would expect him to still be growing, but he has not gained 1 pound in that one month time. He doesn't appear, to me at least, to be leaning out, either, which I would expect if he were growing and not gaining (I've only recently begun to measure his height, so I can't really go by that, either). I think he's hit a growth slump. So, it would seem Oscar is the reverse of Matti.

From my experience with my other doodle, Lucy, she continued to grow/gain weight after 7 months, but much much slower. It continued up to her 2nd year. Even after that she filled out a little. So, I think they go through slow growth periods. Not sure I'd call them 'spurts', at least not in Lucy's case, but very slow steady growth.

[Alex & Mattie]

Couch potato healthy....That's great!!  Thanks for the input Debb.  We'll just have to wait and see I suppose :)

[Nelson, Jeanne and Annie Oakley]

Annie did the same thing.  When we first got her she was 3 1/2 months old and ate like there was no tomorrow.  After a couple weeks she seemed to stop eating although she was still healthy and gaining weight.  We thought it was because she didn't like her dog food.  The weekend she turned 6 months we babysat one of our daughters French Bulldogs and Annie went crazy for Harley's food.  The mix our daughter uses for her dogs sensitive stomachs was very expensive so I checked with the vet who uses Canidae which is made here in Texas.  They had a formula mix of chicken, lamb, fish and rice.  We tried that with Annie and she is back to eating like a chow hound! 

[Alex & Mattie]

Thanks!  I guess they go through phases with their food.  I know I'd want to change my food up from time to time if I was a dog too.  So are you using Canidae now or is it something else?  Annie's a sweet looking pup!

[Nelson, Jeanne and Annie Oakley]

Thank you!  She is a very sweet puppy... We are still feeding her Canidae.  When we got her the rescue group gave us a bag of pro-plan lamb and she ate that pretty well however several people didn't recommend pro-plan so we tried Nutro lamb for puppies.  She liked that however she kept scratching and crying (as she had with the pro-plan)  so I thought maybe she was allergic to it although it said that formula was for dry skin.  I tried Blue with lamb and she barely ate it.  She would go 24 hours without eating unless I mixed honey with it.  When I went back to PetSmart the rep from Science Diet was there and he highly (of course) recommended the SD chicken formula.  Same thing..she'd only eat it if I mixed it with peanut butter or honey.  I was talking to the vet and she said her dogs loved Canidae and it was made here in Texas.  She had just started selling it because so many of her clients asked where they could get it.  We tried a small bag of the lamb flavor and Annie wouldn't eat it without the honey.  Then we baby sat our daughters dog.  She has two French bulldogs and a pitbull.  One of the Frenches has a very sensitive stomach and, after a lot of trial and error they found the fish formulas worked best so they mix Iams ocean fish and Blue Salmon.  She brought some for Harley and Annie couldn't get enough of it.  After checking the prices at Pet Smart it was much more than we were willing to pay for dog food.  I called our vet and asked if Canidae had a fish formula.  She said they did and a couple of her clients used it, she was out of it.  We decided to try Annie on the chicken formula but she only had a 15lb bag.  She said she'd order the fish and if Annie didn't like the chicken I could bring it back.  When she checked the ingredients on the chicken she found it also contained lamb and fish.  I put it in Annies bowl and she ate it up without having to add the honey or peanut butter.  We've gone through about 1/2 the bag and she is eating 1-1 1/2 cups twice a day and  doesn't seem to be scratching herself the way she used to.

When we got her on January 13 she weighed 11lbs.  In Feb. she weighed 23 and in March 32lbs.  Her sister, Noel, went from 13lbs in January to 45lbs by March!   Noel's owner hasn't seemed to have any problems with her eating although I forgot what he said they were feeding her.  So either Annie is a smaller puppy than Noel or her not eating stopped her from growing as much and, now that she's eating again, she'll catch up to her sister.

We fed our (late) Airedale Muenster dog food which is also made in Texas.  The challenge is that no one within 100 miles of San Angelo sells it.  We would have to make sure we picked some up if we were going to Fort Worth or Fredricksburg or have someone else going that way pick it up.  That's why we opted not to get Annie started on it.  When Nelson first started  Newt on Muenster they lived in Lewisville and it was readily available. 

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

I just wanted to give you a heads up that changing foods regularly (different brands) can lead to a picky eater. The Food Group's Karen (here on DK) has an extensive knowledge base on this subject, if you'd like to post a question there.  She has insight into everything food related, and there's even a Recommended Food List there if you'd like to find a food that hasn't had recalls, or has only quality ingredients sourced from the US.

From personal experience, my one picky eater, Lucy (and yes, early on I changed her food way too often) often goes through periods of not eating much and leaving most of her meals. She's been that way since she was a puppy and now she's nearly 3-1/2 yrs old. Actually, the main reason I changed her food so regularly when she was little was because her poos were so loose, but I have to admit I also thought she'd grown tired of eating a particular food. When I finally hit on one that gave her firm poos (and one she liked, albeit most of the time) I stuck with it (it's Fromm's Grain-Free Game Bird, btw). But she's remained picky all her life. Lucy will eat when she's hungry, and her hunger depends on her activity level, her mood (she's extremely sensitive), how much she last ate, and who knows what else...lol. She really is quite unpredictable as to whether she'll eat or not. But her appetite always returns eventually. She's also on the svelte, lean side, which can only be healthy for her.

My puppy, Oscar, is an EATING MACHINE. He lives to eat, I think. You could give him a bowl of _____ (fill in the blank) and he'd probably eat it!  There's not a picky bone in his body. As I mentioned in my earlier post above I supplement his meals with green beans just to help satisfy his hunger and keep off the excess pounds. My two are as different as night and day!