Changing from canned to dry dog food. HOW??? My dog weighs less than four pounds.

[patricia92243]

All the articles say to add dry a little at a time to wet.

HOW? Do I take a hammer and break the dry into little bitty pieces. (It is already a bite size for small breeds.) I tried wrapping one piece of dry into a bite of wet, and she just licked the wet off the dry and left the dry sitting there.

I am using the same brand wet to dry. I do not need the ratio of dry to wet, etc. I need the actual physical way to do it.

Should I just go cold turkey - give her the dry and when she gets hungry enough she will eat it.

Thanks for any help.

[alsame]

1. I don't know what brand you're using, but

there are some small bite varieties and some made especially for small breeds.

A friend of mine has 2 very tiny toy poodles and gets some very small dry food.

[patricia92243]

2. The dry is for small breeds. Same brand and same ingredients - lamb and rice.

[alsame]

3. Try crushing the dry food so that it mixes in with the wet and

she laps it all up together.

It's a pain to do (I once had to do that after my dog had dental surgery) but it gets the food into them.

I hope this helps - at 4 lbs, you don't want her missing many meals!

[TorchTheWitch]

4. add water to the dry food and let it sit until it gets fairly mushy

It will take more water than you think since kibble food soaks up an amazing amount of water (and they expand to about five times their size when dry). Then mix that in good with the wet food. With my first Akita he didn't like ANY food that I got for him either wet or dry after a couple of months... maybe he got bored with eating the same thing day after day. But each time we tried new food (even the ones he'd eaten before and got bored of but hadn't had for a long time) he loved it. I finally put my foot down on this picky behavior and started doctoring his food by adding a touch of mayo or tuna water or half a bullion cube or some gravy or something that I was having with my dinner to the water that I put his dry food in to get mushy, and as long as I varied what I added so he wasn't getting the exact same meal every day for weeks he was happy to eat it. Huh... maybe he really did just want variety.

Some dogs just don't like dry kibble no matter what brand or flavor it is - that's how he was. As long as I added water and a little something tasty to his kibble he was happy to eat it - I just had to vary what I added every few days so he didn't get bored with eating the same exact meals for days on end.

It could be also that your dog just doesn't like this brand's dry kibble. My second Akita loved the Blue Buffalo in the can, but he hated the dry foods and would dump out his bowl and kick the kibbles under the stove or fridge to pretend he ate it so he could beg for a treat (even though he did his food hiding right in front of me). I switched him to another brand of dry kibble, and he loved it... snarfed it up straight out of the bag every time.

Never immediately switch your dog's food to a different one unless there's some reason that you have to like a medical problem, or you were out of it completely and the store was out of your usual stuff, etc. Dogs have very sensitive digestive systems, and any time you change their food you have to do it gradually over a few weeks mixing the new food with the one you're weaning them off of until they're getting none of the old food anymore otherwise they will likely end up with vomiting or diarrhea for quite some time until they get used to the new food.

At first, just soak the dry food in luke warm plain water, mix it with the wet food and see if he/she's good with that, and if not try another flavor or brand. If he/she still doesn't like it for some reason try doing what I did with adding a little bit of some kind of flavoring to the food or some bit of table scraps. Table scraps you might want to mix with the dog food after whirring them in a blender so your doggie can't pick out just the table scraps from the bowl and leave the rest. It doesn't have to be meat since mashed potatoes or lots of different kind of veggies dogs like. Since your dog is so small though, it might be a good idea if using table scraps to keep whirred up scraps in a container in the fridge so you can use just a little bit when needed before it goes bad and just do a quick zap in the microwave or add in some hot water to take the chill off (for some reason some dogs just don't like food that's cold from the fridge).

I wouldn't bother with trying to mash the kibble with a hammer... that was the first thing I tried, and kibble bits went flying, and the buggers are hard as damn rocks.... worse, he would still spit them out out sucking all the wet stuff off them. Much easier to soak them in water to make them relatively mushy and then mix in the wet food.

[hootinholler]

5. I was gonna say add some milk.

I think you have the formula there.

[Curmudgeoness]

6. If you have a blender or coffee grinder,

you can put the dry food in there and get it into a powder, then mix the powder in with the wet food for a while, and then moved slowly to pieces that are bigger.

The one thing you have to remember is not to give as much wet food as a full meal would be. Make the meal size enough for one meal of the mixture. If you normally feed half a can at a time, or should feed half a cup of kibble, just feed one fourth of each. If the dog gets enough to eat with the wet food, he will not be as inclined to eat the kibble.

Is there a reason why you are changing, since the dog seems to weigh too little already? Wouldn't you want to have him gaining weight by eating what appeals to him?

Good luck.

[patricia92243]

7. Thanks for your suggestions. She is the correct weight, but my vet wants her to change to a

type of dry food that is good for her teeth. Poodles are known for their bad teeth, and the vet swears this will help. Thus, I am trying to change her to dry.

All the tips that I have received will help me make the change (I hope.)

[patricia92243]

8. UPDATE: Have changed my mind - for now.

I have decided to wait to make the change until after she is spayed - next month. I think one big event at a time is enough.

I will still be able to use the helpful tips I have received - but just at a little later date.

Again, thanks everybody!

[Curmudgeoness]

9. You also might try chew toys for the dental issues

instead of changing foods if she is not happy with that. I would think that chew toys would also help keep the teeth clean.

Just a thought.

[patricia92243]

10. I just now looked up Dentistix and they said not suitable for dogs under 10 pounds. Do you have any

suggestions for a brand/type that might be good for a very small dog (under 4 pounds.)

[Curmudgeoness]

11. A quick internet search

brought up a lot of options. I used the criteria "small dog chew toys dental health". I don't know what would work well, but I did find this:

Look for the VOHC seal. The Veterinary Oral Health Council (VOHC) is an independent veterinary dental group that tests claims manufacturers make about their dental preventative products.

http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/features/dental-foods-treats-dogs


The article also had some suggestions on what types of chew toys work best for dental care....basically bendable, softer than teeth, and large enough that it can't be swallowed. I saw some rope type chews as well, and I would think that might work. It also said that suggestions from you vet would help. I don't think that it would have to be a "treated" chew like the Dentistix though. You just want to get the dog to chew on something.

[laundry_queen]

13. Even if there's a kind for a small dog

be careful. I bought some type of dentastix (it was like a mix between a greenie and a dentastix) for small dogs and my little girl (3.3lbs) liked it so much she finished it a little more quickly than she was supposed to (and it was pretty big for her to begin with, even though it was for 'small' dogs). We dealt with days and days of explosive diarrhea after that. Never again.

We use plain, unflavored rawhide to help her teeth. And we brush them once a week and use this foamy cleaning stuff a couple times/week. So far, all this has helped her teeth immensely.

We're lucky with her in that she uses rawhide properly. She never just swallows big chunks. My parents' dog does that then chokes and barfs all over. So if your dog is capable of using rawhide properly, it really seems to help. I know a lot of people don't like rawhide, but it's always worked well for my dogs.

[laundry_queen]

12. I vote cold turkey.

That said, our vet has said that she prefers the itty bitty dogs (mine is 3.3 lbs) eat soft food because of their tendency to not drink much water and get constipated. I am going against the vet on this one, because my little one, who is 9 months old, already has bad breath, so we do dry food, the small bites for toy breeds. She seems to like it. When she gets a bit older, I'm going to switch her to the food specifically for dental decay. I make sure she has a lot of water - we have water dishes everywhere - so she doesn't get dehydrated. So far, she drinks plenty.

I had a dog once that had horrible decay (he wasn't that small, he was between 10-12 lbs) and eventually had more than half his teeth removed (over a few years). I felt bad for him, so gave him soft food. The vet got mad at me, and said dry was better, especially because his teeth were already bad, and insisted I switch him cold turkey. I was all worried he wouldn't eat, especially with few teeth to chew but he did eat just fine. The switch ended up being no problem at all. At first, sometimes hand feeding with plenty of praise helps.

Good luck!