Our little girl has been a poor eater since we got her and many times she's thrown up foamy stuff in the morning if she didn't eat something the night before so that her tummy isn't empty. In fact, it was whenever she didn't eat substantially that she would most balk at eating, probably because an empty tummy made her feel nauseated. (Strangley enough, my daughter had the same problem when she was little, so it just seemed obvious to me.) If she picks at her food (usually we feed her fours small meals a day of soft food) then we spread a little dab of liverwurst on each piece. She usually licks the plate clean when we do that. You will probably have to make sure that your puppy eats substantially every four hours to six hours. But most importantly, you must make sure that your puppy eats shortly before going to bed, so that there is no early morning nausea.
If you can't get your puppy to eat on her own, then you may have to resort to coaxing her to eat by getting something into her until she doesn't feel nauseated and can eat on her own. We make up a bowl of mush that we keep in the refrigerator and warm up for those times that our puppy hasn't eaten in a long while, (someone on this forum got the recipe from their breeder) and doesn't want to eat. It's a mixture of the following:
1/2 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup instant baby cereal (rice goes down well, but oatmeal will do)
1 whole jar of Gerber's strained meat (anything but turkey)
1/2 tsp. karo syrup (maple syrup if no karo is available)
Just warm up the half-and-half and stir in the cereal until it gets thick, then add the strained meat and karo syrup. We use a plastic syringe like they make for giving medication to babies and is available at the drug store. One full syringe is one teaspoon so we fill it up 3-4 times. Make sure the mush is only luke warm. Insert the syringe into the corner of your pyuppy's mouth and gradually squeeze the syringe. Our dog likes it so much now, she will usually lick it off the syringe. |