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Originally Posted by sandybobb  Hi. I have a little bitty girl, who is under 1 lb. at 10 weeks of age. I don't breed for tinies, both parents are at least 5 lbs. She has been getting supplemental formula almost since birth due to her diminutive size. All siblings are now weaned but her. She is sassy and playful and eagerly laps up formula, but when I try adding rice cereal, or putting anything (including chicken) in her mouth she violently spits it out. She will lick at chicken, or other foods and gets excited, but refuses to allow anything inside her mouth that she may need to chew. Any suggestions? I've tried boiled chicken, rice cereal in formula, baby weiners, canned food, softened kibble, crushed kibble. She just is very hard headed. |
Well they say everything happens for a reason. A bit of explanation. I was like this until I was 3 or 4. I am what they used to call a 'milk baby'. The danger in being such is you can only live until age 5 if you do not start on solid food. I refused anything except my milk. Momma is not able to remember due to a traumatic brain injury when she was hit by a car. She had told me and I wrote it down but we had the flood and I had 4 foot of water in my house and lost everything to the water and thieves.
This is what momma did for me so maybe it will help with your pup. If you hit a snag go to the previous step and start that step again until the pup starts progressing with the food. If the pup stops again, take that food out of the formula. Maybe she just doesn't not like that taste.
Listed in the steps Momma used.
1. Milk
2. Milk with 1 teaspoon vanilla ice cream
3. Milk plus ice cream plus 1 teaspoon mashed potatoes they never had instant so I suggest putting potato thru a blender after it is cooked without seasoning.
4. Milk plus ice cream, plus potato, plus 1 teaspoon finely mashed boiled egg - again you can put everything thru a blender to get the egg fine enough to lick up without chewing.
5. Milk plus ice cream, potatoes, egg, 1 teaspoon of strained chicken baby food.
6-whatever it takes to get your pup to start eating. Try her on just one or two chews. This may take awhile to get the pup to eat solid food. You should get puppy vitamins and crumble it up in the milk mixture.
Momma said it took about 3 weeks to get me to take the first bite of anything. It was a milk product. Which I still have need of. I'm
Use only very small size bite of one product when starting to do pieces of food.
Add extra bites every couple of days once you get her to eat the first bite. When she gets the idea, then you will be able to make more bites and start decreasing the milk. Since most dogs are lactose sensitive I would start with a lactose free milk approved by the vet you go to. Might even be best to get the milk replacement for dogs. Can get lactose free ice cream.
Hope this helps your puppy. Called my friend and he said the milk products must be lactose free and to blend 1 raw egg whites into the basic mixture and change this out every other day. None of the items listed inot small quantities will Harry a puppy. He looked up the recipe and said that he did Not Have find any of the products harmful to dogs. Just feed small quantities at a time to start.
He would rather have you feed more often than more at one time.