The first thing I would do is do some research on different dog foods. Sounds like you and your sister are just going with what the vet reccomended. Every vet I've ever been to reccomends Science Diet but its really not a good food. Start looking at the ingredients, if corn is in the first four its a bad sign. For optimal health your dog should be on an organic food with no corn, no fillers, or by products. A few good brands of dog food that I can think of off the top of my head are: Timberwolf Organics, Canidae All life stages, Chicken Noodle Soupp for the puppy lovers soul, Nutro for sensitive stomaches, Merricks and if you can't find any of those locally, you can order them online. If you don't wish to order things online they do sell "Blue Buffalo" and Nutro at Petsmart, which I've heard are decent foods and certainly much better than Science Diet, Purina, Eukanuba, Iams or any of those type of brands. I personally believe in free feeding, especially for a puppy. However, if your sister doesn't want to free feed just make sure she gives him enough food through out the day say 5-6 times. Then she can break up the meals so that they are smaller portions. Feeding him less will not make him smaller it will just make him malnurished. His bones wont grow properly, his organs wont develop right and in the ends she's going to end up with something that doesn't even resemble a yorkie. Some puppies will stay small and some grow bigger, its all a pre-destined thing and has nothing to do with how you feed them. If your sister is worried about him gettting "overweight" if he eats more, take him for a walk and play with him through out the day, that'll ensure he gets exercise and it'll be a healthy way to "maintain" a healthy weight instead of starving him. To me, it sounds like your sister needs to do some more research on yorkies and the importance of feeding them properly. Does she realize if she doesn't feed him enough he could go into a hypoglycemic shock and die?
Many people on here have had this happen to them...would your sister rather have no yorkie than one who might be a little bigger than her "purse ideal"
Sounds like she needs to do some soul searching to me and if I were her brother I'd make sure he was fed more or I'd call the authorities. |