What do you feed your yorkie?

[MY OSCAR]

Originally Posted by Marhcarter

I fed Huey Purina One for the first 3 1/2 years. He has always been a light eater and not really enthusiastic about mealtimes. He will go nuts for some treats or the rare treat of people food like a tiny bit of eggs and bacon on a Sunday morning. He has also had trouble with occasional vomiting, many times with no apparent cause. After reading information on YT, I discontinued his chicken jerky treats, which he adored but were made in China (I had no idea!!!) ! and 2 weeks ago we switched to Blue buffalo life protection formula for small breeds. I have never seen this dog wait by his bowl for mealtimes before, or come and get you if you are late feeding! He absolutely LOVES his new food and gobbles it up! He also has not vomited once since the change, although it has only been 2 or 3 weeks. I am thrilled!

that is awesome, i am glad huey is doing well on his new diet..

[concretegurl]

My dogs eat the BARF diet (bones and raw food).

Raw feeding should always be a gradual change over.
IMHO most issues with raw feeding are due to people negligence in change over, food handling, age, and creating a balanced diet-not to mention nontoxic to dogs foods.

My dogs eat the same food we do in a way-just uncooked and balanced to their needs.
I say the same as us in their meat comes from the butcher at the co-op and so do their vegis and fruits, however we also go to farmer's market.

Everything is organic and GMO free, absolutely fresh human grade.

I sometimes use Stella &Chewy's dehydrated patties, and they get a bit of grainless foul Fromm-well 2 do.

[concretegurl]

Originally Posted by mimimomo

The Problem with Dog Food Reviews

Momo & Princess gets The Honest Kitchen for breakfast & Canine Caviar for dinner. Mimi & Turbo are off kibble for now & gets THK & NV raw for dinner (if I don't forget to thaw it loll!). Momo & Princess needs to be on a strict low fat, high fiber diet, so they only get premade raw as a treat. I just picked up a bag of Small Batch yesterday...excited to try it. For now, it's only available here in CA, Oregon & WA. smallbatch pets

I would love to feed raw (BARF) or even home cook for them, but I'm scared of handling meat (it grosses me out not a red meat eater, but I do occasionally eat chicken & fish, but am very picky) & I don't even cook for myself!

I totally felt the same way so starting with the Stella &a Chewy's dehydrated patties was how I fed all meats- honestly I just got over it and habd feed raw meat now but every once in awhile I gag still.

[MikaTallulah]

Mine eat FROMM 4 Star. Present bag is Surf n' Turf which they love- Smells like cat food to me but they love to steal the cat food anyway.

[Teresiana]

Originally Posted by LilAnnCamp

I've been in the food mood this week. I have looked up many on DogFoodAdvisor & DogFoodAnalysis. I give up. I have 5 animals on 5 different foods. None of the food made it to 4 or 5 star.

My Yorkie, Morkie & Lab all eat Earthborn Holistic Primitive Natural. The small bag is about $15. Maybe you can try that? It's a good food.

[Teresiana]

Originally Posted by mimimomo

The Problem with Dog Food Reviews

Momo & Princess gets The Honest Kitchen for breakfast & Canine Caviar for dinner. Mimi & Turbo are off kibble for now & gets THK & NV raw for dinner (if I don't forget to thaw it loll!). Momo & Princess needs to be on a strict low fat, high fiber diet, so they only get premade raw as a treat. I just picked up a bag of Small Batch yesterday...excited to try it. For now, it's only available here in CA, Oregon & WA. smallbatch pets

I would love to feed raw (BARF) or even home cook for them, but I'm scared of handling meat (it grosses me out not a red meat eater, but I do occasionally eat chicken & fish, but am very picky) & I don't even cook for myself!

I just called my feed store & asked them check into ordering small batch. Thanks for the tip. Mine eat Darwin's now. But I always run out before my next batch arrives & the whole mail order thing can be inconvenient at times. Sometimes I just want to run out to the store & grab some...but I can't.

[lazimazi]

We feed our yorkie 'natural balance' from petco. I'm a sucker for anyone selling anything and he showed up all the great ingredients and compared it to other brands and I felt guilty buying her anything else because he warned me of health risks with by products.

Our breeder told us to avoid wet food, because the dry food is so good for their teeth. She said if they only eat wet food, the teeth will decay.

When our yorkie was sick I made some chicken, green beans, and rice for her. Now she's so spoiled she doesn't want to go back to the kibbles! I'd be interested in home cooking occasionally for her, but I'm afraid shed never eat the dry food.

[DAWN01886]

Hi can you give me a brief idea of what kind of raw diet you feed your yorkie Zeus?
I'm interested in starting mine on a raw diet. Thank you. Dawn

[FryFry]

I tried feeding Zoey a raw food diet, and she was on it for about 2 weeks but she wouldn't touch it. She loves Wellness CORE though

[brezofleur]

Sure! But, first, let me say that this isn't for everyone. There is some work that needs to be put into so it's not as easy as frozen raw where you just add water et voila. But it works for us and my boys.

Brief:
I follow a "frankenprey" model. Because Zeus is small, it's not realistic to throw a whole chicken at him and call it a night like you can for larger dogs. So, I cut up various pieces of meat and combine (like Frankenstein's monster, lol). Additionally, I follow 80-10-5-5/80% meat, 10% bones, 5% liver, 5% other organs. Some people follow 80-10-10 (10% liver and other organs. Liver and bones combined keep poop hard). It's up to you and how your baby takes it/how much he needs (Zeus needs liver and bones every day. Others just need it 1-2x / week).


Furthermore...

It'll be a little overwhelming at first, so take in as much as you can and back off, then go back into it. It took me about 1 month after starting to feed Ody (3 years ago now) to really get into the groove of things and about a month of research before that.

If you know for a fact that your baby isn't allergic to meat, go hog-wild. Otherwise, it's best to start with 1 sort of meat (i.e., chicken) for 2 weeks, see how he does, and then move on to another meat. Then combine them. You yourself don't like eating the same sort every day, so it's nice to add variety. Some people think that you should only feed 1 type per day (i.e., chicken meat, chicken liver, chicken hearts, etc) but I don't follow this thought.

When you first start to feed, you may notice some things that can be disturbing. Icky poops (cleansing of the body) and maybe seemingly hunger (it's less quantity. He may think "hey! I should be fed more!" but really isn't that hungry. I've known this to happen to others but not to my boys). After a few days all will be well!

It may not be an overnight thing. Some babies take weeks or months to transition. I lucked out that my boys literally took to it overnight. I fed only wet for the first couple of days then started to add in a little meat. They both didn't care for the wet but gobbled the raw. So that was that. For bones, they eat chicken wings/necks, whole quail and cornish hen.

You'll notice some differences almost immediately and others may take a year. White sparkly teeth, beautiful shiny and soft coats and minimal fleas are just some of the benefits. I never brush my boys' teeth and the vet is always amazed, lol. I don't brush them not because I don't want to but because I don't need to. They do not get plaque buildup and comping into chunks of meat/cracking bones keep their gums and teeth healthy and strong.

When we adopted Zeus last year, his coat was very straw-like and dull and he was on a high-quality kibble. Now it's amazing. I get so many compliments on his coat, including from my folks who knew the "before" first-hand, lol. It took almost a year for it to get that way because of the grow-out, but it was worth the wait.

You may notice some behavioral changes too. More active (not hyper)/more stamina, take less naps, etc.

[Britster]

Originally Posted by Britster

We fed Acana for the longest period of time. We've fed lots of others thru trial bags, samples, etc, over his 4 years, but his MAIN food was usually Acana. Always did very well on it.

We've been feeding Fromm for the past 4-5 small bags and he did well in most regards but the eye goop/boogers were getting insane and he was always acting starving lately, and whiny. So about a week ago, I picked up the sample bag of Acana and just got through feeding it... eye boogers completely stopped, whininess/always acting hungry stopped. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do, he certainly looovesss his Fromm a lot better (taste-wise), I trust the company a whole lot more, and I just don't know. LOL. Dog food can be so complicated But I think you just gotta do what your dog does best on!

We finished our sample bags of Acana, and now I'm just going to finish our 5lb bag of Fromm - we have over half the bag left. I don't want to waste it. And he looovesss it. He was picking and choosing around the Acana and not really eating it. Once I put Fromm back in his bowl, he scarfed it down. If the eye boogers reappear, I suppose we'll know it's the food. But I love Fromm so much, I'm almost tempted to just deal with a bit of extra eye goop. Right now he's on Pork & Applesauce.

[Carmeow]

Canine Caviar ALS open sky formula. She's doing well so far! We shall see how things are at the end of this bag! I know some YTers who have had great success with this food in terms of allergies and stuff.

[noochie2742]

My dogs eat grain free authority

[gontygirl]

Originally Posted by brezofleur

Zeus is a swallower too. He was starved for a while and still tries to find any food he can get. But if you give him a larger piece of bone (like chicken neck or 1/2 a quail body) he sits and chews it. You CANNOT cut up the bones to be small because of the chances of choking.

Salmonella is on everything and is everywhere. It's on the grocery carts you use. You just have to be careful. And, no, you cannot boil the meat otherwise it defeats the purpose. When you boil meat it also kills off the essential nutrients. Animal tummies are meant to digest raw meat. Kibble wasn't invented until 1864. It takes a lot more than 150 years of evolution to change a digestive tract. Now, I am NOT saying that all dogs can digest salmonella...just that they can tolerate more than we can so the danger isn't AS much.

Just make sure you know whom you are buying from.

The only place I know to buy from is the grocery store. The other option I have is continue to purchase the raw dog food from the freezer section at the petless pet shop (Global pet supplies). I just thought it would be less expensive to throw the meal together myself...and healthier, but I'm starting to think I should just buy the frozen raw food diet.

[_Chrissy_]

Originally Posted by dlaureanonw

Both of my girls are on grain free canine caviar open sky. They love it.

My boys are eating this too! They love it! Especially with a little of the CC Turkey canned mixed in.
I feed our 16 yr old cat their Turkey canned food (it is for both dogs/cats-same can) and she eats their Chicken & Salmon dry food.