Mixing Puppy Food With Beef
 

I've recently started combining ground beef and some peas with puppy food. At first he would eat around the puppy food, so I softened it and he gulped it all down. My question is: how much I should be feeding daily. Should I be making sure he is getting the exact amount of puppy food recommended and then add the beef or is it okay to have the total amount of food per day be a good mix of both.

I also am wondering how much he should be eating in for the whole day. I was doing 1/2 cup a day - but he is 5 lbs now - 20 weeks - and seems hungrier.

Any help greatly appreciated!!

I would not add that much home cooked food to puppy food. If you want to get a good answer, you can visit this site and click on "ask the nutritionist" and perhaps she will let you know. She is a very good vet nutritionist and her site is very informative.

PetDiets - VNC putting your pet's health first .. for more than 20 yrs!

:thumbup::thumbup:

Dogs require a delicate balance of nutrients to remain healthy. Commercially produced food like kibble is balanced to meet this need. If random foods/treats exceed 10 -15% of your pet's diet, you risk upsetting the balance.

Home cooked food is great, but I would consult a vet nutritionist like the one Cathy linked to make sure you are feeding a balanced diet.

To answer your other question, you would not want to feed the recommended amount of kibble as indicated on the bag + a large amount of additions. Then your pup is overfed. The amount he should be getting depends on the food's calories and fat grams per cup. Some foods are denser than others.

Puppies generally require more than adults and won't overeat. There are always exceptions. Max would not have overeaten kibble as a pup, but if I served him a whole chicken, he probably would have tried gobbling the entire thing. :p

Make sure you are using really lean ground beef and that you drain it well. Admittedly, I'm biased against beef because I know it is too much for my guys.

Puppies almost never get fat. If pup is hungry for kibble he should have it even if the bag says otherwise.

As said above homecooking is fine, but it should not exceed 10% of the diet unless balanced. A few peas are just fine. Beef can be okay, but be careful with fat content.

Remember a balanced human diet isn't a balanced canine diet, dogs need way more calcium than humans and when you add food to his regular diet, you are offsetting the amount of calcium your pup is getting. This is especially important during puppyhood when bones and teeth or being made. If you start adding human foods to his kibble, you will make him extra fussy and Yorkies tend to be fussy anyway.

Well now he won't eat his kibble at all and I have stopped the human food and he still wont eat his dry food. Now I am worried that he is not eating. Also, I wanted to note that he is really not a good drinker. He hardly drinks his water at all and I have to give him ice cubes just to make sure he is getting some water. Not sure what to do at this point.

Try royal canin puppy Yorkie food - many Yorkies like that a lot.

I agree I would try that also even my super picky girl loves it.

OKay I'll give it a shot. It's weird he used to love yogurt and peanut butter but now he won't even lick it off my finger.

I had to hand feed Max his first year and play games to get him excited about food. He performed tricks and I would give him kibble off of his plate as rewards. When we went for walks, the yogurt was his reward for completing the walk. I filled his Kong with kibble and made up a silly song about "Kibble in the Kong."

He became a chow hound sometime in his second year. :)

Yorkies can be really silly about eating.

In my experience dogs who are kibble fed drink way more than dogs that get homecooked or raw diet. Quite frankly the homecooked/raw has a lot of natural water content in it.

You were feeding him a far % of homecooked beef, so his water needs would have been much less than if he was just on kibble.

If you took the beef away of course he doesn't want his kibble. Any self respecting dog loves real BEEF :D Wheres Dat Beef?

If you want to go back to kibble fully do some beef au jus and pour over the kibble - and good luck with that I do so hope it works.

\I am currently in my struggle to keep my puppy on kibble and my rescue on kibble until my puppy is hopefully closer to one year old, and my rescue goes through his eye surgery. This is because my other two are fed home cooked, and the smell is quite enticing, and now my puppy is trying to push my big boy out of the way to get to his food..... So we have some different feeding routines now. But TG she has not turned up her nose yet at her kibble as my other two did by 4 months old, at least she is 5mths old now and still eating her kibble.

Kibble from a quality manufacturer is very well balanced and I trust this for puppy rearing. Most important for bone growth and development.

I feed ZoE a little meat with her kibble everyday.

I take her kibble, add some meat (beef this week) and a little warm water and stir it around for a minute so the bit of water becomes gravy-like. It takes very little meat to flavor it and ZoE eats it all up no problem. She will still munch her dry kibble, in her bowl, throughout the day if she gets hungry.

I'm worried all that human food may have made him have stomach problems. If he's not even wanting to drink water, you need to get him to a vet. I'm not sure what type of yogurt you were giving him, but many processed human foods are not suitable for dogs, they can't eat artificial sugars, and the level of salt in some processed foods could be deadly to dogs. As little as 4 grapes can cause the kidneys to shut down, you need to really do your homework before you introduce human foods and I think they should only be used in conjunction with training. If his appetite hasn't returned in 24 hours or he stops drinking water, get to the vet, a puppy can go down hill rapidly.

:thumbup::thumbup:

I agree, especially if he isn't drinking much at all, that is cause for concern.

the yogurt was plain yogurt. he will eat but only if its what he wants which is cheese or meat. As for the water, he never was a big drinker but today is the worst, so I put some meat in the bottom of his bowl and added some chicken broth and he drank that. I also have been giving him ice. I don't know if he has stomach issues because his poo is normal - no runs or anything. I don't know what to make of it at all other than he just doesn't like the dog food anymore bc he wants human food. I am concerned though that he doesn't like the yogurt anymore. I did do my homework and found the food list that is good for dogs and in fact only started adding human food bc he had a bad reaction to his kennel cough shot and had diarrhea so i did some boiled chicken and rice for a few days. Ever since then he is not crazy about his food anymore. What would be signs to look for as far as dehydration from not drinking?