New Puppy isn't eating :(

[Brooklyn619]

Hey everyone I'm new to this forum and a first time yorkie owner. I just picked up a 9 week old baby girl yesterday and I'm a little worried about her eating habits. I put food down for her in the evening (we got her in the afternoon) and she seemed interested in it... but instead of eating it, she just nosed it around and licked it a little bit but left it in the bowl. I thought maybe she was just scared so I didn't worry until the next morning she did the same thing. I gave her a few pieces of my cat's food to see what she would do and she ate them right away. I'm wondering if maybe she's having trouble chewing the food? It's specifically made for small puppies and the pieces are quite small, but I don't know what could be going on. Also, she is very quiet and she doesn't play at all. She just wants to be held and she sleeps all the time. Whenever I put her down she cries and shakes until I pick her up again.

[ARCHIE]

Nine weeks is still very young. She is used to being with her litter
and frightened I would think. What kind of food is she on.? Has she been on food before this? Is it the same food? Perhaps if you had alittle warm water to soften up the food it may help. Or add some wet puppy food to it to make
it more interesting for her.
Cat food is not good for a Yorkie or any other pup.
I hope things get better. Also how much does she weigh?
Nuturcal can be feed to her to keep nutrition in her and keep her
from dehydrating.
Hold her as often as you can. She needs to settle in.
Good luck
I am sure there will be lots of YT'ers who can also give you suggestions.

Carol & Buddy

[Sugar's Mom]

i don't really have any advice except to say that when i brought my pups home from the breeders, not one of them would eat the food they told me that they had been on. When I brought Little Fart home, all she did was lick like she hadn't even been weaned. i went thru many brands of dog food until I found something they would eat. that was Cesear's. they still get a little of that every morning. people say it isn't the best food but I say they have to eat. there will be time later for getting another food.

[marcerella02]

i agree with Archie.. 9 weeks is very young to get a yorkie pup. is she big for her age? i know they usually go home around 12 weeks or 2 lbs.. which ever comes first... what food is she on?? from what i've read on here a lot of breeders don't have them on very high quality food.. so maybe you want to change to something different. she will be excited to eat because it is new.. and you'll know it is better for her.. what about wet food?? you can get very high quality wet food and a dry that you could try and put together... try Canidae... or Wellness... have you taken her to the vet since picking her up?? that's usually the first thing breeders will tell you to do... i'd switch food and see what she thinks... if you cant get anything down her you can always give her yogurt or some chicken.. to hold her over until you can find a food she will eat.

[RLC12345678]

I definately would NOT feed her cat food. Cat food is toxic to dogs. You need to make sure she is eating regularly to prevent a hypoglocemic attack. Go to the petstore or vet and get some NutriCal and give a little bit of that to her every 3-4 hours until she is 12 weeks old if she is not eating regularly. This is very important as hypoglocemia can be fatal.

As far as getting her to eat, is she on the same food the breeder had her on? It's quite possible that the kibbles are too big. You could crush them up, mix them with warmed up canned food, or try soaking the kibbles in warm water to soften them up. You can also try putting chicken broth (sodium free, of course) on top of her kibbles. Anything is better than nothing at this point. Best of luck and keep us updated.

[Patti]

I agree with everyone she has to eat. I could only get Cali to eat cesars when she was a puppy and I know it's not a good food but it was at least food going into her. I would try a some wellness canned mixed with the kibble. These babies can go down so fast from not eating. Good luck and let us know how she is doing.

[Brooklyn619]

Thanks for all of the advice everyone. I'm at work for another hour and a half, but I'm going to stop by the petstore and get some wellness and NutriCal on my way home from work. I'm pretty worried now! I didn't realize that 9 weeks was really too young to be taken away from the litter. I got my Jack Russell Terrier at 6 weeks and she was just fine.

[LoveMyGirlz]

It's cause they are so tiny and are suseptical to things like the hypoglocemia everyones referring to.
I agree with all the suggestions here. Get the nutrical and if she is on the same food the breeder gave but is not interested, find something she likes or mix it with something to make her like it (chicken broth, wet food, etc). Read up on hypoglocemia so you are aware of the signs! Very important!
Keep us posted...very curious to her size and what the vet check said etc...

[Sweetums]

Stop at the drugstore as well and pick up one of those syringes that are used to give babies medication.

When you get home make some of this formula and feed it to her by syringe, a couple of teaspoons at least. This was recommended by a breeder from someone else on these boards and we have used it frequently with our very picky little pup:

1/2 cup half and half
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup baby rice cereal (instant flakes)
1 entire jar of Gerber's baby meat (anything but turkey)
1 tsp. Karo syrup or maple syrup

This will raise your puppy's blood sugar level and often they need to have it raised in order to feel up to eating. Also if you leave your puppy alone all day, I'd make sure someone comes by mid-day to make sure she is eating. Otherwise, with a young puppy like this, you are likely to have an episode of hypoglycemia which is potentially fatal if you don't do something right away.

If your puppy seem lethargic, staggers, won't eat, has pale gums, then put a dab of karo syrup in it's mouth to raise the blood sugar level immediately. Then call your vet!

[marcerella02]

Originally Posted by Sweetums

Stop at the drugstore as well and pick up one of those syringes that are used to give babies medication.

When you get home make some of this formula and feed it to her by syringe, a couple of teaspoons at least. This was recommended by a breeder from someone else on these boards and we have used it frequently with our very picky little pup:

1/2 cup half and half
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup baby rice cereal (instant flakes)
1 entire jar of Gerber's baby meat (anything but turkey)
1 tsp. Karo syrup or maple syrup

This will raise your puppy's blood sugar level and often they need to have it raised in order to feel up to eating. Also if you leave your puppy alone all day, I'd make sure someone comes by mid-day to make sure she is eating. Otherwise, with a young puppy like this, you are likely to have an episode of hypoglycemia which is potentially fatal if you don't do something right away.

If your puppy seem lethargic, staggers, won't eat, has pale gums, then put a dab of karo syrup in it's mouth to raise the blood sugar level immediately. Then call your vet!

GREAT advice!

[Sweetums]

Oops, I made a mistake on that recipe, since I was doing it from memory. It's actually just 1/2 cup half and half, and no added milk. So to revise:

1/2 cup half and half
1/2 cup baby rice cereal
1 whole jar of Gerber's baby meat (no turkey)
1 tsp of Karo or maple syrup (i've also used honey in a pinch)

At your puppy's age, I'd make sure she feeds every 4 hours for sure.

[Brooklyn619]

wow, that recipe worked great!!!!! Thank yuo all so much. I mixed it up minus the sugar because I tried that nutracal stuff and it made her pant and breathe kinda hard.. so I thought enough sugar for one night. Anyway, she ate about 3 teaspoons of it, just licking it off the spoon. My roommate also gave her a piece of cheese and she ate that, grrrrr. I TOLD HER NO TABLE FOOD. I'm going to give her some more of the mixture tomorrow. How long should I continue to feed her that? I called the breeder today and he told me that she's been on the dry food (Eukanuba small breed puppy) for 3 weeks already. So I don't know... maybe she's just nervous.

She is just at 2 lbs by the way.

[rachelsyorkie]

also some yogurt would be beneficial, i use store brand strawberry. It will help with her immune ststem. also I would leave her kibble out 24/7 so she can nibble. If she ever gets to the point she vomits or stomach growls from hungar you will need to syringe feed -I use the yogurt, once they get to hungary they wont eat ?? I have had success with just yogurt, milk & raw egg in a mixture for formula. Of coarse raw egg can be dangerous but I have never had a prob.

[Sweetums]

Actually, dogs don't react to the bacteria in raw foods the way humans do. Raw foods are okay to feed dogs.

As far as the formula, just supplement it whenever she doesn't eat. At two lbs she'll need to eat pretty often. The thing is that when they are little puppies, their livers can't store enough sugar for all the energy their brains use up. So they use up sugar pretty rapidly and need to be fed often. We leave kibbles out and then feed soft food several times a day. When our puppy was really little, she only ate a few kibbles at a time and would just stop eating after that. She had no appetite, but would get really tired and sleep a lot, which I thought was odd since puppies should be playful and not sleeping all day long (frequent napping is normal but not sleeping 24/7). So that's when we had to start supplementing. As soon as we did that, she had a lot more energy.

Now our puppy is 6 mos old and she is finally starting to eat normally. During teething it was just awful. She hardly ate at all on her own. No appetite whatsoever.

[Bdmcs324]

When I first got Ludo he wouldn't eat out of the bowl. I had to put each piece in his mouth for him or roll the piece to him. Our trainer told us this was bad and to just put it on the floor that the dogs were smart enough not to starve themselves --but if your baby is tiny you can't take the chance of it not eating -- this is what I thought so I would put a few treats into Ludo's food and he would eat them & all the food!

Also we had a different brand of food recommended to us that was supposedly better tasting & healthier than what we were feeding him and he liked it soooo much better.