Puppies feeding habits

The first months in a puppy’s life are essential. It is the period for the animal to learn and the moment for the owner to teach it good habits that will make their lives easier in the future. Among these habits, feeding behaviour is quite important since it plays a very relevant role in the relationship between the dog and the owner.We have already talked about the different kinds of food that we can give our dogs regarding age and race, but we have never spoken about the right feeding patterns.

Some of the rules recommended for puppies’ owners to follow when feeding are:

1. 1^st. Establish a balanced hierarchy with well defined structures and rules. The animal must learn who feeds it, where and when.
2. 2^nd. Avoid the rank privilege such as giving food first but not watching it while eating.
3. 3^rd. Don’t give it a great variety of food, gustative preferences will be avoided. This is usual with dogs, especially with small-sized dogs, that were provided with a great amount of different tastes, including home made food and food cooked for human. They finally ended up eating only grilled chicken or cooked ham, for instance. It is easy to understand why a person is concerned if their puppy does not eat, but if the animal is healthy and we have chosen, for example, dried feed suitable for its features, we just have to insist and not to offer alternative tastes. It will eat its feed at last.
4. 4^th. It is important to feed it at the very same time as well as taking the food out when finished, leaving only water. To achieve that, we must establish some communication rituals with clear signs. So if the animal does not finish its food, we will leave it for a little time more, and we will take it out by inventing a secondary distraction to avoid any conflict.
5. 5^th. If diseases which imply a loss of appetite rise, we will give the pet home made food even with our own hands. It is very important to come back to the established feeding and patterns as soon as possible.
6. 6^th. It is usual to use food as the main positive support together with verbal signs when teaching our dog, but we don’t have to forget praising, touching or games that may become even more gratifying.
7. 7^th. Finally, don’t give it food whenever it asks for it. This is quite difficult when we are eating and our dog is trying to catch our attention making all kind of gestures and sounds in order to get some food, but we have to be strong and avoid this temptation.

All these habits will make our pet learn to feed in a right way without distorting the life with its owner. Imagine some of our children only eating just, biting us when we take the food out of the table, getting up early in the morning to attack the fridge or asking for food to every person eating. All this does not happen because they were learnt suitable feeding habits since they were children. Let’s do the same with our animals.