Labrador Pup Off His Dry Food.

[Niques]

My 11 month old dog has gone off his dry food (Nutro Large Breed Puppy).

His base diet consists of dry in the morning and some form of bone in the evening. He still eats (although maybe with a tiny bit less enthusiasm than usual) bones, sardines, egg, fruit, etc. Just not his dry. I even mixed in the egg and cottage cheese this morning and he barely touched half of it. This is a dog that's normally thrilled to be fed.

Still pooing regularly. He vomitted this morning but I don't think it's related.

Any ideas as to the sudden behaviour change?

[noisymina]

Maybe he's not needing as much food for now?

Mine goes off her dry (if she's getting dry) when she's had enough food. If I weigh her at that point, she is usually at the upper end of what I consider her best weight anyway. So I just cut back on the amount of food for a while.

Have you been monitoring his weight?

[Guest belgian.blue]

I just switched my 9 month old Pointer to adult dry, from Nutro LB puppy to Black Hawk and he's loving it! He's also keeping weight well. Pointers can be hard to fatten up but he's doing really well.

How much is he getting of the Nutro per feed?

He farts a lot less now he's off Nutro but maybe that is just him.

[persephone]

I would be a bit concerned- esp. if he has vomitted.

leave him without a meal tomorrow morning- and see if he;s keen tomorrow night. If not - then I would be off to the vet ..

[Niques]

He usually gets 3/4 of a cup and for the past few days he's only been eating about half that.

I don't monitor his weight but he's fairly lean.

The vomit was purely liquid, if that makes a difference. It's been a couple of days since he started showing less interest in the dry and this morning's the first time he's vomitted since, which is why I was thinking it's unrelated.

[persephone]

It's been a couple of days since he started showing less interest in the dry and this morning's the first time he's vomitted since, which is why I was thinking it's unrelated.

...and why I think it could well be related It could be a bug, developing..... or it could be some foreign body rattling around in his stomach...

Best to have it checked out carefully .....

[lilli_star]

Hope James is okay, Niques

[Niques]

Thanks for the advice, all

Shall chat with the vet about it tomorrow if he's still showing no interest.

[labsrule]

Loss of appetite for a Labrador is something to worry about. This coupled with his vomitting this morning, I think you need to take him to the Vet to get checked out as he is not well, poor baby.

[koalathebear]

Hope little James is ok. I know how worrying it is when they're off their food Keep us posted!

[Niques]

So I gave him only half his usual breakfast with sardines this morning and he happily ate it all. I'm wondering if maybe his dry food has gone a bit stale given his willingness to eat everything else. We're hitting the very bottom of a 15kg bag so it's been open for a while...

Will be monitoring closely for any further vomitting, etc, in the meantime.

[labsrule]

So I gave him only half his usual breakfast with sardines this morning and he happily ate it all. I'm wondering if maybe his dry food has gone a bit stale given his willingness to eat everything else. We're hitting the very bottom of a 15kg bag so it's been open for a while...

Will be monitoring closely for any further vomitting, etc, in the meantime.

I would chuck out the remaining dry food then. What you might like to also try, given that he has vomitted so something has upset him is to put him on boiled/grilled chicken and steamed rice for a couple of days. This is "bland" food and shouldn't upset his tummy and you should feed small (say 1 cup of chicken/rice combined) frequent meals 4-5 each day so his system isn't overloaded with 2 normal sized meals, but rather the same amount spread over 4-5 meals and then say on the 3rd day start slowly introducing some dry from a new bag back into his diet by mixing it in with some chicken and rice and gradually over a few days increasing the amount of dry and decreasing the rice & chicken until he is back 100% on dry.

This would probably be an ideal time to swap him over to adult dry food. The ideal transition over to adult food is by combining puppy and adult but to save you having to buy another bag of puppy food you can actually swap them straight over as Labradors are pretty robust dogs and any food is good food as far as they are concerned Also you will be mixing it in with the chicken and rice anyway to start with so it is not like you are giving him 100% new dry food only. If you have any concerns about swapping straight over, then just buy a small bag of the puppy food to mix with the adult food and chicken and rice and slowly increasing the adult and decreasing the puppyfood until puppyfood is exhausted.

[Niques]

I think we'll give the adult food a try - was planning on starting the transition at the end of the month but I think it's worth sorting out this issue ASAP.

Thanks, again