First Time Puppies: Introducing Food and Water

At some point, your puppies will need to be weaned from their mother. For most breads this is between four and six weeks. So, starting at 3 to 4 weeks you will want to begin to introduce both food and water. This is both fun, and messy. Food is a full-body contact sport for puppies. They will often lay in it, sleep in it, but then—sometimes—eat it. Because of this, definitely supervise them around the food and water. We never left water in without supervision until the end of week 4. Food we left in when the dam wasn’t with them and we could be sure she wouldn’t eat it!

We always recommend a high-value nutritional food. We use NutriSource for our dogs, and our contract requires the use of the same for our health guarantee (so we believe in it). There are other good foods out there as well…work with your vet to decide what is best for your dogs and breed. Some breeders choose to feed their puppies raw meat. Whether dry food or raw, the process is relatively the same.

You want to mix the food with water to the point of creating a slurry. For dry food this is about a 1:2 mix of food:water. Raw food is very different in consistency, so you may need to experiment with ratios. At first, you will want to only put the food in when you can keep an eye on the puppies. The goal at first is just to get them used to it as an item. They will often like it for the water (lapping it up and leaving the food).

You will want the round-trough style bowls like these. These serve two purposes. First, they help minimize food possessiveness since all the puppies can get to food (you may need two depending on litter size). Second, they keep the puppies from falling all the way into the food! Buying additional bowls so you can also try adding just a water dish is a good idea as well. You won’t want to try this until later in this period, closer to the five-week mark. Again, be ready for it to be very messy!

Your puppies developing digestive track will sometimes not appreciate the new food, resulting in loose stool. One of the best ways to help with this is to supplement their food with some type of pumpkin additive. This will harden the stool and help with digestion. We have used DigginYourDog Firm Up! with good results.