Feeding - Your First Month and Beyond

When feeding your new puppy, or any puppy/dog, start with a set amount. I would say a good rule of thumb is 4 cups. Your puppy in the evening when he gets fed, might get many, many cups for him, his sisters, brothers, mom, etc. With you, it is just you and him!

So, decide how often you will feed him. If you feel that he would be better suited eating 3 times a day, great! Take that 4 cups, divide it by 3 and offer a third at each meal. Watch what he eats in 10 minutes. If he eats it all, (THIS IS ONLY ON A 3 TIME A DAY FEEDING!), offer the other third for lunch and again at dinner. IF AT DINNER he looks at you for more and has devoured his food; offer him 1/2 or 1 cup more. Did he finish it fast and is he looking for more? Offer him another cup. What you are getting is a baseline. So, do this for 3 to 5 days, then take an average of what he ate during each day and this is your starting point for the 3 meals.

Now, how do you know when to increase or decrease? If you find that after dinner (same as above) at any given time he wants more, offer him more the same as before and re-adjust your average.

For those feeding 1 time per day as I do when they are 8 weeks and older, start with 4 cups. How much did they eat in one sitting? Do this for 3-5 days and get your average. Make that your baseline and again, if he is finishing it all in a few minutes and looking for more, get a new average.

Your puppy will have 3 significant growth spurts in his first year. Sometimes 4. These are at 12-16 weeks (so 3 to 4 months), 6-7 months, and again around 8-10 months. During these spurts, you will see increase and DECREASE in your puppies eating. Sometimes you will feel like you have to entice him to even eat a kibble! And because he is growing in spurts, you will see him grow lean and long, and tall and thin and then blossom out into the soon to be Dire Wolf that he will end up being between 1.5 and 3 years of age depending on the line he is from.

We know that this can be a scary situation sometimes! I get a lot of calls asking what to do and will it be okay. Yes, it will be okay. If your dog is active, acting normal, not lethargic and not in pain, but he just isn't interested in his food, he is fine. He can go a day and sometimes ours go 3 without eating! Or, eating significantly less than normal. If you have questions, or need to see if it's normal you can always call us.

Always, always, if you feel that there is something wrong, turn to your vet if you do not feel that we have helped you to understand or given you what you feel is a calming/good answer. We breed for a living and the health and well being of our dogs comes FIRST over anything. This is why Lois created this breed. We want you to always feel confident in coming to us, but the time the dog leaves our hands, he is your responsibility. We can guide you, but you must do what is right.

Nutritional Gravy's - Additives One Might Use When Needed (These are what we use, but ONLY suggestions)

My Schwarz Nutritional Oils - (Remember to introduce NEW foods to your puppy SLOWLY! A tablespoon at a time to see what happens. If his stool is the same and he is still fine, you can check that item off as "good for my dog". This goes for ALL new items. Never add more than one thing at a time, or else you won't know what your puppy is sensitive to or what he is not!)

Google this stuff and use your common sense.

Mix up some of my Oil mixture together and put it in a large mason jar or gallon plastic jug:

6 cups of Olive oil

2 cup Coconut oil

1 cup Avocado oil

½ cup Cod liver oil

2 cups Salmon oil

¼ cup Flax seed oil

1/8 cup Sesame seed oil

1 teaspoon Bacon grease

1 teaspoon duck oil

1 teaspoon grape seed oil

2 cups alfalfa or parsley flakes

¼ cup crushed Garlic

(Be sure you have enough SAMe and omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids as you google all this stuff and find out what you are actually giving your dogs).

You can fill the gallon jar to the top with a veggie oil if you have room in your container. When you cook bacon, keep the grease in a covered can and melt in the microwave to pour over the kibbles. I buy loads of butter sticks for my dogs to pour on top of kibbles.

Every dog, young or old needs these wet and dry nutrition, herbs, vitamins and minerals and each dog needs a different amount of them depending on their blood draw scores.

Dry food is void of fat and fat is necessary for all animals as fat is used by our bodies as ENERGY. Dry dog food companies can not put enough fat in their products as the kibbles would go rancid.

My Schwarz Nutritional powder

In a large plastic popcorn container combine your dry ingredients:

6 lbs of Bone meal (main ingredient)

3 cups Powder eggs

1/4 cup Instant potato

1/16th cup Brewers yeast

½ cup Alfalfa and or Parsley flakes

¼ cup celery tops

4 cups Kelp/Algae

1 cup Psyllium fiber

1/8th cup Glucosamine

1 tablespoon Turmeric

½ cup Oregano

¼ tablespoon Cardamom

1 shake of dill weed

1 shake of turmeric

4 shakes of black pepper

Dynobite per instructions

As you google all these ingredients you can take some out or put some in as necessary as you study the Full Blood Panel that you have asked your Veterinarian to take from your dog so that you can see what your pup is low or high in.

The first year of your pup’s life is VITAL to the health of your pup. You pup has gone from sperm and egg to a 1-pound bundle of joy in ONLY 32 days, and he is far from fully developing all of the cells and organs necessary to push him through to the age of 20, which is our goal. So as your pup comes to you at ONLY 8 weeks on the face of this earth it is imperative that you give him the nutrition he needs to grow into the healthiest of canines on this planet. Those Kidneys will be moving, those tubes will be expanding, those plates will be closing and at 6 pounds a week and will not stop for the next 3 years.

~Lois Schwarz 1-1-2010~