Ok for dinner?

david75

I've been feeding our 15 week old boxer pup a mix of rice chicken and red mills 3 times a day as he wet off dry food completely and he was a bag of bones, and while I'm aware that's natural for this breed for the first few months, himbeing such a little rocket around the house but never seemed to be putting on any weight and was very lanky.

He's filled out a good bit and is shooting up but I'm just worried is this diet ok? He loves it and never leaves the bowl half full, which he was doing just on the dry food. Just worried if its ok to sustain that or should I out him back on dry food?

Also, the petshop recommended stewing the dry food in hot water to release the nutrients, but I also was told not to dothat?

Anyone able to help?

Thanks in advance

andreac

Hi there, boxers do tend to suffer with weight issues until they mature and start to fill out so try not to worry too much.

Regarding the diet, while theres nothing wrong with feeding the rice and chicken, id be more inclined to get the pup on a better quality food so you might not have to substitute with the other stuff.

What you can do to wean him off the extras, is to soak half of his meal in warm water, not boiling, and leave it soak for a while as this makes it tastier to them. You can mix in the rest of the meal then and hopefully the pup will find it bit tastier instead of mixing in extras into it.

Cutie18Ireland

Soaking the food is fine, its done for young pups and dogs with bloat issues.

My dogs were on jameswellbeloved and even with the different flavours the food could sit there all day. I moved to burns and they all eat it right away.

are you serious

Just like you or me every dog has different tastes and preferences! Although some pet shops will try tell you dog food does not taste different, at least thats what the staff in maxi zoo finglas tried to tell me!!!

Generally if you think it is right for your dog and its not rubbish food then it will be ok for your dog! Rice and chicken is perfect for your dog, adding it into the food will only make it better again! Just be careful not to over feed at this young age!

There is nothing wrong with leaving him on this food mixture if he is enjoying it either. I meet a couple walking their 2 boxer puppies in my local park so I will say dont expect him to ever look stocky or built this young. He will go through stages of looking lanky/fat/skinny/long/tall and even all the opposites of this until he is about 8 months or maybe even a bit older.

Only the other day I met up with my pup's sister and brother, both of them look fat compared to her and she is taller than them both by only a little bit, next week that could all change. Meanwhile she is the same weight as one of her other sisters but if you saw pictures of them both you would say she is lighter by looking at the pictures. My point from all this is in a round about way your doing a good job if he has started eating again properly and if his appetite I good then do not worry!

There is also a rule on boards about having to post new puppy pictures in case you never read it... (its unwritten but its there somewhere )

david75

cool, thanks for the advice, he seems totally happy with it, i just worried it was too much of a good thing for him. I'll leave hi alone so
here he is, on the bed, breakin all the rules

meoklmrk91

I have a Boxer, he's 14 months now but when he was a pup I often got comments about his weight, oh are you feeding him at all etc. despite the vet saying he was perfect. This continued for months, he would finally put on a bit of weight and then he would shoot up again and look like a starving dog. He has started to bulk out a small bit now that he has turned the year but recently he had another growth spurt so there goes that.

He was never fussy with food, so I'm lucky in that regard. I suppose it's because he has been on dry since the day I got him and he wasn't allowed any human food ever, I was and still am very strict on this. The easiest way to get him to bulk up is to put him on a high quality food. My fella was on generic for the first few months I had him, at around 6 months he just seemed to stop growing and there was no shine off his coat etc. So I switched him to James Wellbeloved Duck and Rice, he really liked it, grew like there was no tomorrow and had a great coat, he did however have very smelly farts, so I switched to Arden Grange, again he loves it, and has all the benefits if not more than the Wellbeloved except no farts.

It may seem like a lot of money to pay out for a bag of dog food, I pay €40 a bag for mine on Zooplus, but it lasts over a month because you don't have to give them nearly as much because the quality of the food is so much better.

Get him on a good quality dry food, buy smaller bags and see how he goes on them, if your happy stock up, if not move on. I would nearly always go hypo-allergenic with Boxers though, they seem to do far better on it as they often have sensitive tummys.

Best of luck with him, he gorgeous:D