Puppy teeth and food adjustment question

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Noobs
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Puppy teeth and food adjustment question

Post by Noobs »

Hi all,

Noobs here. I posted an update here on my family's current situation: https://positively.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 52#p156596

I have two questions now:

At approx 16 weeks old, when can baby teeth be expected to fall out? My previous dog came to us at around 8 months old so I'm not sure what to do here. Will he be in pain? Will we have to keep a close eye on him (or the floor? his crate?) and make sure he doesn't swallow any?

Second question: We weren't able to properly transition him to new food, due to the circumstances. The foster told us what food he was eating but I'd never even heard of it so I can't remember what it's called. Well, when we picked him up we got him and a collar and that's all, so we had to just do our best with the food that we got for him. So he's eating Nature's Recipe which we soak in water because he isn't too keen on hard kibble at the moment. We mix in different kind of wet food as well. He's been eating fine, sometimes the whole bowl and sometimes not. So his poop was good, solid but not too hard, for two days, and but for the past 3-4 days it's been diarrhea, progressively getting softer and runnier. This morning he pooped three times on his early walk, with the last one being practically liquid. He's stopped to eat grass once or twice in the last couple of days and I let him. Should I be worried or should we just chalk it up to a full-on change in food and he just needs more time to adjust?

I have to get used to having a puppy who isn't fearful and be careful to control my emotions when any person approaches then passes us. I don't want him to get bad vibes from me! I mean, look what happened just this morning. If you remember Murphy you'd get why this photo is huge for me.

Image

Well I'll leave it at this for now. I'm happy to be back! :mrgreen:
JudyN
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Re: Puppy teeth and food adjustment question

Post by JudyN »

That close encounter with the cat would have me hanging on tight and praying to whatever gods might be within earshot too :lol:

Teething - I can't remember the exact age, but basically he'll need to chew. Chew toys, cardboard boxes to shred (you could put bits of kibble inside twists of paper inside boxes to encourage him)... Wetting a flannel, twisting it and freezing it is meant to be good, as the cold will soothe sore gums.

Food: I'd first want to get a vet check & poo analysis done. I don't think Nature's Recipe is the best food, going by the DogFoodAdvisor site, though they don't have an analysis for the puppy varieties: http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food- ... ecipe-dry/ Having ruled out any medical issues, I'd want to cut out the wet food and give a good-quality food with a single protein source, and nothing else for a while. DogFoodAdvisor have recommendations for puppy food here: http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/best-dog- ... ppy-foods/ Once you find one food he seems happy with, you can introduce other foods.

Though this can take a while as ideally you should change over gradually over about a week. I never found any kibble that kept Jasper reliably firm, and raw feeding was the answer for him.

Or could you ring the rescue or the foster to find out what food he was having?
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
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Nettle
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Re: Puppy teeth and food adjustment question

Post by Nettle »

Re: teething = from 4 months onwards the milk teeth start to fall out. There is discomfort but nothing like the pain that human babies go through. This is an intense chewing period because the adult teeth come through slowly and take a while, especially the canines. Often a milk canine is retained beside the adult tooth, but don't fret. Although vets are keen to remove I have always found they fall out in due course with no more help than raw meaty bones to chew on. Even if you don't feel like feeding raw, the chewing of RMB will help during this phase.

Pup has to chew constantly, so follow a regime of giving plenty that is safe, while hiding everything you are fond of. Chair and table legs can be protected by wide plastic piping, as can electrical cables. Don't play tug games - that can hurt if a tooth is jolted out, and second teeth are vulnerable for quite some time after eruption.

Most will swallow a few teeth and it doesn't matter. Some milk teeth will come out together with a bit of blood. That is okay too.

There is a second massive chewing period at about a year, which is again vital for tooth development.
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Re: Puppy teeth and food adjustment question

Post by Noobs »

Thank you, Nettle!
LovelyLaura
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Re: Puppy teeth and food adjustment question

Post by LovelyLaura »

My rescue puppy Charlie is approx 13/14 weeks and our vet was able to tell us that during his recent 17 night stay in the vets, he lost a lot of his baby teeth while literally chewing on the bars. (He's not keen on being alone or being bored, so he literally just gnaws on the bars and makes a sort of howling noise that has me convinced he may be possessed! :roll: ) The vet wasn't too worried about it, and I a little bit happy that when he now bites us, we can have more control over our "lack of reaction" but can remove ourselves calmly. While he had his little sharp teeth, it just became a game cuz I had to pull myself away really quickly cuz he frequently drew blood!! :cry: It could be that he is slightly older now too, but you can really see him realising that chewing on me or my clothes is not right and its not fun, cuz then I leave! :lol: xx
Mamma to Charlie - a Lurcher x Collie puppy born in late Jan 2017 :D

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