Eating.....

[xoaphrodite5ox]

My 10 week old puppy has been with us for 3 weeks now....Her breeder fed her Science Diet puppy food and we bought the same thing for her. We fed her 3 times a day, but after awhile, when it came time for her 2nd or 3rd meal, the food from the previous meal was still there...and she had only ate a little bit at a time throughout the day. She's been to the vet twice and she is healthy, but her eating habits don't seem right. At first we thought maybe she didn't like the science diet, so we mixed some Iams puppy food in, to see if she would eat more and I thought it worked. But the funny thing is, we treat her pieces of her own dry food when teaching her to sit/stay/come/lay and things like that, and when we give it to her by hand or out of the bowl, she goes crazy for it. She will eat it like crazy, but then when I give her the bowl, she sniffs it and walks away. I cant get her to eat her meal out of her bowl when I feed it to her. Does anyone have advice?

[rvsdelta]

Ok...heres what i would do (its worked for me). Feed your dog at the same times everyday, make it a routine. Give the puppy 15 minutes to eat then take the bowl away. Then when its time to eat again put the bowl back down for the puppy, it should be excited to see it just like a treat. I'm not a vet but it has worked for me.

http://www.placervillevet.com/puppy_...d_training.htm

read the 2nd section of this article called "How Often".

[Novel]

Your puppy should not be eating that much. Too much weight gain on a puppy could be very detrimental to her health. If she's not finishing it in 15 minutes, it needs to be taken away. If you try and tempt her to eat more with a canned or wet dog food, you're not only giving her junk food, but teaching her to be fussy, which you really don't want.

What kind of dog is she? Puppies should be hungry. If you put the food down and she eats it all right away, that's good. You still have to be careful not to overfeed, but it is a big misconception that a puppy can have all the food that it wants.
What does the bag of Science Diet recommend to feed her? Is that how much you are feeding her, split up into three meals a day? The three meals a day is great, but you may be feeding too much.