Great information everyone. Thank you all so much! I didn't even think of THK...I think I am going to go with that and gradually add in the meat, that way I know he's getting something, as mentioned.

Karo syrup... I was going to use honey, but that would be better. Which reminds me...Cold can cause problems and it is cold and snowy here. I absolutely do not want to use pads to housebreak him, but I hate to risk his health. Should I start him on pads for now until it gets a bit warmer? Hate to get him in the habit of going inside the house. The breeder starts them on pads..

Anyway...I'm just hoping he will eat THK. I'm ready ALOT of information about people with chi's that are very picky eaters. Melissa...give me those tips now so I know! Haha.

If you have a porch I've got an idea for you. Get a square rubbermaid container or a large cat box, put some sand or fishtank gravel in the bottom of it, and pick up a square foot or two of sod at the home depot or chip it out of your yard if you can . You now have a sod litter box for your porch which you can bring inside if need be on totally bizzard out days. The important part of this is going through the potty ritual, leash on, walk to the door, walk outside, and going to the potty material.

My dogs here use the lawn or a litterbox with wood pellets in it in my garage.

Don't worry about a picky eater til you have one. Booker had me sick with worry about him not eating until he was about 6 months old. He's my only dog with next to no food drive.

Actually..I was thinking about doing something just like that. I had an old rabbit cage tray I was going to drill holes in and fill it with dirt and set it just outside the back door to the deck. The deck is situated so the wind won't be so bad there and it'll be nice on me when we have to go out so frequently and in the middle of the night because I don't have to go out into the yard, just open the door and it's there. I just didn't know if even that would be too much.

Thanks for pointing out the walking thing, I might have ended up carrying him back and forth each time. I'm going to try and associate him with a word like my two GSD's. "Go outside." Then when they do, "Good outside!" My two will go on command, even if it's a drop or two. Hopefully it will help him pick it up more quickly. Would a small treat after he goes out there help as well?

Mm k, got my fingers crossed on the food thing.

Heather, keep in mind that some of what you hear about Chis has to do with their neurotic owners. Widget is a perfectly normal dog when it comes to food. If he doesn't like it, he goes hungry. I do not cater to his every whim like many owners of toy breeds, and I do not treat him like a spoiled child. Ok, that's a lie, but he really does eat whatever. Except venison. Now that I think about it, he will not eat venison and never has. Says it's too gamey or something like that. ;-)

Hmmm...Yeah I guess that's so true. There seems to be so many people out there that can only get away with owning a dog, period, because they are so small. Youtube has a shocking amount of chihuahua videos with them doing some completely unacceptable things.

There was one the family recorded of the dog getting up on their laps and claiming THEIR plates of dinner that sat on their table and they were laughing about it as the little thing was up on it's hind legs over the plate, snarling and attempting to bite any hand that came near. I mean, seriously...how is that cute?

Saw one woman on another forum go through every brand of dog food under the sun because hers would only pick at it and it went on for over 6 months. If it were mine he wouldn't eat at all until he ate what was given. In fact, Reesee my GSD just tried that with a turkey leg ( she gets ground turkey with her meals, normally )and she didn't eat for 2 days then finally ate it and now eats any piece of turkey when offered.

 Quote: connie sutherland

 Quote: melissa thom

I didn't limit ingredients with that recipe when I did the last pup and I had no trouble but perhaps I got lucky, my dogs tend not to have digestion issues.

My concern on limiting ingredients with a puppy is that what do you limit and for how long? I have seen some pretty slow conversions done by people here on adult dogs, my major concern with that slow conversion is that puppies need protein, calcium, fat, and essential vitamins to develop not just maintain like an adult dog. At this age denying a vitamin for a week IMO matters.

Oh, no .... in this switch from kibble, it's adding in each ingredient one per day, backing up only if there is any poop deterioration. In five or six days the diet is complete (except for the additional protein source variety).

The first item is the crucial calcium-phosphorus ratio (the RMB), such as chicken backs, with no alteration except the skin peeled off for a day or two. (For example, it would never be recommended to begin with no-calcium muscle meat.)

Absolutely correct that the very gradual conversion on an adult dog who has developed colitis or something similar on kibble is not the same speed with which a puppy gets all his ingredients. Protein, calcium, fat, and essential vitamins are in place by day two or three, unless something triggered soft poop and there's a day's slowdown.

Right. That's what I meant.

When asked how long it takes to switch a dog, my answer is always, "As long as it takes."

The super slow adult's, and even one puppy that I can think of, switches were because of problems. Not for the heck of it. That's not what I meant.

If everything is added day one, and a problem comes up, what caused it? I didn't think a 1/2 or 1 day wait between ingredients would make a puppy implode. I shoulda been more specific.

 Quote: michael_wise

.... When asked how long it takes to switch a dog, my answer is always, "As long as it takes."

The super slow adult's, and even one puppy that I can think of, switches were because of problems. Not for the heck of it. That's not what I meant.

If everything is added day one, and a problem comes up, what caused it? I didn't think a 1/2 or 1 day wait between ingredients would make a puppy implode. I shoulda been more specific.

I know this may appear to have been beaten to death, but I just want to add that there is almost never any GI problem like diarrhea (IME on boards and in person) if the kibble-to-raw switch is done one ingredient at a time, with the crucial RMBs, of course, being number one.

It's probably true that most switches would go great anyway, and that we hear and read most about the problems. But man, some of those problems end up with a dog-gut so inflamed and with poop so watery that I really hate like crazy to risk it when the solution is so simple.

Again, if I were a breeder and weaned to raw and knew my pups, that'd be a whole different thing.

Last night after logging off I went through my LB raw diet books. I see puppies weaned to "regular adult meals, only small and more mooshed up," but I see kibble dogs switched less quickly. Schultze, as much as I like most of her advice, recommends adding a tiny amount of the new food to the old food (she cautions against having the dog on both for longer than 7 to 10 days), but we've seen bad (if rare) problems here from mixing kibble and raw. MacDonald recommends a week of nothing but the first RMB.

I guess I'm just pointing out that the switch from kibble appears not to be very similar to the weaning of a lucky raw-fed infant to raw, and that my own feeling is that I'd rather take the extra steps against having a puppy with diarrhea.

All JMO. A few years of diarrhea-posts can really hone the desire to make the switch step by step.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

I know this may appear to have been beaten to death, but I just want to add that there is almost never any GI problem like diarrhea (IME on boards and in person) if the kibble-to-raw switch is done one ingredient at a time, with the crucial RMBs, of course, being number one.

Nobody posts if they don't have a problem.:wink: We don't get to read about all those seamless switches that far out-number the problem ones.