Hi,

My elderly aunt just went and got herself a Pom puppy. I'm sure it's the cutest little thing, but of course, she knows zip about raising or training dogs, let alone Poms.

I don't know anything about Poms, either<g>.

I have a feeding question. The info I found on the internet says Poms are prone to losing their teeth and so, should be fed dry food. I assume they are making the comparison between dry crap in a bag and wet crap in a can<g>.

Is there any reason a Pom can not be raw fed? My aunt may go for the pre-prepared raw foods (Bravo, Oma's, etc.). If she's determined to go with a dry food, what kinds of kibble would be good for this pup? (I'd love to recommend something low grain and raw based, but being a raw feeder, and totally ignorant of what's great for Poms, I need help here.)

Of course, I will recommend she add salmon oil and vit E and good yoghurt to whatever she feeds, but still need to figure out the basic food.

Also open to any recommendations in general about raising Poms!

Thanks,
leih

Dog is Dog. The only difference between feeding a Pomeranian and feeding a Siberian is the size of the portions and the frequency of the feeding. A tiny dog has a hard time keeping body temperature maintained and can dehydrate faster than a larger dog, and pom puppies are teensy little dogs. So, access to water, frequent small meals are in order. I can't advise you on kibble, but Ed's site has several decent kibbles listed and prepared raw food, too.

Little dogs are a slight more of a challenge than one of the more naturally sized dogs. There are consiquences in making something that is naturally 50ish lbs five lbs or less. While Janice is right that dog is dog keep in mind the amount of space this pom has to digest the required nutrients of life is fairly limited in the puppy stage. For this reason when I have puppies in the house who are toys I free feed a high quality puppy kibble all morning to early afternoon and do a ground raw meal at night. Larger dog owners may scream bloody murder about this practice but when your stomach is the size of a thumb 1/8th of a cup is a big meal. I actually follow this practice at least until the dog has reached it's adult size which for toys is usually by 6 months.

The reason I grind raw puppy food as opposed to keeping it whole at this point because I find very small toy pups have a hard hard time chewing even the softest/smallest of chickenbones and chewey meats when very young. They also have a wandering attention span and often don't have the food drive of a larger dog no matter how tasty the objects.

I have one 4lb dog who never developed a food drive and to this day wont give me the time of day for a treat of any kind. Dealing with him as a 1 1/2 lb pup was a little nerve racking and eventually I had to put him on eukanuba max cal from the vet as a last resort. He only would eat a tablespoon at a time until he was 3 months old. Happily none of my other little dogs have been such a challenge.

The key I find is make it yummy and get it down their throat before they get distracted. A chicken wing tip can be a challenge and is usually what I use to introduce these pups to the art of chewing their food at about 4 months old depending on the dog's size and interest.

You can not starve a toy puppy into eating well when you put down a dish and then picking it up in 15 minutes without running a risk of killing your pup from hypoglycimia. Please don't do it, if you insist upon this please wait until your dog is at least their adult weight. Also please research the symptoms of hypoglycimia which is a larger risk in toy breeds than in larger dogs.

If you want a kibble suggestion I love Wellness puppy which I convert over to wellness core at 6 months. Natural balance I find is fine for my older dogs but my toy pups don't seem to do well on it and in general i find it to be true for most all life stages food. A friend of mine gives rave reviews for Orijen for her papillons. For fish oil I just use the gel tabs, one is more than enough and my dogs think they're chewy treats where they turned their noses up at grizzley oil.

Melissa,

Thanks so very much...I'd hoped you would come along here.

See, I've already messed up with my aunt, around the free feeding thing. I advised againist it<g>. Her pup is already 4 months old, but it sounds like it may need to be able to free feed yet for a couple more months.

Aside from the free feeding thing, do you have any comments on the Pom's teeth rotting so easily thing? Is it the same for all toys, or do you know if it's just Poms?

Thanks!
leih

I'd try chicken hearts, chicken rib sections, and cornish hen parts for the first non-ground foods. There's the very small whole prey options available at your local reptile supply place, but the per pound price on those is pretty crazy.

I personally don't think it hurts to supply some whole foods earlier and see if the dog likes them. You might get lucky and have an individual that likes to knaw on appropriately sized bones. You just don't want to force it with a critter prone to health problems when they don't eat. (Just like cats, who can have liver problems when not eating. You provide them with choices when making a switch.)

Leih,

Toy dogs are known for bad teeth for a few reasons. Smaller teeth mean they decay faster, modified unnatural jaws don't move the food away from the tooth quite as well as a natural faced dog, then add in kibble and you've got a mess.

Step one is to accept either you'll clean this dog's teeth or the vet will. Get a cheap kids electric toothbrush and a tube of doggie toothpaste and get into the habit of brushing when the dog is young, before adult teeth.

Evaluate teeth once a month after the adult teeth come in to see if there are any goop spots developing, gum disease, or pits in a tooth. Take care of them early and you'll have much fewer problems as time goes on. Toy breeds can live an exceptional amount of time (I know a few in their 20s) and keeping the healthy years as high as possible is usually just caused by good food and routine good care.

Best of luck,

Melissa

And everything said in Melissa's post about toy breeds applies (and more so) to bracheocephalic breeds, whether toy or not.

Flat faces = teeth crowded in and probably overlapping, and less of the natural washing done by saliva.

Thanks, everyone, for the information and advice.

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to convince my aunt to go raw, but I can sure try and pass on this information.

leih