How to Feed a Small Dog

Posted on Jun 04 in Small Dog Careby Jeff K.Print

Chow now.

Step 1. Put the food in a bowl.
Step 2. Put the bowl on the floor.
Step 3. Let the dog eat.
Step 4. Pick the bowl up.
Repeat as necessary.

It’s a piece o’ cake. Not so fast. A guy named Murphy surmised nothing is as simple as it seems.

First, before I get into the exciting, dare I say spellbinding, intricacies of delivering chow to your dog let me say this: Dogs can survive on garbage and worse. Feral dogs make their living at garbage dumps and trash cans. Pariah dogs can get by on human and animal feces. Dingoes consume the remains of decaying carcasses. Most wild dogs survive on rotted food. Of course, in all these examples, the dogs in question probably carry a huge parasite load; and many have evolved digestive systems that can handle bacteria-laden food.

It is likely your small domesticated dog would not thrive on rotted flesh. It is also likely your small dog would not respond well to a constantly changing diet, obtained at random, under a wide variety of circumstances. It becomes your responsibility as a dog owner to provide food in exactly opposite the circumstances I just described. Food should be given:

1. With as little variety as possible.
2. Feeding just enough to maintain an ideal body weight.
3. With no fanfare.

Let’s break it down.

1. With as little variety as possible.

Your dog loves variety, but variety does not love your dog. We humans also love variety. Variety is one of the reasons most of us enjoy eating at restaurants. A restaurant chef can prepare anything we desire on the menu. Fortunately for us, our digestive system is designed to accept almost any food we throw at it, (never mind heartburn or food allergies,) as long as the food is unspoiled.

Your domesticated dog’s digestive system is not so versatile. Changing your dog’s food suddenly will probably cause him digestive upset, including diarrhea, intestinal gas, and possibly vomiting. Your dog will not anticipate these problems. He will eat anything new with gusto. It’s your job to avoid translating your own love of variety into an expression of love for your dog: “Hey, I love trying new foods. My dog loves trying new foods. I love my dog, therefore I’ll give him new foods!”

There will be times when circumstances will force you to change your dog’s diet. For example, as a dog ages, most owners switch from puppy chow to adult dog food; and later, to a food designed for senior dogs. Any time you have to change your dog’s diet, you should do so very slowly. The standard method for doing this is to blend in a tablespoon or two of the new type of food into your dog’s existing food ration. At the same time, you should reduce the quantity of the old food type by an equal amount so the total volume of food remains the same. As each day passes, increasing amounts of the new food type displace the old food type until the dog is on the new diet. (This method may be adjusted as necessary to keep the total mix of new and old types of food balanced for nutrition and weight control. Your veterinarian can provide guidance.)

One last word on variety before we move on. Your dog may try to manipulate you into giving him a more varied diet. Dogs will occasionally stop eating or reduce their food intake for various reasons. When this happens, it may be tempting to try a new food simply to get the dog to resume eating. This tactic is the top of a slippery slope. Once your dog figures out his refusal to eat will bring him more variety, he will continue to refuse to eat simply to get you to deliver the goods. At Kelsey’s Dog House, we care for some dogs that somehow convinced their owners to serve everything from diced Camembert to premium deli meat to meatloaf with rice and English peas. There is more on this situation in my article, When a Small Dog Refuses Food.

2. Feeding just enough to maintain an ideal body weight.

Your dog has no concept of weight control. Unless he is a very picky eater, he will usually consume everything you put in front of him. There is only one way to alter a dog’s weight: Feed him more or less than he needs for his level of activity.

In a previous article, I talked about two strategies for feeding your dog. In free-feeding, you put food in a bowl on the floor and let your dog eat when he feels like it. Timed feeding is a method of feeding your dog at a specific time of day or after a specific event, such as exercise. Either strategy may lead to overfeeding. Some dog owners who employ free feeding tend to refill the bowl any time the food level gets low. People who feed dogs on a schedule can overfeed as well, particularly if they feed their dogs more than once per day. When feeding a dog multiple times per day, it is important to control the amount of food at each feeding so the total amount for all feedings equal one day’s ration.

It is also possible to underfeed your dog. I know one owner who was told that overweight Dachshunds tend to develop back problems in old age because their elongated spines cannot support the added load. In a misguided attempt to avoid this problem in the future, he currently underfeeds his dog. The result is a half-starved dog that looks terrible and behaves worse.

Regardless of how much dog food your dog gets per day, you should also consider treats and other foods part of his caloric intake. Almost every overweight dog we see at Kelsey’s Dog House gets food supplements at home in the form of table scraps casually handed out at family meals. We have also found that dogs that get fed table scraps at home frequently tend to turn their noses up at regular dog food. (This situation is also discussed in my article, When a Small Dog Refuses Food.)

3. With no fanfare.

As I have said elsewhere. Dogs are creatures of habit. While some dogs will eat anything anywhere, picky eaters are often put off their food by the situation in which it is presented. Dogs in boarding, for example, are often too nervous to eat initially. Until they get used to the boarding environment, they may refuse a meal or two. How you behave around your dog as you present food may also affect his eating habits. If you tend to wind your dog up emotionally with crazy talk just before you put the food bowl down, your dog is going to approach his food with a high degree of agitation: “ARE YOU HUNGRY REXY?! WANNA EAT?! OOH BOY, HERE COMES THE GOOD STUFF!!!!” You may inadvertently be training your dog to bolt his food or become aggressive around his food bowl. Hovering over your dog and fretting over whether or not he will eat may cause your dog to worry as well. Left to his own devices, he would have eaten normally, but your concern may overwhelm him to the point at which he cannot eat.

You’ve heard that expression “Let sleeping dogs lie?” I say, let eating dogs eat. At each meal, do exactly what I said at the beginning of this article.

Step 1. Put the food in a bowl.
Step 2. Put the bowl on the floor.
Step 3. Let the dog eat.
Step 4. Pick the bowl up.
Repeat as necessary.

Do this with as little variety as possible; feeding just enough to maintain your dog’s ideal; and with no fanfare. And for goodness sake, please wash your dog’s bowl between meals. Your dog’s digestive system is not designed to handle bacteria-laden food. If you fail to clean your dog’s bowl after each meal, I can guarantee you will be doing cleaning of another variety some time after your dog eats.

In this and the preceding article I discussed when and how to feed your dog. I did not discuss what to feed your dog because that is best left to your own research, but I do have an opinion on some diets. The next article will look at one particular diet for dogs called BARF. If you have not heard of it, it’s not what you think it is.

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