How much do I feed? (Can + Dry)

[Nanners]

I'm hoping there are vets here or pet professionals who can help me.

I have a 11mth Shih Tzu who weights approx 15lbs. He's an extremely picky eater. So far, we've tried everything except home cooking. I didn't want to start feeding him canned food. I know it's not as good for him, nor is it good for his teeth. We recently tried mixing his dry food with canned food and he loves it. My only problem with this, is I don't know how much to feed him. The back of the bag and can have feeding instructions for those separately but not together. Can anyone help?

Here's what I got off Science Diet's website:

 

[Fran27]

Ok first, it's not true that wet food is bad for dogs - actually, it's probably better than dry. You just have to feed a lot of it, and it gets pricey fast - that, and there are lots of bad quality cans out there.

Second, I suggest you try a better food than science diet - you can find much much better foods for the same price really. Science diet is really a low quality food, and frankly you don't pay for quality but for advertisement. If you look for smaller independent pet food stores, you can find much better food that might even be cheaper, like Innova, Canidae, Eagle Pack or Solid Gold - the price of the bag is often around the same but you have to feed much less of it, because it contains less fillers.

To answer your question though, I have a picky eater also, and I had to start adding wet food to his kibbles as well. Mostly though, I just removed a bit of food (like 1/8 cup out of a 2 cups portion) and just added a bit of wet food for the flavor (a can lasts me about 2-3 days doing that). If you're just going to complement a diet with some wet food, it's good to use some cans with a high percentage of meat (I use nuro, they have 95% meat cans for about $1.20 here). But please consider switching to a better food.

 

[adamwehn]

Ok first, it's not true that wet food is bad for dogs - actually, it's probably better than dry. You just have to feed a lot of it, and it gets pricey fast - that, and there are lots of bad quality cans out there.

Second, I suggest you try a better food than science diet - you can find much much better foods for the same price really. Science diet is really a low quality food, and frankly you don't pay for quality but for advertisement. If you look for smaller independent pet food stores, you can find much better food that might even be cheaper, like Innova, Canidae, Eagle Pack or Solid Gold - the price of the bag is often around the same but you have to feed much less of it, because it contains less fillers.

To answer your question though, I have a picky eater also, and I had to start adding wet food to his kibbles as well. Mostly though, I just removed a bit of food (like 1/8 cup out of a 2 cups portion) and just added a bit of wet food for the flavor (a can lasts me about 2-3 days doing that). If you're just going to complement a diet with some wet food, it's good to use some cans with a high percentage of meat (I use nuro, they have 95% meat cans for about $1.20 here). But please consider switching to a better food.

Just curious, can you give a rough figure of how much a Bag of each of those brands costs? My only reference point is Purina and I've been told that's not a very good brand. I was recommended Nutro, but a 20 pound bag of that stuff cost me 26 bucks compared to around 9 or 10 bucks for a bag of Purina.

 

[Mordy]

Neither Science Diet, nor Nutro, nor any Purina product are good quality foods.

Comparing the price per bag isn't always the best way to go either, since you generally have to feed much less of a better quality food, so a bag lasts longer.

You can generally get a 20 pound bag of Canidae (a true high quality food) for around $20-22 and a 40 pound bag for around $35.

As for the question of the original poster, a 15 pound fully grown dog (which I assume a Tzu is at 11 monhs) needs around 600 kcal per day. You can switch to a regular adult food at this point, no need for a puppy food. I woud not recommend continuing the Science Diet tho.

Last but not least - the claim that canned food is bad for the teeth is not true.

 

[PoodleMommy]

This post interests me...

I have a toy poodle who is very picky... She will not eat kibble even mixed in her canned food... everyone has been saying this is so bad and not good for their teeth, so we have been trying so hard to get her to eat it.

Mordy, are you saying then that it is okay for her to ONLY eat canned food forever?

We arent concerned about the cost of her food, we know she needs more (of course she only weighs 5 pounds to begin with).

FYI we feed Innova Puppy.

Elissa

 

[adamwehn]

Neither Science Diet, nor Nutro, nor any Purina product are good quality foods.

Comparing the price per bag isn't always the best way to go either, since you generally have to feed much less of a better quality food, so a bag lasts longer.

You can generally get a 20 pound bag of Canidae (a true high quality food) for around $20-22 and a 40 pound bag for around $35.

As for the question of the original poster, a 15 pound fully grown dog (which I assume a Tzu is at 11 monhs) needs around 600 kcal per day. You can switch to a regular adult food at this point, no need for a puppy food. I woud not recommend continuing the Science Diet tho.

Last but not least - the claim that canned food is bad for the teeth is not true.

I just did some simple math here and one 20 pound bag of Canidae equals out to roughly 40 days worth of food for my dog. I'd probably have to buy 3 bags of Nutro or Purina to get that kind of duration.

Edit: I'm definitely going to look into Canidae.

 

[Fran27]

Good for you Adamwehn! Canidae is really the cheapest of all the high quality food, and definitely something most people should look into. I tried it for two months but Boris prefers Innova so I switched back, but otherwise I would have stuck with it, plus the bag lasted over a month even with my two (40lbs bag).

Poodlemommy, I'm not Mordy but I think it's fine to just feed canned food (as long as it's good quality of course). I would do that if it wasn't so pricey, my dogs just love it.

 

[pup-man]

Canned food is a lot more natural than dry kibble. Yes, it is better in some aspects.

 

[PoodleMommy]

Thanks Fran...

 

[Mordy]

Yes, you can feed canned food exclusively, if you want to. It's much closer to what the natural diet of a dog would be than kibble stuffed full of carbs.

What you need to do (regardless of what you are feeding) is keep an eye on your dog's teeth. I recommend thoroughly checking at least once every week, making sure you also see the condition of the molars, upper and lower, and on both sides.

Ideally you'd feed some raw meaty bones (e.g. chicken wings) on a regular basis, which will do a great job of keeping the teeth clean - think of it as working like dental floss.

 

[Nanners]

If Science Diet is such a poor quality food, can anyone recommend a better brand that I can buy in Canada? I'll try switching him but we've tried practically every brand of food there is and he just won't eat it. If you think give it time and he'll eat, you're wrong. He's went without eating for 5 days before. He's the most stubborn cuty, you'd ever meet.

For now, we'll keep mixing his dry and canned food but if he still puts up a fight, I'll just let him eat the canned food. We've been fighting with him to eat ever since last May when we got him.