What an Appetite!

[Sonoma_in_CT]

Our new puppy Sonoma has been with us for three weeks now and is really a great little dog.

She seems to have an endless appetite. She eats twice a day and appears to be hungry all the time. We could give her twice the food that she is getting (1 cup per feeding) and she would gobble it all up. She also will (or try to) eat anything that she comes across that might be edible. opcorn:

She gets tons of exercise both in the yard and at the beach and is in no way overweight, so she's burning up whatever she eats...

Any thoughts? Normal stuff again or something to be concerned about?

 

[Dizzy]

Is she growing and gaining weight at a reasonable rate?

If you increase her food will she put on weight?

Has she been wormed?

If it was me, I would increase her food. If she is gaining weight, and STILL has an appetite, look into mixing up some green beans, or other low fat healthy foods into her meals, to bulk it out and fill her up a bit more!!

 

[Sonoma_in_CT]

Is she growing and gaining weight at a reasonable rate? We think so, but she is new to us (~1 month). And we're not quite sure how big she may get. We are fairly confident that she is a Boxer/Whippet or Boxer/Greyhound mix and her energy level leads us to believe that she will be a lean dog if we get the diet/exercise combination correct.

If you increase her food will she put on weight? We have increased her food by about 50% and have not seen any visible increase in weight. I will weigh her today and see if she has gained any weight since we got her.

Has she been wormed? Yes she has.

 

[Zoom]

I know quite a few boxer mixes that eat a giant amount of food each day, like 5-6 cups, and are still very lean dogs. You may have one of those.

How old is she?

May I ask what you are currently feeding her?

 

[Sonoma_in_CT]

She's 6 months old. We have had her for about a month.

We are currently feeding her Science Diet Puppy food.

We would like to transition her off of it to something better but have not done our homework on food yet.

 

[Zoom]

You might try adding a small mid-day meal around noon and see if that helps any. I think pups are supposed to eat 3x a day until shortly after 6 months? I've not had a puppy before so I could be wrong.

As far as doing your homework on a better food, then you've come to the right place! Check out the Dog Food and Recipies Forum here, as well as www.dogfoodproject.com. You'll learn a ton and I see you're already part of the way there by recognizing that Science Diet is not the best food out there, contrary to popular belief.