Need help on best food for Cairn

[Guest]

Hi, Nicky my Cairn in three months old. When we purchased him from the breeder they had him on IAM'S puppy food dry. So we purchased a bag of it. Later we purchsed a bag of Walthams dry puppy food. To the point; he will just get a nibble of it and run and play. I've never seen him sit down and eat a lot at one sitting. We are free feeding him-it it always out for him. I've tried him on Science Diet dry and canned he just picks at that too. I guess because he is so little (8 lbs.) I worry about him.

I tried him on eggs, chicken, and turkey off the table. Now with that table food he will sit and eat a good serving. But sometimes he is pickey with that too. Help, I want advice on the best dog food to buy for a Cairn.

thanks

Posey

[CRSTFR]

First why the switch? I use IAMS and like it just fine, but that no big deal. First things, if the puppy is health, they will not starve themself. If you want your puppy to eat without playing with the food, then it's a training issue. Hold off on the free feed for now. Try feeding 3-4 times a day. Feed when you know the puppy is hungery. Redirect the puppys attention when there are a few kibbles left in the bowl, that will help you proceed to free feeding.

[Guest]

Hi Posey, I have a 5 month old Cairn puppy and had the same problem. I add warm water to his food (Science Diet) and let it soak until it's soft. He now gobbles it down. I think teething causes sore gums and makes it uncomfortable to chew hard food.

[Guest]

When I first got my puppy (and I am sad to say it was pet store) I fed her something called Wellness as it was what she was eating at the pet store. I got the puppy formula - dry. It is made from human quality chicken and has fruits and vegetables also - very good. She started having urinary tract problems so the vet said she needed more moisture - she wouldn't drink tap water. So now I give her refrigerated filtered water - which she loves, and a mix of half Wellness dry and half Solid Gold canned food. Solid Gold is not available in the regular grocery store - I have to go to the feed store. The vet advised against lamb so I give Bailey the Solid Gold chicken/liver and turkey/ocean fish flavors. If the can has been in the refrigerator I warm the food a little in the microwave. She loves it and is thriving!

[Posey]

Thanks to the answers I received for my question asking about the best food for my Cairn Terrier. I never thought about their gums being sore-but he is teething. And table food is softer for him-and I will start giving him purifed drinking water. Which he does drink a lot of water and seems to enjoy it cold.

I finally decided to feed him "Natural Choice" for puppies. I was looking all over our area for "Wellness Formula", but around this area where I lived couldn't find a retailer. Tried to order some over the net and it cost as much to ship it as the puppy food cost. So after more reading and researching made the decision for "Natural Choice".

Posey

[Posey]

Hi Kathyo, Just a note to let you know that my daughter has purchased three Cairn Terriers from pet stores. Spunky her first one 21 years ago-he was black and silver. Precious little dog and gave her 14 years of enjoyment, with minimal health problems. Next she purchased Woody a wheaton Cairn terrier, two years after she purchased Spunky, also pet store puppy. I dearly loved him, he was healthy and lived a long life with Spunky. Two years ago she pruchased Reilly also pet store puppy, a cute little red Cairn Terrier. He is a little joy to be around-and healthy. She highly recommends "Wellness" puppy food.

Maybe as a general rule a pet purchased from a breeder may be best. But it is not necessarily bad to purchase one from a pet shop I believe most try to be ethical in their dealing with puppies and wouldbe owners.

Good luck with your pet store puppy!

Posey

[Guest]

But it is not necessarily bad to purchase one from a pet shop I believe most try to be ethical in their dealing with puppies and wouldbe owners.

Posey, I couldn't disagree with you more! I realize that you may know of positive experiences with pet store pups, but please consider what I'm saying.

I worked in an animal shelter for 4 years, and personally saw many instances of the abuse and neglect visited on the dogs who provide pet stores with pups. Many of these animals are kept in horrendously cruel conditions. When you buy a pet store pup, you don't see the conditions it was raised in, or how its parents live. You don't know if it's come from a puppy mill.

Maybe your pet store was ethical with its choices, but many, if not most, are not. There's a sadly huge number of puppy mills in the US. By purchasing a pup from a pet store, you are promoting an industry which thrives on the pain and suffering of dogs.

I'm not saying I would never have a pet store puppy - rescue is a wonderful option - but buy into the inhumane industry of puppy mills? No way.

Please, please think about this, Posey.

[rnbstone]

"I finally decided to feed him "Natural Choice" for puppies. I was looking all over our area for "Wellness Formula", but around this area where I lived couldn't find a retailer. Tried to order some over the net and it cost as much to ship it as the puppy food cost. So after more reading and researching made the decision for "Natural Choice".

I also use Natural Choice ... Meli gets the dry food and the canned at times. She is an absolute pig really (it only takes her about 30 seconds to eat) ... I think she'd eat anything, but she seems to prefer the canned. I also soak the dry food in warm water for about 20 minutes before feeding.

We also went through the "not eating" stage for about two days. She'd nibble a bit and then walk away. However, once I put the canned food in front of her, this stopped. Sometimes I mix the dry and canned as well. She is happy and healthy!

[ctowle]

I feed my cairn Eukanuba. When he was a puppy he wasn't eating much, but after observing him I realized that he was afraid of the bowl(It was metal and he was seeing the reflections) so I got him new dishes, one red and one blue. After that, he took to eating the Eukanuba easily. He does not like wet food, though. You may want to make sure that your cairn isn't afraid of the bowl. They spook easily.

[Mama Kim]

When you refer to Natural Choice are you meaning the NutroMax Natural choice puppy food in the white bag? I've just put my Piper on this a week ago. She seems to like it OK but doesn't eat huge amounts. How much do your cairn puppies eat on average? She is 10 weeks old and between three feedings eats about 1/2 to 3/4 cup per day. Is this normal?

[Posey]

Mama Kim; How precious your new baby must be. But that is the Natural Choice I mean. BUT I have 3 or 4 different brands of puppy food in my cabinet right now. Nicky is smart and I pet Piper is too. They will pick up

on your anxious state of mind about their eating and play it for all it is worth. I wish I would have gotten a hold of this thing from the start. So profit if your like from my experience. Don't fret to much about how miuch Piper is eating, or she will end up like my "Picky Nicky".

Congrats. on your new baby.

Posey

[PadFoot_Lives!!!]

My pup was on Purina Puppy Chow when I bought him from the breeder, so I continued him on that for a while. I asked my vet, and they said it doesn't matter what you feed (!!!!!!)

But my little guy was only 3 pounds when I got him, and when he started teething, 2 things happened. One, he would not eat as readily as he did before. Two, when he DID eat, he would not chew the food, he would wolf it whole, and then seemed to have trouble with it getting stuck partway down.

The reader's digest version is that I switched him to Pedigree canned food, which of course he loved. When I told this to the dog trainer we had come to our home when V was about 6 months old, she was kind of appalled and encouraged me to get him back on dry food. She recommended Natural Balance. I bought both the dry and the canned, and I mix them. He loves them both. I intend to phase out the canned and eventually go back to totally dry. I put the dry food also in V's treat balls, kong, buster cube, etc. and he seems to really like it, so I don't think the transition will be too much of a problem.

Has anyone gotten any feedback from their vets on brands of food? It has been about 7 years since we last had a dog, and at that time, every vet we ever talked to recommended a premium food like Eukanuba or Science Diet. Now our current vets are very laissez-faire about the whole thing. They also told us to follow the feeding amount tables on the cans and bags of food, but I had read that these were very inaccurate and designed by the dog food companies to make you overfeed your dog and have to buy more food.

I also like the idea of having my dog "earn" his food. He has to sit and wait until I tell him "ok" before eating from his bowl. I put a mid-day snack of dry food into a treat ball so that he has to work for it. I also put canned food into his kong and then freeze it, kind of a "doggie popsicle" as we call it. (that keeps him occupied for a LONG time!).

[Mama Kim]

First of all, Posey, thank you for your thoughts. Piper is very smart like you said and has me hand feeding her from her bowl these days. But I vow that tomorrow it will stop. Like Padfoot, I am going to make Piper learn to work for her food a bit. Sitting before she can eat is a good thing. She knows just how to manipulate me for what she wants. Who's the alpha dog here? :mrgreen:

Padfoot, our puppy was on Purina One when we got her. I switched to the Natural Choice because that's the brand our previous cairn had been on. When I asked the vet about the food, she told me it used to be that the 'premium' dog foods were better nutritionally but that now many of the store brand foods were getting better. She said the Purina One was one of the better grocery store brands and that Piper could stay on that if she liked it but I myself preferred the Natural Choice since it was what I was already familiar with.

[PadFoot_Lives!!!]

I should probably add that my little 3-pound ball of fluff is now 15 pounds of lean mean terrier machine! So in spite of his food "issues", he is definitely thriving.

Has anyone else put pics of their pups in the gallery, or somewhere in the forum? Sure would like to see some of these little guys (and gals) I've been reading about.

[Posey]

You know what I do is sometimes look up pictures of Cairns on the net

and look for a good time. I too, would like to see pictures of these little

fluffs we read about. Just got a new computer but don't know how to put pictures on line yet.

Posey

[PadFoot_Lives!!!]

Posey, this website has a gallery, where you can upload pictures of your cairns. It was closed to new submissions for a while, but is now open again. You just follow the directions to upload your pics to the Contributions Gallery. Here are the pics of my little buddy Viggo that I put up a while back (in the first one he is about 7 weeks old, in the second about 6 months old):

[Posey]

Pics. are sooooo precious!

Posey

[Guest]

I enjoy looking at the gallery. I just posted a picture of Rebel. We went to the park and he was taking a rest. He is 8 months old now and has gotten a lot darker coat. His face has gotten lighter.

We are in training class now, hopefully he will get his "good citizen" and I can use him as a therapy dog. When he is in class I have found that the liver treats from authority cut up a little smaller are great and nature's recipe training treats cut in half work well.

Rebel eats anything you put in front of him. I try not to feed him at the same time at night so that he eats when I am ready.

[PadFoot_Lives!!!]

Aw, Rebel is so cute! :mrgreen: Is he considered wheaten? Or red? When we filled out the AKC forms, I couldn't believe how many color variations were listed. I had always thought there were wheatens and brindles, and that was it. Shows how much I knew! In fact, I took Viggo to have his nails clipped today, and the gal at Petco who did it told me she used to work with a Cairn breeder when she lived in Oregon, and that she had always wanted a gray Cairn. See, I always thought that the color of the Toto dog in the Wizard of Oz movie was brindle, when in fact that's kind of a black/gray, right? My little Viggo is actually a brindle (combination of tan/brown/black). Learn something new every day. :wink:

[Posey]

No matter what kind of physical food we feed our puppys they are fed

a great deal of love and kindness with it. Rebel is adorable Liz, and you

are right to be so proud of him! Good luck to the little fellow and you.

Posey

[Mama Kim]

I put a picture of my Piper in the gallery section. She's listed under MamaKim's Piper. She was 8 weeks old in that photo and her one floppy ear has since come up.

[Posey]

Mama Kim, Saw your baby Piper on the Gallery-adorable pure and sweet. And look at those eyes? You can see the intelligence.

Posey

[Guest]

What a beautiful puppy, the picture makes me smile!!!!!! Piper is so cute.

[Mama Kim]

She is a sweetie pie but boy is she keeping us busy!!