Puppies: week 8

puppies

28 Mar

The Puppies are coming up to eight weeks old.

It all started with their mum regurgitating up some part digested meat…Zinny has been on a well balanced BARF diet for many years and her owner is very used to providing that diet. Up until now the pups had been having a complete puppy kibble soaked with some bone broth. The bone broth was prepared on a regular basis and kept frozen. It was then defrosted when needed.

Zinny had new decided it was time to shift their diet to another level. And so, like many a carnivore mum has done over the years, she chose to share some of her food. The pups all thought this was great and quickly ate up the new food. Aren’t dogs great?

Zinny’s owner then felt the time had come to follow suit and started to introduce some raw food to the puppies menu. They also got to have a chew some appropriate meaty bones.

For those of you not familiar with the Biologically Appropriate Raw Food (BARF) approach to feeding this will be a new concept. By way of a general observation, dogs really do go very well on a good quality, well balanced raw food diet. At the same time, there is an art to doing it well. For a novice, I recommend some research to get to know the subject better. Good places to start are Honeys Real Dog Food and Dogs Naturally Magazine.

Raw bones are often, but not always, included in the BARF approach. Again, there are ways of doing it appropriately and ways that might cause problems. Certainly, done well, there are many many benefits to having a raw meaty bone on a regular basis In fact there is a classic book entitled: Raw Meaty Bones by Tom Lonsdale.

By way of observation, dogs that are in the chewing habit from an early age end up having a lot less dental problems through their lives and commonly keep a full set of teeth.

Life for the puppies is about to enter a whole new phase. For most of them, this is the last week in their old home. And their is still a bit of time to go. Plenty of time to play. Many of the new owners would wait until they have taken their puppy to their own vet practice to discuss the vet’s protocols for vaccination.

A couple of the owners elected to get a first vaccination done at eight weeks before they picked them up. So after a routine check up to make sure they were fit and healthy, two pups were given their vaccines for Distemper, Canine Hepatitis, Parvo Virus and Leptospirosis. This would then be followed up by their new vet practice with further vaccinations.

If you are keen to know about why these diseases are vaccinated against, then check out the Vaccine Guidlines.

There are, of course, other perspectives on disease prevention. Certainly, the fitter, healthier and more resilient and individual is, the less susceptible they will be to disease. Much can be done to help an individual become naturally robust and resilient.

The big transition to new homes is nearly upon us. In the next final blog of this series, we will look at what happens as the pups move on to their new homes.