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We feed TOTW to our big dogs and they do well with it but our little ones doesn't like dry food very much and only eats it when she is very hungry. We are currently feeding her Little Cesar's which she mostly likes but her skin and coat seem to be suffering due to it not being a good quality food. Plus she is eating a good bit of dirt and poop. So now we are looking for a good high quality wet food for her. Any suggestions?
Little dogs also seem to have a lot of dental problems which a dry food would help with. I agree with oregonwoodsmoke. Get her on a high quality kibble and add some broth (I've given mine low sodium canned) or mix in a tiny bit of the wet food. You may also try adding a little water to the dry kibble, it may be the dryness she's having a problem with.
Another comment about tiny dogs and dry kibble. Different brands come in different sizes and you want a brand that has a small size piece. Also some kibbles are really hard and some kibbles are brittle and break easily. You want to find a brittle kibble, not one that is rock hard.
I buy chicken drumsticks and freeze them for 3 days, then thaw them out and feed them to my 22 pound rat terrier. I just bought some on sale for 70 cents/pound, and my local Costco has them regularly for 99 cents/pound.
If your dog is too small or can't handle eating the bones because of dental issues, you could cook them and pull the meat off, mix it with some rice and some veggies. I also do that occasionally. Mix it with the broth from cooking them. Super high quality food for less than $1/pound.
Another option that is easy, is canned tuna or salmon. You can usually get it on sale pretty cheap, or at Costco. You could also try just mixing some in with the dry food.
We thought we'd found the perfect wet food for our very finicky Jack Russell-Chihuahua Little Guy. He decided he didn't like any of the Cesar cans except the Beef can, and only once in a while. So we tried a little Iams can with two separate trays, just enough for two meals, with chicken. He liked it, so I bought enough for a week. Except I looked at it today, before feeding it to him, and in the upper right hand corner, in tiny print, it says..."Cat Food"! Oh, the shame of it! Little Guy likes cat food. I guess that just isn't going to work. Back to square one...
I've tried soaking kibbles with warm or cold chicken broth, and he hates it. He will eat a scoop of the Paul Newman wet can with beef or turkey, but only a scoop, and not if the can has been opened and refrigerated.
Now Tribbles, our Shepherd-Sheltie mix, will eat anything, including the cat food. We feed both dogs fresh cooked meat with kibbles at night. Little Guy loves warm, shredded chicken and ground beef, and sometimes I mix beef/chicken liver in with the meat, but for their breakfast I just want some quick canned food, because I don't have time to do anything fancy. The Paul Newman cans seem to be the best solution so far. I tried a Blue can. Little Guy wouldn't even sniff it.
Another comment about tiny dogs and dry kibble. Different brands come in different sizes and you want a brand that has a small size piece. Also some kibbles are really hard and some kibbles are brittle and break easily. You want to find a brittle kibble, not one that is rock hard.
Yep. I've even seen Purina 30/20 in small bite form.
We thought we'd found the perfect wet food for our very finicky Jack Russell-Chihuahua Little Guy. He decided he didn't like any of the Cesar cans except the Beef can, and only once in a while. So we tried a little Iams can with two separate trays, just enough for two meals, with chicken. He liked it, so I bought enough for a week. Except I looked at it today, before feeding it to him, and in the upper right hand corner, in tiny print, it says..."Cat Food"! Oh, the shame of it! Little Guy likes cat food. I guess that just isn't going to work. Back to square one...
I've tried soaking kibbles with warm or cold chicken broth, and he hates it. He will eat a scoop of the Paul Newman wet can with beef or turkey, but only a scoop, and not if the can has been opened and refrigerated.
Now Tribbles, our Shepherd-Sheltie mix, will eat anything, including the cat food. We feed both dogs fresh cooked meat with kibbles at night. Little Guy loves warm, shredded chicken and ground beef, and sometimes I mix beef/chicken liver in with the meat, but for their breakfast I just want some quick canned food, because I don't have time to do anything fancy. The Paul Newman cans seem to be the best solution so far. I tried a Blue can. Little Guy wouldn't even sniff it.
If you can take the time to freeze separate portions of the fresh cooked meat, when you get up in the morning, just throw the freezer bag with the day's portion in it, into the microwave on defrost for 2 or 3 minutes. Go about your business, and after it's thawed out, just dump the freezer bag's contents into the dog bowl.
This is what I do. Yes, it's a couple more steps - first to freeze separate portions in baggies, and then to throw them into the microwave to thaw them out to feed, but it's not that huge of a deal, and you can know you fed something really healthy and cheap.
If that's too hard, try feeding canned tuna or canned salmon. Or, cook up a pot of rice and mix in canned tuna and maybe some cooked carrots or peas, etc., and just keep that pot in the fridge for a week and feed it every morning - if you want your food dollars to stretch farther.
By the way, I suggest adding some flax seeds to homemade food, if you have an older female spayed dog. It helps with their hormone replacement, so they don't get incontinence. You'll see that flax seeds are included in most good dog food. I learned the hard way, that a spayed female can become incontinent - but - flax seed in their diet can cure that. This worked for my dog after I took her off dry food, and she became incontinent until I learned this. Added flax seed to her diet, and it disappeared immediately.
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