Rose wrote: > I totally disagree with your comments. I would assume that the fussy puppy > was fed Eukanuba Large Breed Puppy at the breeders without problems, after > all she made it to leaving home time
Hi Rose Please let me precede the following by stating that I greatly value both your experience and expertise on the berner-list. Thanks to your input, I, like many others berner-l members, have been able to considerably increase my knowledge in many doggy related areas for which I am truly grateful. Nevertheless, when it comes to a breeder prescribed diet, the dog refusing to eat it, and the new owner being told that s/he should stick to the breeders diet regardless rather than trying out something new, we have to agree to disagree. Strongly if necessary. Why should a puppy have to continue to eat something she actively dislikes with the exception of live preserving medication? Why? Because the breeder said so? With all due respect to all the breeders out there, but surely diet recommendations should be just that - recommendations. To facilitate matters for both puppy and new owner. To make it a STIPULATION what another person's dog - and yes, if the puppy has been sold it IS another person's dog - should and shouldn't eat is dictatorial and is taking matters too far. What a breeder chooses to feed his own dogs isn't gospel nor should it be. I think we can safely say that there is more than one decent brand of dog food on the market and that many dog owners are a lot more educated about diet than some breeders. Should food not be enjoyed rather than endured? If the answer is yes than why not try out another brand? If we applied the principle of "unless you eat what I just gave you, you will eat nothing, never mind how much you hate it, and I will give you the same thing until you are so hungry that you'll eat anything " to children, we would be accused of abusing our power as their care takers. And rightly so. I think the same goes for our dogs. Will it make the dog fussy if one tries out another diet? I sincerely doubt it. Why would it? Yes, maybe one has to try a few different ones before finding one that both dog and owner are happy with, but so what. Sure, if you serve the puppy roast chicken one day and then expect it to eat boring kibble the next it might turn up it's nose, but we weren't talking about those extremes. I was talking about different brands of complete & balanced foods. We already make so many decisions for our dogs. When they are allowed to go out. For how long. If they are allowed to go out at all. When they eat and how much. How long they have to stay alone at home and how often. In a crate or out of it. In light of this, is it really too much to ask that a dog can a least have a LITTLE bit of choice in WHAT it eats? Oh, come on. > If a puppy owner chooses to experiment with a variety of kibbles then they > are likely to gain experience with diarrhoea and other gastric problems Both my dogs eat a huge variety of foods. Always have done. They don't have gastric problems. They never get diarrhoea except from turkey or eating too much marrow from fresh bones. Therefore I scoop some of the marrow out and omit turkey. The only dog owners I know whose dogs have persistent stomach upsets have exclusively kibble fed dogs. The moment the dogs eat a morsel of something different they end up with an upset stomach. I guess their system can't handle it. Not exactly a recommendation not to deviate from the same kibble day in day out, but there you are. >Dogs will eat faeces, rotting > carcasses and socks etc, ...... And yet they will still not touch Eukanuba! I rest my case. :-) All the best Michaela, Harvey & Rupert Devon/UK
