Any owner of a miniature Yorkie, as well as those who are still just dreaming of a little four-legged friend, is concerned about feeding the Yorkshire terrier at home. The breeder or veterinarian will tell you about the right food for your pet.
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Nutrition Features
It is important to know that Yorkies are prone to allergies, their sensitive stomach, unbalanced poor-quality feeding can cause irreversible effects in the delicate digestive system of a small dog. Dietologists and veterinarians should be strict in their recommendations. This will prevent illness, stunting, and misdevelopment. It is up to you to determine how your dog feels, how he looks, and how his teeth look.
A mandatory requirement is that york should not be fed from the owner’s table and that baby food should be prepared separately. For this purpose, special foods sold in pet stores or natural food will be suitable.
How to feed Yorkie?
When raising a dog, you need to teach him the right behavior and food attitude from a puppy’s age, which will protect him and his owner from many troubles and worries. Terriers are incredibly charming. Pampered by the attitude as a toy, they quickly get used to feeding off their hands. Having developed a bad habit, they become demanding, capricious.
It is necessary to accustom the animal to patiently wait for his portion during cooking, to start eating with the permission of the owner, not to take a meal from someone else’s hands, not to demand food from the family table, not to pick up food for a walk. By teaching your pet the subtleties of dog etiquette, you’ll get an obedient, healthy pet, cause admiration, pampering him from the outside.
Overfeeding, forced feeding is prohibited. Refusal to eat is not always a sign of illness. Sometimes a terrier’s body needs to be unloaded.
How often should a Yorkie eat?
York is a small dog of the ornamental breed, weighing no more than 3.5 kg. Meals are based on the norm of 20 g per kg of weight and are 60g of food. The cost of food is small. But the full set of important components must be selected for a small amount of food, so food is given repeatedly at an equal interval. It is important that food is given in a permanent place. Feeding should be done two hours before or half an hour after the walk.
How much should a Yorkie eat daily?
Each dog is unique, and the character of the animal is reflected in its appearance: mobile temperamental Yorks are tucked up, skinny, slow, and phlegmatic terriers, often suffering from lack of action, risk obesity.
A cheerful disposition, thick glossy wool, well-developed muscles testify to a properly composed diet.
What can and can’t Yorkies eat?
How to feed a Yorkshire terrier:
- turkey, rabbit, boiled beef (raw food is not allowed);
- by-products (not more than once a week): liver, heart, stomach;
- water boiled cereals: buckwheat, rice, occasionally wheat, and, with care to avoid allergic reactions, Hercules;
- fermented milk products, non-fat cottage cheese;
- boiled vegetables: pumpkin, zucchini, beets;
- prunes (improve metabolism);
- gutted, boneless sea fish (boiled);
- once a week you can mix egg yolk, preferably quail;
- fruits as a delicacy: watermelon, melon, apple, banana;
Which food we should exclude in daily Yorkshire food:
- pork, mutton meat;
- bones, except for spicy, hollow, especially birds, fish – perforated intestine, for sharpening teeth and games allowed large;
- milk;
- fatty cheeses;
- pearl grits;
- yeast and other flour products;
- citrus fruits;
- chocolate, tea, coffee, alcohol;
- eggs, raw fish;
- raisins, grapes;
- smoked meats, pickles;
- cat food (lots of fat, proteins);
- onions of any kind, mushrooms.
Some of these products on the list may look odd to use on dog menus, but there are known cases where feeding them has caused severe poisoning and death. The reason for this is foolishness, ignorance of the owners.
Types of feeding: what to choose
When selecting food for a domestic friend, it is important to know that there are two types of food for the Mini Yorkshire Terrier: natural food, industrial dry and wet food (canned food).
What about natural food dor dog?
The straight girl does not contain chemical flavors, dyes are more familiar to us. But the preparation of dishes creates inconveniences in travel, trips out of town, requires experience, availability of information.
Yorkshire dogs’ natural foods include:
- fresh, well scalded, finely chopped beef, long-boiled by-products,
- some cereals, raw chopped vegetables,
- sour milk drinks, cottage cheese, eggs.
The problem of natural food Yorkshire Terrier is easily solved by owners who have a lot of free time for cooking.
Some owners prefer to honey their dogs with their food, threatening the health of their pets. Products containing a lot of sugar, salt, and spices cause a loss of your pet’s sense of smell, kidney and liver disease and are often allergic to Yorkshire.
Advantages of feeding dog’s food
Ready-made feeds are convenient, eliminating the need for constant cooking. Easily selected any breed, take into account the activity of the dog, age category. Contains the right minerals, vitamins, suitable for busy people.
Is dry food dangerous?
There’s a reason for the suspicion. Decades ago, imported food of dubious quality caused a negative attitude, but it was replaced by modern brands of premium products from firms with an impeccable reputation.
Features of dry food feeding
When deciding in favor of industrial dry food, it is important to remember that the water content of the product is low, preferably wet canned. When buying a puppy, ask the breeder what the baby was feeding. They’ll change the type or brand of food they’re used to, mixing in a little new food and gradually removing the old food.
Dry food for the dog
It’s more common to start feeding with wet food – by nature, it’s not typical for dogs to eat dry. Over time, canned food with 80% moisture content is replaced by dry food of the same brand designed to feed small dogs. Water is negligibly low so a bowl of liquid should be present at all times.
High-quality foods from well-known manufacturers are not cheap, but they have the right balance of vital proteins, fats, carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamin supplements in their composition. Term of storage of drying is long, you can buy it for a month. Dry food takes up little space, you can take it with you everywhere.
Hygienic properties of products allow the animal to stay clean, untainted. The chair of the dog, eating dry food, becomes decorated, regular, ceases to be liquid. The unpleasant smell of defecation disappears. Drying dogs lack tartar and plaque.
Reviews from veterinarians
There is no consensus on feeding small dogs. Specialists do not recommend feeding Yorks only by drying, insisting on canned food that does not have a negative impact on the digestion of small dogs. However, veterinarians clearly recommend choosing proven premium and super-premium products containing a high percentage of natural meat and cereals. For health problems, preference is given to drying, which is designed to prevent and treat diseases.
The list of brands recommended by veterinarians and filmologists: imported – Propane, Royal Canine, Eukanuba, Farmin, Hills, Monge, Berkeley, domestic – 4 paws. Where to stop, which feed is better? The opinions of different people are contradictory. The owner of a dog will have to make a choice in favor of this or that brand of food on his own, taking into account the recommendations of professionals.
Features of feeding your dog with natural food
When rubbing a tiny pet straight, you can be sure of the freshness of the product, quality, less harm, lack of chemical components, better digestibility of food.
The choice of natural food is diverse. But you will need a competent menu that includes a large proportion of protein, equal parts of fiber, carbohydrates. For the full development of your pet, we recommend a careful introduction of vitamin and mineral supplements. Excess helps to increase the fragility of young dog bones.
The list of permitted natural products is large. The weekly diet includes at least three changes in dishes. Adult dogs are fed once or twice a day. The volume of food is about 1 tablespoon for every half kilogram of a dog’s weight.
Dog menus for the whole week:
Monday
- Vegetables are raw with meat and sour cream.
- Dairy “Hercules” porridge with grated vegetables.
Tuesday
Wednesday
Cooked by-products mix: liver, kidneys, tongue, and vegetables.
- Rice milk porridge with pumpkin.
Thursday
- Raw pieces of meat and boiled vegetables.
- Omelet and buckwheat porridge.
Friday
- Boiled, sliced chicken stomachs.
- Bread soaked
Saturday
- Hercules porridge and boiled fish.
- The yolk of quail egg and half a teaspoon of sea cabbage.
Sunday
Boiled rice with meat and vegetables in the meat broth.
- Biokefir and low fat cottage cheese.
Features of feeding during pregnancy and after childbirth
Pregnancy is a special stage in an animal’s life. During this period, it is important to maintain the correct feeding regime and to create a balanced diet. Good nutrition is the key to a successful pregnancy, successful births, and healthy offspring.
It is important that the bitch has a good shape in front of the vicious, not skinny, weakened. The number of puppies, their viability, and development depend on the mother’s supply and food. Overfeeding and overweight and miscarrying are just as dangerous. Excessively fed bitches are not always able to give birth on their own, so we have to resort to a C-section.
What should you feed a pregnant Yorkie?
From the very first days until the middle of the pregnancy, which lasts from 56 to 72 days, the dog’s appetite does not change. At this time, the inclusion of complete food is mandatory: beef meat, sour milk products, boiled quail eggs. From time to time, crushed grated cheese and beef liver are given.
From the second month onwards, with more pronounced indications of pregnancy, the need for good nutrition increases. Eat more often, 3-4 times a day. The volume of feed increased every week by 10%, preventing overeating. The dog is offered beef meat, skimmed fermented milk products, cottage cheese with whey.
Easily digestible carbohydrate products such as sugar, flour, and rice are completely eliminated and fat is reduced to half. This way, your dog will stay in good shape and your puppies will get everything they need.
On the expected day of childbirth in the morning, mum is given a meal of ground beef mixed with curd or raw quail yolk.
With the choice of industrial food, the bitch is given products for pregnant and lactating dogs and then the puppies are fed the same food. The food is offered fractionally to avoid obesity, vomiting, and digestive problems. Vitamins are not needed now, they start to be added after giving birth. You can offer baby food. If your mommy refuses to eat, you should feed her by force.
Feeding after childbirth
During lactation and lactation, the lack of certain components leads to irreversible consequences. The need for proteins, fats, and carbohydrates in a nursing dog increases significantly.
If there are 2-3 puppies, the dog needs to eat several times more than it needed before delivery, even taking into account the passive lifestyle. But you should be guided by the appearance of your pet. If your dog is active, in a good mood, appetite, a shiny coat, shining in the sun, muscular, it speaks for a responsible, caring attitude towards your pet.
- It’s important to maintain water balance in your dog’s body. Tea and milk are good for this. It’s good to add glucose to restore energy reserves.
- Great attention is paid to the quality and quantity of food. Often a yorker’s stomach is weakened after childbirth and diarrhea begin. In the first week, it is useful to eat nutritious, not too fatty food to allow the digestive system to recover.
- If an animal constantly comes to the kitchen looking for something to eat, lick the dishes for a long time, lose weight, your coat is dull, it is necessary to optimize the diet.
- A feeding dog is difficult to eat because of its tiny size. It’s up to the owner to choose the best products because Yorks are so small that a small portion of food should contain all the nutrients needed to support his dog.
- If your mini terrier before pregnancy was not familiar with dry products, now is not the time to experiment. It’s best to leave your dog on his usual natural food with added vitamin and mineral supplements.
- Proper nutrition, selected in accordance with the needs and individual characteristics of the animal will allow him to stay healthy, beautiful, and long to please the owner of his cheerful temper.