📌 The Critical Balance for Mothers (Dams)
A pregnant or lactating mother (dam) is not just feeding herself, she is building life. Only in the final third of gestation does her nutritional demand truly rise. Add more food too early and you risk breaking her health and the health of her puppies before they even take their first breath. They enter the world with organs already struggling.
If the vitamins and minerals are not present in the right amounts during pregnancy, the dam (mother) will lose condition and the puppies may develop with weak or incomplete systems. In some cases, poor prenatal nutrition can lead to underdeveloped reproductive organs in the puppies. This is nature’s way of protecting the species when food supply is scarce, but in domestic breeding, it is entirely preventable.
Feeding Timeline:
- Weeks 1 to 5: Feed her normal maintenance amount
- Week 6: Increase food by 10%
- Week 7: Increase by a further 10%
- Week 8 until whelping: Increase by another 10%
- Final week: She may go off her food due to pressure on her stomach (this is normal, do not force feed)
📖 FEDIAF Guidance and Our Proven Approach
FEDIAF’s guidance is good in principle, feed to the ideal adult weight, but it is misunderstood by many breeders with consequences too high to accept. We agree with the advice, but have found it often leads to overfeeding if not applied with precision. That is why we use a different method that delivers better health outcomes.
⚖ Our Method for Healthy Growth
From birth, puppies feed from the mother. Once they start on solid food, weigh daily until 3 months old. After 3 months, weigh them weekly (this is the start of an amazing habit to continue for life 🗓). Adjust food based on percentage growth each week, not big jumps. As a rough guide:
- Week 1 on solids: Adjust to match 5 to 10% growth
- Week 2 on solids: Adjust to match 5 to 10% growth
- Continue weekly adjustments based on actual gain
Simply put, you are looking for slow, steady growth. Slightly increase food to maintain this steady rise. If there is an unanticipated surge past the 5 to 10% target, ease off slightly, always controlled and always providing portions that support bone growth, allowing joints and cartilage to form at the correct pace. This avoids unnecessary strain and pressure. Remember, your dog’s size is already determined. Your role is to assist nature, not fight it with ego, guesswork, or the fantasy of creating a beast. Biology will always win. Let it win with a healthy dog.
Introduce gentle food variety early, soft, steamed vegetables or small amounts of fresh cooked meat alongside a high quality food that is driven by nutrition and providing all 22 amino acids, 13 vitamins and 14 minerals in the right amounts every single day. It does not matter if it is raw, kibble or wet, it just needs biology behind it.
🐕 When to Switch from Puppy to Adult Food
There are many opinions on when to make the switch, but here is the method we find works best. Once your dog is within a week or two of reaching its adult target weight (based on your own tracking, not guesswork), begin a gradual transition to adult food. Puppy food is designed to fuel growth, but once your dog is almost at full size, that growth fuel is no longer as necessary. Switching at the right time is another example of being kind to your dog’s organs, bones and joints, all with control and biology on your side. This is the behaviour of an elite dog owner.
🚫 The Overfeeding Scam
Overfeeding is often a deliberate sales tactic. Kitchen table breeders and puppy farmers, short-term fix sellers with one eye on the litter and the other on the holiday they expect it to fund, will deliberately make puppies chunky. They constantly say these puppies are chunky or will grow massive. Firstly, they do not actually know this. Secondly, it is a blatant lie. Thirdly, if you read between the lines, it is the same as saying, "Dog for sale, guaranteed to be poorly throughout its life if you keep overfeeding based on my false promises and your wishful thinking." To the naïve, this looks cute or powerful. To the alpha male, it is a vision of a beast. But strip it back, it is fat. Just fat. Fat that makes a puppy cuddly only because it struggles to move. Fat that builds a lifetime of joint issues, skin problems, ear infections, behavioural issues, and so-called “allergies” that are really nutritional imbalances. You are handing over money for a lifetime of disappointment unless you understand biology.
In many poor breeding setups, the mother is kept in cramped, dark conditions, fed the cheapest food available, and denied vitamin D from sunlight. Stress depletes her vitamin C. This means her puppies start life at a disadvantage before they even take their first breath.
❤️ Why This Matters
As a canine nutritionist of over 20 years, my eyes roll, my skin crawls, and my heart pounds when I hear, “But the breeder said…” Exceptional breeders exist, but most still fall into this trap. Without a basic grasp of biology, you are buying a lifetime of problems. With it, and with guidance from blogs like this, your dog can experience a genuine miracle, a healthy life built on biology, not marketing.
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