My 6-week-old puppy isn't drinking water. Is he too young to be home?

You can try giving Max canned food (it has a high moisture content), or you can add water to his dry food to get him to drink. I'd also get him a dog water fountain. It will provide a continual source of fresh water, and may encourage him to drink. I hope this helps!

Three or four weeks is way too young for a puppy to be separated from its mother! A puppy should not leave it's mother until it's at least eight weeks of age. Canned puppy food has a high moisture content, so Princess will be getting water from eating that food, but I recommend adding water to the canned food to get more water into her system. You can also try mixing the replacement milk in with her canned food. She likely wasn't fully weaned from her mother, and that may be contributing to her not drinking water from a bowl. I will put a link below on how to teach a puppy to drink water from a bowl. I hope this helps! https://pets.thenest.com/could-teach-puppies-drink-water-bowl-5748.html

At this point mom has generally begun to wean her puppies. Offer water, regular dry kibble, kibble soaked in warm water and canned food. This does need to be a large breed puppy formula for the food. There’s a brand that makes a food specific for weaning puppies called Royal Canin and I recommend to pick some up at the pet store or online. You may need to smear some of the food on the puppy’s mouth so that it gets the idea. Also allow him to see mom eating so that he has the desire to copy her. I hope this helps and please feel free to post any additional questions.

At this age, puppies should be starting to drink water, and you have to teach them how to do it. Add an inch of water to low, shallow bowl. Dip a clean finger into the bowl, and press it against the puppy's lips. Once they start licking your finger, you can get them to lick the water from your finger when you are holding it just on the water's surface. Eventually, you won't have to use your finger at all to get them to drink from the water bowl.

And in terms of the food -- he should be willing to eat wet food, if not dry food, at this age. So if he's not, I would highly recommend a check up with your vet to make sure everything looks ok. He may just need more time to adjust, but with such a young guy, he can get low blood sugar and dehydration very quickly, so it's important to act sooner rather than later.

This is VERY normal. If you are adding water to her food then she likely doesn't need any additional water. Being only 2 pounds, she really only needs about 1/4-1/2 cup of water per day to maintain hydration.

At 4 weeks of age it is normal for a puppy to only be drinking milk. Ideally your puppy should still be nursing from his mother at this age. If he is already away from his mother then you will need to continue feeding him puppy milk replacer until about 6 weeks of age. You can try to leave some moistened kibble with him to get him interested in it but at this age he should be still getting most of his nutrition from milk. I hope this helps. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. Best of luck.