Best food for a skinny Yorkie? My 1-year-old needs to gain weight.

First, consider an exam with your veterinarian to diagnose any underlying medical causes. Next, you can feed a high quality performance diet to get weight on her. Once she is at weight, you can adjust the diet as needed for maintenance. You can also try a puppy diet until she is at weight.

It really depends on how she looks. If you can see her ribs than she is too thin and you should feed her more food. You could either increase the amount twice a day or add in a feeding and feed her three times a day. If you are unsure than have your vet take a look at her.

I would recommend having her body condition score figured out first to determine if she is indeed underweight. Some pets are just leaner than others but are not considered to be underweight at all. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&hl=en-us&ei=3essWYH8BcWXjwT5u4agBg&q=canine+body+condition+score&oq=aaha+body+condition+score&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.1.0.0i71k1l5.0.0.0.53939.1.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1..64.mobile-gws-serp..1.0.0.tM15jVEPrL8#imgrc=D5srd2kpWBMU1M: If she is considered to still be underweight then I would try to find out what is causing her weight loss and treating that directly. If there are loose stools then it's best to check her stools for intestinal parasites through your vet. If her stools are normal, then she may be going through a transient period of not gaining proper weight due to a previous illness. Increasing her current food amount can help. You can also try mixing in a high calorie puppy food for a few weeks. I wouldn't suggest this unless she is otherwise healthy and nothing else seems to help, because a consistent high calorie diet can do more harm (i.e. Pancreatitis) than good in some cases. Best of luck with your pet Layla.

Weigh loss causes are multiple: insufficient food intake, increased exercise, anorexia, diseases affecting the intestine/pancreas/liver, infections, tumors....To exclude all the health related causes of weight loss a vet check up would be needed. If everything health wise is in order I would recommend to check if the amount of food he is getting is enough for his weight; consider to adjust the dose if needed and/or change the diet completely. Good quality commercial diets (Hill's, Royal Canin) are definitively the best choice to make sure you provide all the nutrients Pancake needs. Please post again on the forum if you would like to discuss it further. I hope my answer was helpful.

If you can’t increase the volume of food the pups will eat, try to increase the calorie content. Also making sure you feed a high quality food will ensure that the pups absorb the nutrients appropriately. I like Royal Canin and Purina Pro Plan. You will find information about the calories on the side of the package. They are called Kcalories in dog food. I hope this is helpful and please feel free to post any additional questions.

I can give you a couple of websites that have recipes for homemade diets. It's very difficult to get the correct balance of nutrients in a homemade diets, and these websites will help with that. One of the sites is from the UC Davis veterinary school, and the recipes are provided by experts in animal nutrition. I would use recipes from these sites to feed your dog. As for weight, a good weight for a mini yorkie is between 1-3 pounds, and no more than 4 pounds. https://secure.balanceit.com https://www.petdiets.com

Hi and thank you for your question! Blue Buffalo is a good food. There are many others out there that are also very good. Wellness (small breed) is one of my favorite foods to recommend. They are a good company that makes balanced nutrition and is not over the moon expensive. Others I would recommend are Zuke's and Solid Gold. Royal Canin is also very good too. It really all comes down to calories. A 5 lb yorkie does not need to eat all that much in a day. Jeff for his weight and activity level should be eating about 207 calories/day. The amount of calories indicated in the food should be labeled on the bag and cal/cup. I hope this helps! Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach!