My nursing dog is skinny. When should I wean 5-week-old puppies?

Hello, congratulations on your new puppies. Pregnant bitches and those who have just birthed puppies will have a substantially higher calorie demand. Most of the time, we even recommend switching mothers to puppy food (richer in calories) to keep up with there caloric demand. Alternatively, at four weeks you may wean the puppies off from nursing an onto wet/canned puppy food so that mom stops producing milk and her caloric demand returns to normal. You may feed her up to 4-6 times per day while she continues to nurse. Hope this helps and best of luck.

9 pups will take a lot from a mother at any age, they do tend to lose a lot of weight when nursing the puppies. She will gain it back after they are weaned, make sure to feed her as much as she wants and feed her puppy food instead of normal adult food.

Hi, thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! I would start to wean the puppies. Offer canned puppy food a few times per day but still allow them to nurse. Gradually over the next 2-3 weeks get them fully weaned. As for Tofy, I would consider feeding her 2-3 times per day. She may not need the extra calories anymore, as long as she isn't losing weight. I would be sure that she has been dewormed and I would also have the puppies dewormed starting now and every 2 weeks or follow your Vet's schedule. I would not recommend any supplements with out discussing it with your Vet while she is nursing. If Tofy isn't doing well and is losing weight then she should be examined by your vet. I hope this helps and I wish you and Tofy the best!

Great question! Tofy should be dewormed now, then again in two weeks, and a third treatment two weeks after that. This will ensure all the worms are killed. After that, she should be dewormed every three months. When the puppies reach six months of age, they should also be dewormed every three months. I would also feed her a puppy formulated food while she is nursing her puppies. That will give her extra calories, calcium, and protein to support nursing them. Once the puppies are weaned, she can go back onto an adult dog food. Good luck, I hope this helps!

Hi, thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Can you post a picture of Tofy so we can see how thin she is? I would feed her more food if she will eat it and I would wean the puppies so she can dry up and stop using her energy to produce milk. Not all dewormers get ALL parasites. I would have a stool sample checked by your Vet and I would have blood work done if she is so skinny that you are this worried. I hope this helps!

Nursing puppies takes a lot of energy from a dog, and Angel should be fed a puppy formulated food to give her the increased calories, protein, and calcium she needs to be healthy. You don't want her to gain weight unless she is quite thin, bug she absolutely needs the puppy food. Make sure she is up to date on her deworming treatments as well, as that can cause weight loss in dogs.

That is a lot of puppies to feed and it may be that now that they are getting teeth, they are sometimes hurting her when suckling. Let her do what she has to do, and do not force her to feed them. She will feed them as best and as much as she can. You may want to give the puppies some canned puppy food as well as the dry food, as they will be able to eat more and bother her less. Make sure there always is water available for both the mother and the puppies.