How to Get Maltese Puppy to eat dog food and housebreak?
ok so i just got a 4 month old puppy maltese, but it wont eat her puppy food, apparently the breeder fed her people food...but i dont want to do this because she's a growing puppy and needs food thats healthy and made for her. How can i train her to eat it...
also, she just pees on like the carpet and blankets, they said she pees on newspaper..but she doesnt with me..how can i housebreak her?
My Maltese, Lilly, is two years old now. I got her when she was three months old. She is trained on piddlepads. I set up an xpen (excercise pen) with her bed, water dish and pee pad in it. She stayed in this pen when I couldn’t watch her and everytime she went on her pad I praised her "good business". When I let her out to play, every so often, I’d return her to the pen and leave her there until she did her business. Eventually she was running back to the pen, doing a quarter size pee and looking for a treat…then going again and waiting for a treat…over and over. It was really funny…and now she only goes when she has to and though she still gets praise occasionally she doesn’t get a treat for it. I do give her the same treatment as I did when she was a puppy when we are away and staying at a hotel (i don’t want any hotel accidents).
As for the puppy food, maybe you can try a different brand, or wet the kibble to soften it up. Make sure it is made for puppys. I’ve also wet the food and put a few treats in it so she eats the regular food while trying to get the treats. Don’t listen to the advice about leaving the food out only for a few minutes then take it away and when she’s hungry she’ll eat….toy dogs are small and can have problems with hypoglycemia if they don’t eat. Lilly liked plain cheerios. Her breeder recommended it and she LOVED them!!! She didn’t like honeynut though…just the plain ones.
….good luck and enjoy your puppy. She’ll grow up fast!
well, my mom has a maltese and she had to hand feed her for a little while before she fineally got it down that that was the food that she needed to eat. try to do it around her food bowl so she dosen’t get confused as for the hosuebreaking just take her out after she eats or drinks and watch her really closely and see when she starts to look around or sniff and take her out and praise her alot when she goes outside and does potty. also if she does potty inside and u see her doing it clap ur hands and tell her no then pick her up and take her outside and tell her to go to potty outside. thats helped my dogs. hope she gets better .God Bless
House breaking a Maltese just takes patience. Ours is 1 year old and she goes out every 2 hours. As a small puppy we would take her out every 1/2 hour to the same spot in the yard. On the way out the door we would ring a bell that we have hanging on the door knob. She now rings it when she wants outside.
As far as eating… maybe mix her kibble with some scrambled eggs (made with water not milk) or half kibble and have "wet" puppy food. If she doesn’t take to it right away, she will eat when she gets hungry enough.
We love our Maltese so very much and we would do it all over again!
when we first got our maltese we mixed small (1/2 inch) pieces of boneless skinless chicken into a well balanced food for dogs of that size/breed… eventually we were able to reduce the mixture until it was straight dog food although we will cook chicken for him on occasion. Remember that their teeth at a young age are incredibly sharp as they need to cut into food rather than crush and grind, so the chicken is easier for them to chew as well.
as for the housebreaking that takes time and patience. One thing that I can suggest are the use of the grass smelling potty mats… once we found a location the he consistently frequented (hopefully it is not on carpet) we placed the mat there and would reward him when he went on the mat. after a few weeks we were able to move the mat to the laundry room and he has been great at consistently using the mat if neither of us is around to take him outside.
hope this helps
I have raised many puppies in my life. Recently I purchased a Maltese/shitzu and experienced the same situation with the feeding. My puppy arrived at 5 weeks and I began by hand feeding her at least three times a day.
At first with soft food and then transitioning to dry food slowly. Make sure you purchase the puppy food which is smaller for their little mouth. Pedigree has a very good puppy food which I recommend mixing with a little bit of can food.
Also, please purchase a Nutri-Cal which is a high caloric supplement. They absolutely love it! .
I take my dog to work everyday and she has a dog walker there. At home she has her wee-wee pads. These dogs are delicate and do not enjoy stepping over soiled pads AT ALL, so change the pad as often as necessary depending on your dogs needs.
If you are going to housebreak the dog otherwise, I recommend crate training. Please remember your dog will need to defecate approximately 20 minutes after they eat.
Be patient, and develop and cultivate a relationship with your dog. Always remembering you are the leader.
Good luck!
I would generally say to just put the food down and when the dog gets hungry she will eat. However, my aunt breeds maltese and she has had them die when vets recommend this approach. Apparently some of the really tiny breeds just can’t manage their blood sugar very well when they are young and you have to make sure they eat frequently enough. So be careful and talk to your vet and breeder to be sure your little girl isn’t in this group. If she is, I would follow the advice to hand feed or mix yummy things with the food and gradually wean her down to plain food.
About her housebreaking- first you need to decide if you are paper training or housebreaking. Then you need a solid plan, lots of supervision and the patience and discipline to work your plan over a period of several months. Of course, it’s those first few weeks that are crucial. There is a great new website out there that will help you make the decision whether to housebreak or paper train:
http://thehousebreakingbible.com/training/choosing-plan.htm
After you choose your plan, the site will give you lots of good, free info about how you can do the training. And there is a forum for asking questions. I used it with my newest dog and it was really very helpful in ironing out the problems I ran across as my girl progressed in her training.
Good Luck!