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Hi Guys

I see that quite a lot of guys here have pets and love them...

Well I am looking to adopt a puppy preferably a Pomeranian or an Lhasa Apso due to their manageable size and being affectionate

I dont really wanna buy one and would appreciate if someone is interested in giving for adoption...in Hyderabad

Rajeev

The tap on the muzzale may cause the pup / dog to sneeze. But this is fine.

@shankar, when you say his/her- are you refering to the dog or master ? :D

Its a Chihuahua pup, light coat.

HI Guys,
I am facing a problem of choosy dog for its food. I used to feed him pedigree/milk and rice a month back and he was very happy with that.
Now for the past one month or so i am giving him raw chicken and raw beef. Now the issue is he does not eat any other thing other than these.
Is there a way to wean him back to normal food?
Cheers
Moose

Yeah you are right.How could have missed that one:Frustrati

muzzledmoose : what breed do you have ? and too much of meat/beef will lead to problems reduce the non veg intake. Mix it up with rice etc and slowly reduce the non-veg content.

Meat (raw chicken, beef, mutton etc) is what is normal for your dog. And it is always better to feed your dog raw chicken, than supermarket pet food.

@aZa: Why exactly is non-veg bad for a dog? It is its natural diet. It is a dog, not a cow.

Dogs are omnivorous, and too much chicken is a problem if there is not enough roughage. Dogs out in the open can eat grass, most of dogs nowadays do not have access to grass. Thats the reason the diet should include more veggies.

@tsk1979: Yes. A dog needs roughage, but meat still remains an integral part, not the only part, of its diet. The lack of roughage is bad, but meat itself is not bad. These are two totally different things.
Besides, one has to be really careful when feeding veggies to dogs. They don't have the biological getup to digest everything. Here is a small link that lists veggies that are toxic to dogs:
Plants, Fruits & Vegetables Toxic to Dog

Yes meat does remain an integral part, all I am saying is that since grass is rare nowadays, you need to give some rice/wheat chappati/curd to the dog for digestion, esp when it approaches old age. If you take your dog for a walk in the park, where grass is available, then let it eat grass, and there would be no problems.
Even the big cats which are carnivores eat grass for digestion.

@Moose:

Never give raw meat to a domestic pet dog. Raw meat/beef/mutton/chicken here in India can contain all sorts of things like worms, maggot eggs etc.

It needs to be disinfected before you feed the dog. Same with eggs - eggs eaten raw could lead to salmonella poisoning.
Therefore at least half boil the eggs before feeding it to the dog.

When feeding your dog chicken please ensure that the really small bones like the wishbone etc are either further broken or removed, because dogs literally gulp and swallow their food- they do not chew. the last thing you want is for a small, slim chicken bone to get lodged in the trachea - that is terribly painful for the dog and can even lead to death.

Therefore, ideally, you should give the dog the meat/beef/mutton/chicken, cooked along with rice, a few carrots chopped up and a tablespoon of oil added along with a full teaspoon of Turmeric powder. Turmeric acts as a natural disinfectant to the internal digestive system.

The food should be ideally pressure cooked for duration depending on the quantity of food in the cooker - (eg My three dogs food is cooked for them each day in a large 10 litre pressure cooker for about 35 minutes. As I ve written before they get meat, rice, carrots chopped, tablespoon of oil and a full teaspoon of Turmeric powder)

Requesting you to read and think this through, since I m sure your pet means as much to you as ours do to us!

Shankar, I do agree with on the insecure feeling of female dogs. I believe this behaviour is common among all dogs, you just need to train them, before it gets serious.

I do have a Indian Hound (I never prefer her to be refered as a mongrelstupid:) whom I picked up from streets about 10 years ago when she was just few weeks old. Yes, her basic instinct was not any one to allow to snatch her food, but after few months of confidence building activity she now even does not growl even if i put my hands in her bowl during the feast time. Pulling out a bone which she is not able to nibble is not a prob, because she understands it.

Have a pomy also which did require a serious tackling on this issue, he would growl even after taking food from my hand. Months went he never learned to stop the growl while having food.Then we stopped feeding him in his bowl, instead my hand became his plate of food. Made sure i hold one end of chicken leg and he bites of only a portion, and once done with that portion come back and savour the rest. This imparted lot of confidence in him. Now is a gentleman. My GSD was a gentle boy from childhood. From the day I bought him (he was75 days old) he never had any issues with sharing his food or we putting hand in his bowl to mix the food well.

Shankar, I have always found this bit controversial. Raw meat is certainly preferred over cooked one, because the bones become harder when cooked.
Our dobe in Calcutta is fed raw chicken that is washed thoroughly, mixed with turmeric. But I liked you idea of feeding him cooked meat after removing the bones.

an adopted kitten (found near the Delhi Jaipur Highway)

You are right raw meat is indeed better because of bones issue in case of chicken. However, considering the quality you get here, its better to give dog boneless chicken, and if you want to give cooked meat with , give beef/mutton as those bones do not splinter.