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The timeline for feeding your new puppy changes rapidly over the first six months. Learn what and how you should feed your puppy based on the key development milestones she will experience.
Due to breed differences and animal individuality, it is impossible to predict exact dates for a puppy’s growth and development milestones. However, by using the following milestones as a guide for healthy growth, developmental problems can be spotted — and possibly prevented — early on. By knowing these milestones, you’ll also know when your puppy is ready to begin weaning.
| Age | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 7-10 days old | Puppies double their birth weight. Puppies begin to urinate and defecate on their own. |
| 10-18 days old | Puppies attempt to stand. Puppies’ eyes begin to open. Puppies’ ears begin to open. |
| 18-21 days old | Puppies hear and respond to noises. Puppies begin to walk. |
| 3 weeks old | Begin weaning process for orphaned puppies. Puppies begin responsive vocalization. Deciduous (baby) teeth will begin erupting. |
| 4 weeks old | Begin weaning process for mother-fed puppies. |
| 3–6 months old | Puppies’ adult teeth erupt. |
When your puppy is ready to begin weaning (at around 4 weeks for mother-fed puppies and 3 weeks for orphaned puppies), use this step-by-step process:
The entire process should take approximately three weeks.
Chicken, a complete protein source, is a key ingredient in IAMS™ dog foods, including IAMS™ ProActive Health™ Adult MiniChunks. As an animal-based protein, chicken can help maintain your dog’s muscle structure and naturally provides all the amino acids essential to carnivorous animals such as dogs. Plus, chicken adds great flavor.
Learn more about chicken’s role in your dog’s complete, well-balanced diet.
Common chicken ingredients in dog food include chicken, chicken meal, chicken byproduct meal and chicken fat:
Another common chicken-based ingredient is natural chicken flavor, also called chicken digest. Natural chicken flavor adds palatability and nutrients. It is high-quality protein and fat material that has been reduced to amino and fatty acids to improve flavor through an enzymatic process.
Internal organs are rich sources of protein, fats and minerals, such as iron, that are essential to dog health and add to the palatability of the pet food. Including some ground bone provides a good source of minerals, such as calcium. Some pet-food manufacturers formulate their products without such ingredients to appeal to dog owners, rather than to help dogs achieve optimal health. However, the nutritional needs of dogs are not the same as the nutritional needs of humans.
Dried chicken-protein sources in our chicken-based dog foods undergo an extra refining process. Refined chicken meal and chicken byproduct meal are excellent and complete sources of protein because they naturally contain each of the amino acids that are essential to dogs.
