Hi! This is my first post. I have an 11 week old lab who only weighs 2.6kg. She’s isn’t very interested in food, I really have to encourage her to eat (VERY unlike my last lab) but she is playful. She does drink a lot though and I’m starting to get concerned that I may have made a big mistake. I’ve been reading about liver shunts and my mind is going a hundred miles an hour very fast..! My vet did check her over and said that apart from her size she seems healthy and to try to get her weight up to 5kg in a month which reassured me at first but now I’m back to worrying! I got a month free insurance through the kennel club but need to obv sign up for something quick… !! Can anyone help if advise? Thanks
This isn’t a response to her health but whatever you do carry on with the kennel club insurance as no other company will cover any preexisting conditions even if not known yet. They will look at weight and use that as a reason not to pay out. Hopefully there will be nothing wrong and you can switch to cheaper cover at the next renewal if you need to. All the best.
I worry about my little guy too. When we got him at 6 weeks old, he was 5 pounds, and now at almost 7 1/2 weeks old he's 10 pounds. I feed him soaked kibble 4 times a day, and he actually has to be coaxed to eat, either by hand-feeding him or by adding 'toppers' like a bit of the water from canned tuna (which I don't want to rely on since there could be mercury in the tuna) or a teaspoon of junky canned puppy food like Purina or Pedigree puppy wet food to entice him to eat. Even with the 'toppers' if I didn't help him eat by hand-feeding him, he'd only eat 1/4 cup of his food at best. The food we use, Lively and Loving* by Diamond (similar to Diamond Naturals puppy chow) says he needs about 2 1/2 cups a day. At best I can get him to eat 2 cups total. Our previous Lab was a vacuum on legs, even at the tender age of 6 weeks, and would devour his soaked kibble with enthusiasm then beg for more. Not this puppy. It's got me worried that there may be something wrong. He goes to the Vet next week for his 2nd vaccinations, so hopefully I'll have some answers then. Other than his eating habits, he seems to be a normal little land shark (haha). He sleeps well, plays well, and loves to chew everything and everyone in sight, so much that our youngest son calls him a crocodile dog, haha. If only he'd chew his food this way, lol.
