I was given a darling Pom for my birthday. He'll be 3 next month and we love him madly.
When he was given to us we were told that he was physco, couldn't be housebroken or trained. They also gave us a bag of Science Diet Lite to feed him.
He is physco, we love him anyway and have been making progress in training him. But we have two problems that concern us and we are hoping that the solution helps both.
When we were living in California (up to Oct.1) he started blowing his coat - all the fuzzy undercoat is gone! Of course our cat and 3 pugs all began to do the same thing at the same time but not to the same degree. Now we're in North Dakota and it's colder than California!
The other issue is cow plop poops, or worse which, of course, doesn't help with the housebreaking. We took him off the Science Diet and we're feeding rice, chicken, and pumpkin - the poops have solidified but I can't help but think that it's not a very balanced diet. He's so thin (don't know why they had him on a "lite" food).
People have suggested a raw diet. We're willing to prepare his food at home, so we're wondering if anyone has any suggestions for his diet - and encouragement on his hair loss???????
When I first got my Pomeranian she had some wet bowel movements for a couple weeks so I took her to the vet. The vet suggested cooking dishes of rice and ground beef for her for the next week, and that did the trick. DON'T put fruit and veggies in your dog's food. Although they may seem to like them, veggies, fruit and grains are not a natural part of a dog's diet. Meat and protein is 95% of their natural diet and it sounds like your pom needs some. A good website to check out is www.dogfoodanalysis.com, look at the 6-star foods and pick one.
If you give your pom peanutbutter in a Kong toy be aware that peanutbutter makes some Pom's stool soft. That could be the culprit. Other than peanubutter no table scraps and try to keep human food out of her dish except for the rice and ground beef dishes.
Oct 25, 2009
hair loss by: Anonymous
Had same problem, food definitely can be an issue... good he's off SD but some better kibbles are Solid Gold, FirstMate (ocean fish formula is EXCELLENT for Poms), Promise, homemade is great too, just add lots of veggies/fruit to the meat and rice. You can also get Balance or Urban Wolf which are really good supplements to add to homecooking. Most importantly though... GET HIS THYROID CHECKED it can be very low without having weight or other sick symptoms. If he looses too much hair from low thyroid it will not for sure come back if you wait too long.
Good luck!
Oct 20, 2009
diet by: Debbie
Probably you should ask your vet but I use Puriena One for my Pom/Sheltie mix and she loves it. I get the chicken/rice formula. I get the tiny bites. My Pom/Sheltie is on the thin side but the vet says she is a perfect weight which is 12 pounds.