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Dietary Behaviour of Small Dogs

When a dog has been fed before with homemade or canned food, transition to dry food is made easier by product rehydration: aromas are thus more perceptible to the animal. The croquette size must be suited to the size of small breed dogs' jaws. Small breed dogs reject too big and too tough croquettes which present them with prehension difficulties.

A croquette bag which remains open too long loses part of its palatability. This problem is often encountered in small dogs, by reason of their low daily consumption. A 4-kg bag can be enough for a Yorkshire for 8 weeks or a Chihuahua for 4 months! Today, presentations "divided up" in small packages are suited to the dogs who are "small eaters." Moreover, these presentations allow to benefit from controlled atmosphere product storage: the product can then be stored for a long time, without losing its palatability.

Despite their small size, these dogs know how to be authoritarian, when the point is in begging table leftovers, biscuits, sugar, etc. To discourage such a behaviour, it is best to give them two meals a day. If the dog refuses to eat at a meal, it is pointless to insist and leave the dish lying around for hours: letting him nibble encourages an undesirable spoiled behaviour.