Your puppy arrives already eating. Nothing about that has to change on the first day, and it should not: a new home, a new journey and a new bowl on the same afternoon is one change too many.
What he is eating now
Our puppies are weaned onto fresh food from Topdog in Wetteren, in Belgium. They mill and freeze their own food rather than selling someone else's, and we have fed it long enough to say so by name.
It is fresh food, not dry — the first thing to tell an owner who was expecting a bag, and the reason several of the paragraphs below are not the advice you would read on a sack of kibble.
Handling it
Fresh food is frozen and thawed, so it needs a little of the care any raw meat does: thaw in the fridge rather than on the counter, keep it apart from your own food, put it down for twenty minutes and lift what is left.
How much
Fresh food is measured as a share of the dog's own weight, not off a chart on a bag — and a growing puppy eats a far larger share than a grown dog, because he is building something.
Start at ten per cent of bodyweight a day at eight weeks, and come down to five per cent by six months. It is a slope rather than a set of steps: weigh him every week or two at first, work out the day's food from what he weighs now, and the amount takes care of itself.
A worked example, because percentages are easier to read than to use. A puppy of two kilograms eats about 200 g a day — across four meals, that is 50 g in a bowl, which is less than most people expect to see. The same dog at six months and six kilograms eats about 300 g a day, in two meals.
Whatever the number says, correct by feel. You should find the ribs easily under your fingers without pressing, and see a waist from above. A Cairn carrying two hundred grams too much looks like a Cairn in good coat, which is exactly why it goes unnoticed.
Ask us where the amount settles once he is fully grown — it comes down again after six months.
The first fortnight
Keep to that food and that number of meals. If you want to change it, do it after two weeks in the new home, and do it over a week: three quarters old to one quarter new, then half, then a quarter, then none. A puppy's gut protests at speed rather than at the food itself.
How many meals
- To four months: four meals a day
- Four to six months: three
- From six months: two, and two for life
Two rather than one, for a dog who would happily eat both at once. A Cairn fed once a day is hungry for the other twenty-three hours, and a hungry terrier is an inventive one.
If you are going home to another country
The same kind of food is made all over Europe, and it is worth finding it rather than switching to a bag because the freezer is far away. What you are looking for is a producer who mills and freezes their own food on approved premises, names where the meat comes from, and offers complete mixes formulated for a growing puppy rather than muscle meat alone.
Ask us and we will point you at someone near you. We feed one producer and can vouch for that one; the rest we can only help you look at properly.
Treats count
They are food, not an extra. If you are training hard in a week, take the training treats out of the meals. A Cairn will work happily for something plain — he is not counting the cost, and the packet in the shop is priced for you rather than for him.
What not to give
Chocolate, grapes and raisins, onion, garlic, xylitol in anything sweetened, and cooked bones of any kind. None of these is a Cairn-specific rule; all of them are worth writing down once.
Two mistakes that are hard to undo
Free feeding — leaving a full bowl down — makes a picky terrier and hides the first day he goes off his food, which is often the first sign of anything else. And overfeeding a growing puppy to make him "come on" does not build a bigger dog; it builds joints that carry more than they were designed to at the age they are least able to.
Water
Down, clean, always — and do not be alarmed that he drinks less than a friend's puppy on a dry food. Fresh food carries most of its water with it; a dog eating from a bag has to make that up at the bowl.