What to Feed a Pregnant Dog

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name's Dr. James Dee. I'm with Hollywood Animal Hospital in Hollywood, Florida. Nutrition for the pregnant dog is variable, obviously, based on the time of the pregnancy. At the beginning of the pregnancy, there really is no change. You really won't even know she's pregnant. As we get into, through the first month, realizing the pregnancy goes typically sixty to sixty-three days, as we get through the first month, the the food intake usually will increase by about half. Now, the food change at that point usually is going to be changed to a growth type diet, or a puppy type diet, if you will. This will normally suffice. We tend to see more problems with pets when we do excessive supplemate, supplementation to the diet when we're giving additional calcium to the diet in preparation for delivery and lactation. It's very common for us to see eclampsia which is then a lack of calcium into in the milk to the puppies. So supplementing prior to delivery is not called for. Most females will go ahead and do fine on a regular regimen, but to reiterate, a growth diet or a lactating diet after pregnancy, after delivery, it's usually called for. It's common during about the fourth week of pregnancy for some bitches to have a decrease in appetite for three to five days. This then resumes back to the normal appetite. From four weeks or five weeks on through the ninth week, normally we would increase the food volume by about fifteen percent per week until we get to the one and a half percus, one and a half times normal feeding."