Puppy to Dog Care

Dogs need different diets at different ages

Dogs need different diets at different ages. Yes. This is true. For example, the puppy needs milk as the major food item while an adult dog may need beef or chicken in addition to the boiled egg and milk. So depending on the age factor, the diet schedule varies in reality for the dogs like any other species.

Puppies need greater amounts of protein, fat and carbohydrates than an adult dogs. Furthermore, puppies need more frequent feeding schedules in a day, unlike an adult dog. The movement based requirements of diet are more in the case of puppies, since they are often more active than the adult dogs.

Elder dogs need restricted protein but the protein needs to be easily digestible and easily assimilated in the body. The diet schedule should have ample supply of water for them. Feeding aged dogs too much protein may finally lead to over burden to the renal structures and ultimately, the dog may end up damaging filters in the kidney.

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Is there a reason why a 10 month old Lab is eating his own feces sometimes …

The ingestion feces is called coprophagia and may have many different underlying motivations. In female dogs that have just had puppies, it is a behavior that serves to keep the nest area clean.
In some young dogs it may begin as play with the feces and proceeds to ingestion.

In other cases it is speculated that the dog smells some undigested protein in the feces that attracts them to the feces and results in ingestion. Some dogs that consume their own feces have been diagnosed with pancreatic insufficiency.

If all medical problems have been ruled out, walking the dog on a leash and then using a verbal command and food reward to move the dog away from the stool may help.