We have 7 small long coat Chihuahuas of which one is a tiny teacup. Initially, we were told to never give them Milk. One vet even told us they had no ability to digest milk.
Our female (now 2 years old) has had about 7 seizures which lasted about 1-3 min. each, and they continued from the time we picked her up at 7 weeks, and lasted over a year and a half, until we started feeding her whole organic milk.
I was a foods major in college, and we tried to follow the Vet's and breeder's instructions exactly. They told us to never give them milk, they said the dogs would be sick or develop diarrhea. We fed our Puppies primarily Puppy Eucanuba which we believed to be excellent except for the occasional seizures.
Last June, our female had 4 very healthy long haired Chihuahua puppies weighing 3 oz, 4 oz, and 5 oz.. When the puppies were only 3 1/2 weeks old, the Mother dog literally collapsed one night. We rushed her to the dog hospital and it was discovered that her calcium level was dangerously low, only 4.0 instead of where it should have been between 7 and 11. As soon as she received intravenous calcium she got better immediately.
We were told we had to try to wean the puppies immediately, and the puppies hated the puppy formula and refused to eat.
After the puppies refused to eat any puppy formula in 24 hours, I went to the store and bought the best organic whole milk (Promise Land, here in Texas).
For the puppies, we made a soupy mixture of the whole organic milk, a little pre-moistened mush Puppy Eucanuba (which we used a little hot water and let it stand for a half hour so it was really soft) and two tablespoons of strained Gerber baby food Turkey, with a couple of drops of Cod Liver Oil. The puppies loved it, the older dogs loved it, and none of our Chihuahua puppies and dogs have not had any other seizures. Our puppies are very healthy and none have had seizures. No one has developed diarrhea.
In fact, they love to just drink the whole milk plain. We still only give small amounts of milk so they eat more Eucanuba.
We were warned to not use 2% or low fat because some animals develop digestive problems from the processing of removing the fat.
The whole milk worked for us, and it may work for others. Also, our Vet was surprised at how quickly our puppies fontanels closed up -- they closed in record time also.
We believe that for us, the seizures may be from lack of calcium! L-Tryptophan is an amino acid recommended to address seizures in small dogs; therefore, because Turkey contains such high amounts of L-Tryptophan, rather than giving just the amino acid, we gave the puppies initially strained turkey and now we supplement their food occasionally with small pieces of roasted turkey.
So far, no seizures with the puppies and they are 9 months old, and no one else has had seizures after we started giving them milk. Check with your vet first, and if you do decide to try whole milk, only give a teaspoon first and wait a day to see any reaction. Then, if it goes well, add a bit more each day until you are comfortable that there are no allergic reactions.
For us, we believe that a percentage of the seizures of little dogs may be due to lack of calcium and we feel that so long as the dogs tolerate milk, and love it, that the natural food is better than any pills and/or injections.
|
