What Do Four-Week-Old Puppies Eat?

At 4 weeks old, a puppy is almost ready to be weaned from its mother. However, it still needs the vital nutrients her milk provides. Four-week-old puppies usually eat both solid food and milk from their mothers. Even though a 4-week-old puppy may not need to nurse as much as it did at two or three weeks, it still needs to be with its mother until at least 8 weeks old.

  1. Mother's Milk

    • The most important nutrient for a puppy, even at four weeks old, is its mother's milk. This milk contains many of the vital nutrients the puppy needs, including proteins, vitamins and calories. While the first week is the most vital time for the puppy to obtain these nutrients, you should still encourage the mother to nurse the puppies until around five weeks of age.

    Dry Puppy Food

    • When you start your puppy on solid food, you need to make the food easy to chew and digest, because the puppy's teeth aren't yet fully grown. If you feed your puppy dry food, you will need to create a puppy mash from that food. Get a high-quality food made specifically for puppies, and determine how much your puppy needs to eat by the weight tables you'll find on most food packages. When it comes time to feed the puppy, mix the food in a blender with some hot water and puppy milk replacer.

    Wet Puppy Food

    • You can also feed your puppy canned wet food. Though dry food may be better for the puppy's teeth in the long run, wet food is often processed less than dry food. It also has fewer preservatives and may have more natural nutrients. If you decide to feed your puppy wet food, don't mix it with more water, but mash it up with a fork when it comes out of the can so the puppies can eat it easily.

    Milk Substitute

    • A mother dog sometimes will neglect her puppies or refuse to nurse them. When that happens, you'll need to step in and feed them by hand with a milk substitute. You can get these at pet stores in both powdered and canned forms. Look for a formula based on evaporated milk instead of cow's milk, because evaporated milk is easier for puppies to digest.

    Water

    • Even though your puppy is still drinking milk, and even though you put water into its solid food, it will still need water. It is important that the puppies remain hydrated. Four-week-old puppies should be able to drink at any time from a small bowl placed in their enclosure.