[labman]

''I noticed that you give a lot of good tips and I haven't found any questions that match mine. Yesterday I got a puppy that I was told to be 6 weeks old. It was dropped off outside my home by a family that basically said our dog is having too many puppies and we want to get rid of them. They said they are having the mother fixed. What worries me it my puppy is too young to be away from mom. When she sleeps she makes sucking sounds and when I feed her dry food she ignores it. I'm going to try her on soft food but I was told that not a good food for puppies developing teeth... should I buy her a mothers milk supplement and try to ween her myself? The people who dropped her off said the mother was pushing them away but still feeding them herself occasionally''

First I want to thank you for taking the puppy and doing your best with it. 6 weeks is the very earliest a puppy should be removed from its mother and litter. If it was introduced to solid food at 4 weeks like it should have been, it should be eating dry puppy chow now. Going ahead with softening it with water is OK at first. Your are correct that their teeth and jaws need the dry food, but that can wait until she is eating regularly. You could try getting the food quite soft and getting some on your finger and sticking it in her mouth. Even if she had been eating dry food, the change could be too much, and she may need a day or 2 to become used to you. Keep trying and let us know how she does.

I have some general advice for new puppies starting at https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/dogs/i...tml#post251802 Towards the end, there is some material on dogs that don't eat.

Again thank you for taking her. I do hope the people do get her mother fixed. It upsets me no end that we have so many more puppies like her needing homes and so few good people like you to give them a home.