Should I switch to a different Kibble too? Are there samples to try? I hate buying bags of the stuff and throwing it out.. I also don't want to upset her tummy too much with too much switching.. *sigh* if I could only go back in time and not have given her people food..

natural balance is a very good food. i've been feeding it for some time (venison/sweet potato) but it's getting too expensive. with 2 corgis and a great dane, i'm going through a 28# bag in less than 2 weeks and at $52/bag, it's just getting to be too much. i am switching my dogs to chicken soup kibble and they're doing fine on it. much less expensive and still good food.

be careful when you switch foods. it should be gradual. mix some of the new with the old and increase the ratio over a few days. it wouldn't hurt for it to take up to a week for the switch to be made. if you run into problems with an upset tummy and/or diarrhea, give her some boiled chicken/white rice for a couple of days (no kibble) and then GRADUALLY add in the kibble.

Since you asked "what should I feed my puppy?" I will tell you my opinion, at the risk of starting a debate.

I suggest you buy and read the book I am putting in the link box at the bottom - "Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats" - Kymythy Schultze

She advocates a species-appropriate diet, of raw, unprocessed foods. In the dog's case, pretty much total avoidance of carbohydrates which is argued to be causing the huge increase in diabetes in dogs.

I am not a fanatic about such things but my dog developed severe gastric issues after being spayed, she could not keep anything down, and it got worse and worse. In the end all she could keep down was rice, protein powder and chicken broth, and, as a puppy, she was losing weight and going backwards. We found this book and connected the dots. I had already wondered about a raw diet, when I lived in Australia the BARF diet was well-accepted (Bones And Raw Food) and we looked at it again.

We haven't cured her, if she eats anything 'chunky' she tends to throw it up, but she is otherwise in perfect health (when I get a chance I will post the situation in this forum and see if anyone has any ideas) and is doing well, at age 3. Her weight stays very consistent and she has plenty of energy.

We buy the food - well the meat anyway - as a prepared "sausage" which contains whole food - ground bones, organ meat and meat. We add veges to it to simulate the stomach contents of the prey, as it were, a wild dog would eat the whole rabbit, entrails included.

Her droppings are firm and not at all objectionable, and a fraction of the size of her BFF, our neighbour's dog who is literally about a tenth of her size, yet poos more and larger than hers, evidence I guess of the filler.

It's not a cheap diet, we also give her a salmon oil extract and whole raw eggs (shell and all, also a species-appropriate thing) and I guess we spend about $150 CDN a month (and we get a discount) feeding her, but I am convinced she would not have survived otherwise. When we can afford it we may look at getting her x-rayed whilst swallowing, about the only other thing the vet thought we could do - when she first had the issue they gave her an endoscopy which showed a lot of inflammation of the oesophagus which the vet thought might have been caused by reflux happening from her hiatus valve being too relaxed by the anaesthetic.

Anyway, I would consider a raw diet if you can, or at least read the book (my dog was a fussy eater and not too interested in kibble when she was on it)

I would just decide what you want to feed and give just that. Tough love is the answer. Of course if she doesn't eat anything in 2 days, or develops other symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, coughing or anything out of the ordinary, then a trip to the vet is warranted.

i would love to be able to switch all of my dogs to raw but i would have to travel many miles in order to get what i would need.

There was a couple of "people who bought this book bought...." links to the guy who advocates raw, meaty bones. I presume he recommends other items to supplement them, but I know lots of people who have done that, or used chicken necks/backs (perfectly safe when raw in terms of bone splintering) - necks and wings would probably be about right for a Yorkie.

I agree it's not for everyone, if you feed them meaty bones you need a place for them to do it, our dog has a towel in the corner of the kitchen, if she's in there, she sits there, and any bones we give her (since we're feeding her the prepared raw diet) are not too messy, as they are not too meaty. Some people might not like the idea but the cleanup's minimal since we've trained her well.

Outside would be ok provided there's not going to be a smell or vermin problem, in our case the big concern is bears.

Ninapearl, if you're interested, I would recommend you skim through the book online on the Amazon site, you'll get the gist of how much work or not it is. With the prepared stuff you get bone meal, organ meat etc. We save vege scraps, put them in a food processor, and add them to the meat when we serve it, with some salmon oil, kelp powder and alfalfa powder, plus water.

This is one supplier in Canada:

http://www.urbancarnivore.com/html/contact_us/index.cfm

We sometimes get: http://www.rovingk9kare.com/index.php?/cbase/products "Taylor Made"

but normally we get ours from:

http://www.naturalinstincts.ca/

I'm not plugging them or affiliated with them in any way, but their websites may offer some info on how the prepped stuff works.

In my dog's case I don't think she would have survived without this type of diet, I guess the biggest hassle is having to keep it frozen as opposed to canned or kibble, still, if you are camping and have fresh meat, I guess it's a simple matter to keep the pet food with what you're keeping frozen, and they have those long-storage coolers now, and some people use dry ice to extend the freezing time.

I will say dogs usually do better on the higher quality foods. A higher quality food depends on the ingredients, but also the manufacturing process. As most brands out source to a handful of the same large manufacturing plants which is how you end up with several different dog food brands on a recall list. If a dog food company manufactures their own food (at their own private plant) and does all their own quality control testing you have a much less chance of having a recall.

Chicken Soup is made by a company called Diamond who doesn't have the best track record when it comes to quality control with their foods-they have had some recalls in the past.

As far as the picky eating-if she's not sick or isn't having teeth issues (being a puppy she could be having issues with eating hard dry food if her adult teeth are coming in). Then I would say she's just holding out for something better and I wouldn't give her a lot of treats or any human food. Tough love, like everyone else suggested sounds good to me.