When can Labrador Puppies begin to eat Dog Food as well as their Mother's Milk?

Around 3-4 weeks, soak puppy food in water until soft and turn them loose. By then momma dog will be thrilled to get away from them. Those little puppy teeth are hell on teats! Also depending on how long you plan on having them, look into getting their first set of shots/worming at 5-6 weeks.

Whatever you do don't use milk or anything other than dry puppy food and water.

And don't forget the obvious, lots of fresh water!

If she has been deemed healthy by your vet, then it's time to break out the tough love. No more milk bones. At all. The only thing she gets is her dog food and if she doesn't feel like eating that then she gets to go hungry. A healthy dog will NOT starve itself...they will eat eventually when they get hungry enough. Put the recommended amount of food in her food bowl and set it down for 15-20 minutes. Pick up any uneaten food (even if it is the entire bowl) and don't offer her anything else until the next meal time. At fourteen weeks she should probably be getting fed 3-4 times a day. Do this for each and every meal. She will quickly figure out that this is all she's going to get to eat and if she doesn't eat it she'll go hungry. I know this sounds mean, but I have done this with ALL of my pets (2 GSDs and 3 cats, two of which are on a special diet). I rarely have issues with them not eating. Ok, that's not true, my younger dog will occasionally get picky and not eat breakfast...but it may just be that I'm offering him more food than he needs rather than he's being picky. Either way, my pets all know that they're not going to get anything better by just not eating and they VERY rarely skip more than one meal. You might also look into feeding a different food. Iams is mostly corn, a cheap filler ingredient that doesn't have many useable or digestable nutrients for dogs. The first ingredient is chicken, but ingredients are listed in the order of weight/volume before processing. Since chicken meat is largely water, much of that volume is removed during processing. Corn meal and other grains on the other hand are already dry and have very little moisture before processing, so their volume changes very little if at all during processing. Look for a food that lists a specified meat meal (chicken meal, lamb meal, etc) as the first ingredient or as the second ingredient if the first is a specified meat. I try to avoid any food with more than two grains in the first five ingredients and any food that lists corn in the first five or six ingredients.

You can start supplenting the puppies with dry puppy food that's moistened with warm water when they're 4 weeks old. Offer them food twice a day, give them about 20 minutes to eat and let the mom have the rest. You can also give them water a few times a day at the same time. By the time they're 6 weeks old, most moms will have them totally weaned so you'll need to be feeding them 3 - 4 times a day, with fresh water always available.

You can start moistening up puppy food at about 3-4 weeks old and let them have at it.

Most pups are eating some solid food by about 4 weeks.

Then as they get a little older you can leave out a pan of the dry puppy food all the time and let them nibble.

Feed moistened food about 4 times per day.

I usually wait until they are 4 weeks old. I use hard puppy food soaked in puppy formula or water. The reason that I use hard food is that when they have their teeth, you can stop soaking the food. Hard food is much healthier for their teeth in the long run.

Also, this is just my preference, but I always use Chicken Soup for the Puppy Lover's Soul. It may cost a little more, but it is a very good quality food with human grade ingredients and no fillers.

Good luck to you!

I would start at 4 weeks slowly lessen the amount of milk they get form their mother and increase the moistened dog food over a 2 to 3 week period. By the end of the 2 to 3 weeks they should be eating dry dog food with out a problem.

At 4 weeks old you want to give them moist puppy food with a little milk just to get them interested and at about 8 weeks start them on dry but moistened food.Around 4 months they should be eating dry puppy food.

Whatever you do DON'T give them " I AMS " We gave our puppies Baby formula mixed with baby cereal in a shallow ,disposable pie pan ! The formula is a little expensive , if you don't already have some laying around, but they tore it up , and got big fast ! The mom didn't feed them for very long at each feeding , I think it was just too much for her since she had "8" pups and "7" nipples. So this really helped a lot ! It's thicker than regular milk, but a lot softer than dog food. It will help with the transition, plus they can still nurse ! Trust me , they'll love it !!!!

8-10 weeks.