Chihuahua Food and Feeding

Many owners want to know exactly how much food to give their Chihuahua. We will go over this, however it must be noted that the type of food will affect the amount given. Wet commercial food and home cooked meals are much more calorie dense than dry kibble.

In addition, the quality of food affects calories as well. For example, a cup of wet homemade food may contain 200 calories and a cup of dry, cheap kibble may only contain 100 calories. In a case such as this, recommending to give a Chihuahua one cup would not be very helpful.

For this reason, it is best to decide how much to feed a Chihuahua based on calories. The amount of calories that this breed needs will be based on 3 things:

Note: The health of the puppy or dog will also come into play if there are any medical issues.

Again, do keep in mind that this will vary by 20% and really does depend on activity level, metabolism and any existing health issues.

In addition, you will want to keep away from brands that contain:

We highly suggest home cooking food for your Chi. By doing so, you are in charge of the ingredients, you know that you are not giving your dog any fillers and you can offer your Chihuahua the best of nutrition. You will be ruling out coloring, by-products and preservatives.

Meals are simple, nutritious and easy to make. When you take out all of the merchandising, fancy labels and debate about meat vs meat meal, feeding a puppy or dog high quality meals is relatively easy and stress-free.

Home cooking can also save you money. Many of the ingredients are those which you would normally purchase. For example, if you will be buying chicken to make a meal for your family, you can set aside a certain amount for your Chi's dinner. 

You can make a large amount and then refrigerate or freeze servings. In this way, you can prepare your dog's dinners once per week and not need to be cooking every day (Unless you love the kitchen!)

Feeding your Chi in this way is not the same as allowing your dog to eat table scraps. It is important that each meal be prepared correctly and with the proper ingredients.

Meat should be the # 1 ingredient. Dogs must have this protein as their main food source. Vegetables and then starch will round out the meals.

Rations will change slightly depending on which recipes you use, however you will want to keep it roughly: 40% meat, 30% veggies, 30% starch.

If you choose to not home cook for your Chi, we would then recommend: Orijen or Blue Buffalo. With commercial brands, we recommend dry over wet. Let's look at an overview of these:

Overview: This brand comes in a variety of formulas based on age. All essentially contain the same meats. There is also a fish based formula.

Ingredients: One of the top rated manufactured brands, Orijen contains wholesome real foods that include: chicken, chicken meal, chicken liver, herring, turkey, turkey meal, turkey liver, eggs, walleye, salmon, chicken heart, chicken cartilage, herring meal and salmon meal.

Other ingredients which are found in small amounts - but enough to really affect nutrition- are: chicken liver oil, both red and green lentils, green peas, yams, pea fibre, chickpeas, pumpkin, butternut squash, spinach greens, carrots, apples (apples are safe as long as the core is not eaten), pears, cranberries and blueberries.

Rating: Being a meat-based food with a low level of coloring, this is a good choice. We give this a 4/5.

Overview: This brand offers a variety of different main-meat formulas including duck and salmon. However, due to the specific needs of the Chihuahua and his digestive system, we recommend the Small Breed Basics Limited Ingredient Formula Turkey and Potato.

Ingredients: This blend is very nutritious and agrees with a Chihuahua's digestive tract with ingredients that include: Turkey, oatmeal, potatoes and brown rice. It is rounded out with a variety of fruits and a blend of vegetables.

Rating: Being a meat-based food with a low level of coloring and no fillers, we give this a 4/5 as well.

It is suggested to feed your Chihuahua mostly dry kibble and you can add a bit of wet dog food mixed into the menu if your Chi is resistant to only kibble. Alternatively, drizzling a bit of low salt broth over kibble can encourage a Chihuahua to eat his or her full meal. Eating only wet commercial food may affect the bowels.

Because a dog can quickly come to love wet dog food, you will not want to feed your dog solely wet even for day or two; he will put up a big fuss if you try to switch him back over.

If you are currently feeding your Chihuahua only wet dog food and your dog is having very runny bowel movements, you should plan a slow switch over to dry food. You can begin by providing a mixture of 50% dry and 50% wet. 

Be sure to mix well, so that the wet food covers the dry nuggets. As time goes on, you can add less and less of the wet, ending up with a balanced diet of 80% dry dog food and 20% wet dog food.

For puppies, snacks should be reserved to use as rewards when housebreaking or command training.

For adults, snacks can be given to reinforce good behavior.

1) Keep away from brightly colored treats. Orange or red dog treats contain very high levels of unsafe coloring.

2) Stay away from rawhides. These have been shown to cause quite severe digestive problems with many dogs. These are not digestible and cause blockage problems.

3) Try to offer wholesome, fresh foods for snacks including: raw baby carrots, raspberries and blueberries.

4) Plain white yogurt is a great snack food for the Chihuahua. Trying mixing a 1/3 cup of yogurt (regular -not low fat) with a few fresh pieces of fruit

5) As long as you are giving your puppy or dog a treat, why not have it be one that promotes clean teeth and fresh breath.

Many people already know that chocolate is poisonous to a dog; however there are a lot of other foods as well. It is never recommended to feed a Chihuahua table food; some may make him very ill.

Beside chocolate the following foods can make your dog very sick:

Aside from some human food, plants and grasses can be very toxic to a Chihuahua. To make sure of your dog’s safety, never allow him to chew on any type of grass. And of course, such items and fluids as anti-freeze, hair coloring, detergents, etc would be harmful to a Chihuahua or any dog.