Picky eaters

[Ralo]

Anyone else have a dog that quits eating their food? He had a habit of eating most of a bag of dry food then slowing down to hardly eating it. So we would switch it up pretty regular but now he's just gotten picky all together. He will eat his joint treats though so go figure.

 

[Courtney H]

This is hilarious because my female does the same thing every now and then. She will eat her joint supplements and not her kibble! One time when she did this, I attributed it to running out of her fish oil. But all the other times, I think she was just being stubborn or something. I feed my dogs at the same time every day (like most people). My rule is, if you don't eat within 20 minutes, your food gets lifted until the next meal. Trust me, they will eventually eat.

My problem is that sometimes she does this in the morning when I have to give her some pain meds, and I can't give it to her on an empty stomach. So if she does it in the morning, I end up hand feeding her at least half of her bowl and she decides to eat the rest or not.

 

[DennasMom]

Our last dog would skip meals if we didn't get out for a walk and some exercise... it was his way of self-regulating his lean physique. He was a trim 100lbs his entire adult life. I wish I had his willpower!! LOL.

He would also skip meals if he was over-excited - like when boarding at a place with daycare - his caretakers HATED that! But, he was always fine, and made up for the lost meals once we got him back to his peaceful, quiet (boring) home life.

 

[Nik]

My Cerberus was like that. He would get bored with his food so we ended up rotating through a few different ones for him. We also found these beef sprinkle things that we would sprinkle over his food which always seemed to help. And yes he would always take his treats it was just his kibble he would get bored with.

 

[TylerDurden]

That sounds very familiar. From total excitement to no interest at all within a day or two. Adding some freeze dried raw (e.g. liver) works pretty well. From time to time, I would boil some chicken breast or ground beef and mix it in. Not very often, and not too much to make sure the meals remain balanced. As Nik mentioned, we have to change his actual food from time to time too.

 

[Zeela]

Anyone else have a dog that quits eating their food? He had a habit of eating most of a bag of dry food then slowing down to hardly eating it. So we would switch it up pretty regular but now he's just gotten picky all together. He will eat his joint treats though so go figure.

Yes!!! Yes!!! Yesssss!!! Zeela is a very picky eater. I have learned though, that she will eat when she uses alot of her energy up and when I cut down on her treats than she gets hungry and has to eat what I give her.
It's definitely not an easy task to find what works & what doesn't. I think because they are big, we think they should eat more which may not be the case at all. They just may have smaller appetites. Zeela definitely doesn't eat as much as someone would think and if she does, she throws up.