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Permalink Reply by Alice on October 14, 2009 at 1:35pm

I would go back to feeding her a quality puppy food and if she is finicky you can mix in some cottage cheese or plain yogurt. The puppy food will have a lot of vitamins and such in it they she may not be getting from a chicken and rice diet.

Does she eat other hard things such as treats?

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Permalink Reply by basam on October 14, 2009 at 1:39pm

She does eat treats.

But she loves egg yolks. I will start again with puppy food. she hated the puppy food when we brought her a month ago.

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Permalink Reply by Alice on October 14, 2009 at 1:56pm

I'm glad to hear she will eat hard treats which would eliminate anything painful in her mouth which may prevent her from chewing.

If you mix something tasty in with the food she will probably eat it, especially when she realizes there is nothing better coming and she is hungry. Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Bev Levy on October 14, 2009 at 3:09pm

She is training you to support her being a picky eater. If an otherwise healthy pup refuses a meal once in a while it really won't hurt them. She just may not be that hungry. As long as she is healthy and you are offering a good quality food just keep feeding it to her. She will get over this phase. Sparty did the same thing at about 6 months and he is ten now and will eat anything!

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Permalink Reply by Avyon on October 14, 2009 at 8:42pm

I agree. She may be training you. If she just went to the vet and seems healthy otherwise her eating habits (if droppings are clear of blood and her activity level is normal) I think she's putting up a farce to get the 'human' food ;)

Roxi puts up a fuss here and there. If she doesn't eat we just pick up her food bowl and she has to wait till the next feeding time. Which usually she'll eat it and whatever she gets for that feeding time lol.

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Permalink Reply by Beth on October 14, 2009 at 9:39pm

I would switch her to a good-quality puppy food. Moisten it a bit with water, put it down and leave it for 15 minutes. If she doesn't eat, pick it up and don't offer again until the next meal. As long as she's healthy, once she gets hungry she'll eat.

You can mix in a bit of yogurt or cottage cheese with one meal a day, every couple days, but until she will eat plain food I would limit the mix-ins, personally.

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Permalink Reply by Sunni A. on October 14, 2009 at 9:59pm

I agree she is testing you in some way. Eddy did this at that age, right when we got him! We would just leave his food out for 15 minutes, put it up on the counter, put it down, for as long as it took. He did go 2 days without eating! Then, once he decided his game was over, he began eating his 3 meals just like normal, as if his stubborn strike hadn't even happened.

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Permalink Reply by Judi, Dawn, Soffie & Griffyn on October 15, 2009 at 10:16am

Soffie did this too. And when she did, we would leave the bowl down for 30 minutes, then pick it up. We made no fuss or comment, we just picked it up. And lots of times she was still just laying there with her nose about 2 inches from the bowl, refusing to eat. Her little eyes would follow the bowl as it went from the floor to the table. She'd stay there for a little bit, then get up and walk away. Then at the next meal time we would put the same bowl of food (we feed only dry food) back down. Most times she would then eat. But sometimes, she would refuse again. And so we would repeat the process. And believe me after missing 2 meals by the 3rd time she'd eat up! It doesn't take long for them to learn they can't get you with that trick!!

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