The Corgi Who Wouldn't Eat
I have an 8.5 month old pembroke and she just won't eat. We were feeding her nutro max, which I found out wasn't such a good dog food. So, I went on to dog food analysis to find something better.
I switched her to Orijen adult formula, since she should be about old enough for adult food. She hated it. She took one look at the bowl and one look at me and walked away.
From Orijen we put her on what we have for her new; Blue Buffalo Wilderness, wild duck formula. When we brought it home she flipped out over it. She was eating it kibble by kibble, taking each piece under the coffee table to eat like some kind of a rare treat.
I was excited. Thank God, something my dog would eat. But when I made her a bowl this morning she wouldn't touch it. The odd thing is that she ate it slowly over the course of an hour after I left the room.
I don't know, I'm puzzled. I have two theories and neither of them have to do with food. First, we dog sat our friend's 3 year old shih tzu who basically hates everything and is afraid of everything, including Roxy and all other dogs especially. Naturally, the minute he got here, all she wanted to do was play with him, but he wasn't having any of it. He also likes to graze, which left Roxy with ample time to eat his food for him. I had to correct her multiple times and by the end of the week she was finally getting it. I'm worried that I somehow trained her to think that eating food is bad by trying to get her to stay away from his food.
My other theory is that I may have inadvertently traumatized her. She was eating one day and I was lifting something really heavy. I dropped it on my foot and screamed in her general direction and she actually cowered and peed a little and hid in the broom closet. I know I didn't really do anything on purpose to hurt her, but I can't help but feel bad that I scared the life out of her. I hope she didn't associate the negative event with eating.
Before this, she had to be restrained from eating. She literally learned how to open doors to get at her food. I'm fairly certain this is a psychological thing. I went through all of the obedience classes that are designed to get her to obey me, but all of those dealt with her not being afraid. I'm not entirely sure what to do. I've never heard of a Corgi who wouldn't eat!
I switched her to Orijen adult formula, since she should be about old enough for adult food. She hated it. She took one look at the bowl and one look at me and walked away.
From Orijen we put her on what we have for her new; Blue Buffalo Wilderness, wild duck formula. When we brought it home she flipped out over it. She was eating it kibble by kibble, taking each piece under the coffee table to eat like some kind of a rare treat.
I was excited. Thank God, something my dog would eat. But when I made her a bowl this morning she wouldn't touch it. The odd thing is that she ate it slowly over the course of an hour after I left the room.
I don't know, I'm puzzled. I have two theories and neither of them have to do with food. First, we dog sat our friend's 3 year old shih tzu who basically hates everything and is afraid of everything, including Roxy and all other dogs especially. Naturally, the minute he got here, all she wanted to do was play with him, but he wasn't having any of it. He also likes to graze, which left Roxy with ample time to eat his food for him. I had to correct her multiple times and by the end of the week she was finally getting it. I'm worried that I somehow trained her to think that eating food is bad by trying to get her to stay away from his food.
My other theory is that I may have inadvertently traumatized her. She was eating one day and I was lifting something really heavy. I dropped it on my foot and screamed in her general direction and she actually cowered and peed a little and hid in the broom closet. I know I didn't really do anything on purpose to hurt her, but I can't help but feel bad that I scared the life out of her. I hope she didn't associate the negative event with eating.
Before this, she had to be restrained from eating. She literally learned how to open doors to get at her food. I'm fairly certain this is a psychological thing. I went through all of the obedience classes that are designed to get her to obey me, but all of those dealt with her not being afraid. I'm not entirely sure what to do. I've never heard of a Corgi who wouldn't eat!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kimberlie on
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Adora did that when she first came home. the first night she ate fine. But the next day she just looked at the food and walked away. What we eventualy did was time consuming but it worked. We added cottage cheese or pain yogurt to her food, which was something to ketch her interest. We picked a room where she would eat. I sat buy her food and said eat, while pointing to her food. If she went to walk aways i would put her back to the dish and said eat. It took about 20 min at first. But after a month she eventually new if i said eat that she had to eat. We also slowly used less and less cottage cheese and yogurt. Now for the most part i don't need to say eat. There are still days she just looks at it and does the face that looks like "do i really have to eat that" and then i use the command and she gobbles it up like usual.
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Permalink Reply by Samwise Roxy and Mom on
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That makes sense. She gets 2/3 c twice a day because she's usually pretty active, jogging or walking no less than 3 miles a day with me, sometimes twice a day. I tried the whole sitting with her thing, and that didn't do much. I also tried adding some chicken broth to her food to see if that would perk her interest and it didn't seem to do much.
I guess she's just in a phase. My trainer told me that most dogs can get a little rebellious around 9 to 10 months, so maybe that's it. I suppose I will have to go back to the "what you see is what you get" method I stuck with when we first took her home; putting her bowl down, giving her about 15 minutes to eat and that's it.
Thanks so much all, this was helpful.
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Permalink Reply by Bev Levy on
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Adolescents often are very up and down with their eating. I think it has to do with growth spurts and/or teething. Pick a quality food and put it down for a half hour (shorten to 15 min later). Then pick whatever is left up. Do this twice a day and it will not take long for her to start eating again. If you are feeding according to the bags directions it is probably too much and she is just not hungry. Picky eaters are made not born!
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Permalink Reply by Carla on
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I agree with Bev. Put down the food for 30 minutes or so. Pick up whatever she doesn't eat (even if she doesn't eat any of it) and then again at her next meal time. It's unlikely that it will last for more than a day before she starts eating. If she REALLY won't eat for more than a day or two (with this method), then I would be concerned. But at this point, she's probably just waiting out for something better. Once she learns nothing better is coming along, she'll eat the food.
You could also try hand feeding the food in a training session - making her work for the food might provoke more interest in it than when it was just sitting on the floor. Casey used to poke around at her food and would oftentimes leave much of it untouched. Once we started hand-feeding her kibble through daily training, she seemed to get a new-found respect for food (perhaps she realized that it wasn't so easy to come-by and thus was more of a quality commodity than she once thought when it was readily available).
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Permalink Reply by Kari & Quin on
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Bev, you said that if you are feeding according to the bag directions that it is probably too much so what is the right amount? I have been feeding mine Blue Buffalo about 1 1/2 cups per day I only have one dog so i just feed her in the morning and leave it down all day and she just eats it when ever she wants. she isnt over weight i can tell she still has a waist. She is still on puppy food and my vet says that once she is spayed she should go to adult food. But what is a good amount?
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Kari, With puppies I think it is best to let them eat as much as they want for about 15 min .Then as they get older I reduced the amount. Mine are both adults so they get 1/3 to 1/2 cup twice a day. I supplement with green beans to keep their weight from getting out of control. I feed according to how they look. I like to see an indentation between the rear and chest from a top view. Izzy is a very low activity dog so she frequently gets less than Sparty. Their metabolisms vary just like humans.Your pup is young so you would want her to have more than I feed mine. However, I still only put the food down for a period of time twice a day. Puppies like children will naturally regulate their intake if given the right choices. It is us adults that learn to stuff ourselves! LOL
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Permalink Reply by MagnoliaFly on
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Picky eaters are made not born!
Truer words have never been spoken.
Dogs should never be free-fed. Things shouldn't be added to foods to get them to eat. I always advise people use the 15 minute rule with puppies if they are feeding from a bowl. (It is my hope that all owners feed from the hand and use the food as a training reward for at least the first six months they are at home. Feeding from a bowl is a huge waste of a training opportunity).
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Permalink Reply by Mary on
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Nibbler is very strange about eating too and she is 11 months old. I will give her food in the morning and sometimes she won't touch it until right before I give her an evening meal, and then she will eat the evening meal too! So I would be tempted to just give her all of her food at night, but every now and then she will eat her morning food and evening food at the right times. Even then she doesn't gobble her food up right away she waits a while. Every now and then I mix her food (Blue Buff chicken) with some warm water before I give it to her, when I do this she eats it immediately. So that's a nice trick that has worked for us.
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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I agree with putting it down and picking it up after 15 minutes, and also trying to cut back her food a little bit because maybe she's just not hungry.
Both foods you mentioned are grain-free as well and maybe she just doesn't like grain free. It's your call, but please be aware that dogfoodanaylsis is not a group of nutritionists or scientists, but just a group of people on a boxer forum with an opinion. From their website: "DogFoodAnalysis is a part of BoxerWorld.com, one of the largest and longest running dog forum communities on the internet. With many thousands of questions and health related queries in the feeding and nutrition forums on BoxerWorld over the last decade, many of which relate to how to decipher pet food ingredients and advertising - to sort the good from the bad - we realised the need for a dedicated site to help our members choose good quality foods for their pets."
Dogs digest grains quite well, once they've been processed (there have been studies), most dogs aren't allergic to grains, and she might not like the potato or whatever it is other than grain used for carbs in the kibble. My dogs need to eat the same thing day in and day out (with some add-ins) so I like to feed them something they enjoy.
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Permalink Reply by Lou Ann Lemaster on
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You may have what is unheard of in the corgi world....a grazer. My first corgi was like that. She rather nibble all day then eat her food all at once. Was great, cause she never got overweight, never beg for people food. So, I would set out her food in the morning, and by early evening, it would be gone. If not all of it, then I would measure out the same amount the next day, using what she didn't eat.
Now on the other hand, I have a true corgi this time, he scarfs his food down in about a minute...if that long. Always hungry, begs for people food (from dad, who is a softie....keep yelling at him about that), and sad to admit, he is overweight. Been trying to work some of that off of him. But, having foot surgery on both feet this last year has curtained a lot of my walking with him. Being a large corgi (12" at shoulder and almost 21" long), I feel the 30 pound rule would be too thin for him. I would like to get him to about 35 pounds at the most. The last time he was weighed, he was about 43 pounds, didn't look real fat, just stocky. Please! No yelling from the peanut gallery about his weight! I know, and we are working on it.
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Off-topic, but Jack is a "big" Corgi too and I got him down to 34 pounds (not on purpose; I didn't up his rations after he lost) and he started looking ribby. He still looked a bit thin at 35 so my goal for him is around 36 to 37, depending on his condition. He looked chubby at 42 too! But not fat, like you said, just stocky.
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