Just Eat! Please!
I have posted before with food questions and received some good answers but Clutch is starting to just not eat at all. It is past 3:30pm now and Clutch still hasn't eaten anything besides the one noodle I accidentally dropped on the ground.
This picky eating has been going on for almost a month. It started after Clutch visited my parents house and ate their dogs food for a few days. When we got home I had to top his food off with yogurt/pumpkin/applesauce (wouldn't work with the usual green beans/broccoli/carrot) to get him to eat it. Now for the past 5 days he doesn't care what I top it with he just won't eat it and if he does it is just a bite or two and most of that he just spits out on the floor anyways. For the past three days he has probably had less than 1/4 cup of food a day. After him not eating all day yesterday and skipping lunch and dinner the day before, I added (as much as I didn't want to) 1/4 tsp. of melted peanut butter to his food just so he would eat. He refused to even look in his dish or go in the kitchen until I picked him up and sat him in front of it. He ended up eating it all.
I am not going to top his food off anymore. Period. I know he is holding out to get what he wants. I know that a healthy dog wont starve itself. I know not to leave food down and only give him a small window of opportunity to eat. None of this knowledge helps when I have a dog that could use to put on another pound or two.
I am going to start using different dishes for his food and move them out of the kitchen to see if this helps even a little bit. I am also going to switch from three feedings (we started doing three feedings his first day with us) to two feedings. Any other suggestions would be wonderful.I am also going to look into switching foods. I know that talking about dog food is almost like debating religions to some people but I have to ask. Is there a brand of food that you can tell your dog loves?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Melissa and Franklin! on
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Kirby decided a few months ago he would go from his namesake the vaccuum to a super picky eater. After doing everything your not supposed to to get him to eat since he was so skinny I ended up just mixing a bit of wet food into his try and if he didn't eat in 15 minutes I'd pick it up and no food until dinner (my dogs get fed 2 meals a day). After a couple days of doing this he is now eating most of the time. There are still days he won't eat a meal, but he has learned now that if he doesn't eat then he has to wait all day or night for the next meal. It did take him eating NOTHING for almost 3 days before he started eating more regularly. I started it off by mixing some wet food in water and warming it up in the microwave. It made it really smelly and easy to mix into all the kibble. I then gradually switched to just the wet food water and now its just the wet food and I'm mixing less and less. One of these days he may actually eat like a corgi, but until then I am being really strict with mealtimes so he doesn't learn that if he is picky he gets new/different foods.
I feed Taste of the Wild to Franklin and Kirby gets a TOTW mixed with a high energy puppy food to put the weight on.
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Permalink Reply by Brittani on
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It makes me feel better to hear that Clutch isn't the only picky eater out there. I made a stand yesterday and didn't top off his food. He ended up eating only his dinner but he ate it dry so that was impressive. I took the food directly from bag insted of from the container we usually keep it in. Clutch appeared to be more interested when I took out he bag of food so I will keep doing this and see what happens. He has refused to eat again so far today but thats ok with me now.
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Markley on
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I've had dogs before that have absolutely REFUSED to eat a brand of dog food, even after days of not eating. In that case, I've caved and switched brands. Then they happily gorge themselves. You may just need to switch--maybe there is something in the current brand that makes him feel yucky after he eats. Just like in humans, some dogs don't agree with certain foods. Even if there's no diarrhea or vomiting, he may just feel crappy after he eats, so he refuses to eat that food.
I feed Wellness. My dogs love it. I feed twice daily--my dogs have learned to eat or it's gone after five minutes. My puppy is so spastic she's having a hard concept with that one. She likes to eat a little and run off to play. And even though most days she only eats half of what she is supposed to, the vet says that it's OK, and to keep her on a schedule. If she acts starved at night, then I give her a little extra portion.
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I think I will start looking into a different brand after we finish this last bag of food. We tried Wellness but it gave him tummy trouble so we switch to Blue Buffalo but he will only eat the duck and it is hard to find around here. I am switching to twice a day feedings as well so hopefully the longer period between meals helps.
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Permalink Reply by Roger/Laurie on
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I am not sure how old Cluth is but both my dogs stopped eating around 9-10 months. We would sit on the floor and hand feed, changed foods, make them scrambled eggs and cottage cheese and they still eat very little. They are a year apart in age and when the second one did the same thing we started wondering if it was normal. Their activity was the same and they didn't act like they were starving. Around a year they both remembered that they were corgi's and startinged eating their breakfast and dinner and always asking for dessert.
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