Why won't my healthy dog eat her food? Is she just a picky eater?

You are very welcome for the advice! It is good to hear that her temperature is not high, so this means she isn't feverish. She is likely a finicky small breed dog. : ) Best wishes finding a food that she loves here moving foward. Take care!

If she’s a normal weight then she may be only eating what she needs to maintain her weight. If she’s thin then I recommend giving a food with a higher calorie content so she’ll get more calories while eating the same amount. Many dogs aren’t that excited about food and as long as they are healthy this is nothing to be overly concerned about. I would stick with one good quality brand and offer her as much as she wants twice a day. Often taking medicine will decrease the appetite so she may pick up eating soon since she is done with the tick fever treatment. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to help you care for Kylie.

Hi. I would recommend trying a different high quality food to explore if there is one she may like better. Science diet, royal canin, Iams, and Purina are the top quality brands. I would also make sure she has had a full exam, especially of mouth, and labwork, as well as a fecal sample test just to be sure there isn't another obvious cause of decreased appeitie.

As long as she eats and is not losing weight, don't stress out over it. It is true that smaller breeds can be a bit more finicky. Switching foods would not be recommended as it can lead to gastrointestinal upset and reinforce her finicky nature. Instead, try mixing in a bit of warm water or a teaspoon of baby food to stimulate the appetite.

Dogs are lucky in that if they don't eat for a day or two there's no harm done. Cats will suffer liver damage after a few days, dogs just get hungry. As long as she is otherwise healthy, I wouldn't worry about it too much if she has a picky day here or there. Keep an eye on the behavior, to be safe, and see if there seems to be anything that seems to trigger the event, so you can keep your vet informed. If you do decide to change her food, don't do it abruptly. Make sure you have enough of the old food for about a week. You can change her over a couple of different ways. One method is to mix the two foods, 75% old, 25% new in a single bowl for 23 days, then 50% of each for a few days, then 25% old food, 75% new for 2-3 days or until you run out of the old food. Alternatively, you can offer two bowls of food, old food in one, new in the other. Gradually decrease the amount of new food until she is completely transitioned onto the new food. This will minimize and hopefully prevent any intestinal upset because of the new food. Feed the best food you can afford to as this will support optimal health which will, in turn, lead to fewer health problems later in life.

Some dogs are just picky eaters or are not very food driven. So we have some dogs, like your typical labrador, that will eat anything and everything within 30 seconds of it being put down, and others that are more picky and graze throughout the day. There are not necessarily medical drawbacks to leaving her food down throughout the day, or at least leaving it down for a few hours in the morning and a few in the evening. Sometimes unfortunately with dogs who are picky we just have to be tough and not offer them a different food every time they decide they aren't excited about their current one. We can predispose dogs to food allergies if we are changing their foods all the time and we do get allergies later in life it is much harder to find a good diet for them. I would choose one food and stick with it, and she will eventually get hungry and eat it. The exception is toy breed puppies which can develop hypoglycemia if they go too long without eating https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4952329 , but adult dogs should be able to tolerate this. I am a fan of the purina pro plan line, which is available at most pet stores and is good quality, they also have dry diets, wet diets, and their Savor line has kibbles along with softer/chewy kibbles which my dogs love. If there is some treat that she is very fond of you can mix it in with the food that you want her to eat and slowly decrease the amount of the treat each day so she gets used to the other food. Some people find putting some low sodium chicken broth on the food can entice them to start eating a food and you can slowly decreas the amount placed on the food, or warming food up slightly makes it more appetizing.

This sounds like a fairly large amount of food for a 7.6 lb dog - she may not be hungry. If she seems to be losing weight you should see your veterinarian to make sure there is nothing medically wrong that is making her not want to eat. Otherwise I think you can measure out how much food she needs in a day and just leave it for her to eat. She'll eat eventually when she is hungry.