My dog is uninterested in food. How to get a picky eater to eat?

My favorite brands of food are Acana, Origen, Lotus and Hobest Kitchen. You can see if they are available in your area. Some of the freeze dried raw diets such as honest kitchen are very palatable to picky eaters. I also find that adding fish oil and warm water to dry kibble can be very appetizing. It is also a very healthy supplement for them.

For picky eaters like this I usually recommend picking one high-quality dog food brand and sticking with it. This means when you feed Kacey you should put the food down for 15 minutes or so and give her the opportunity to eat it. If she does not eat in this period of time pick up the food and do not offer her any food or treats until the next meal time. If at the next meal she doesn’t eat again within 15 minutes pick up the bowl and continue this for two or three days. Eventually she will learn that she needs to eat the food you put down for her or she will go hungry. Most dogs respond to this very well and don’t let themselves go hungry. Some of the brands I recommend for high-quality dog foods are Royal Canin, Hills, Purina, Iams, and Eukanuba. I hope this helps. Best of luck. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Even with the vitamin supplements, this is not likely a complete and balanced diet. There is not anything you can give him to improve his appetite. This is likely behavioral and nature. It’s hard to get a pet adjusted to eating pet food once they are used to eating something like human food or jerky treats. You may try cooking his food or try different commercial diets to find one he likes. If you want to cook his food, you will need to contact a veterinary nutritionist to make sure that the diet is complete and balanced. A recent survey found that the vast majority of the homemade diets found online were unbalanced. Any food you choose needs to be AAFCO tested and certified. This information will be on the packaging. You will also need to decrease the amount of jerky you are giving him. Best of luck.

It is likey just that - him being picky and stubborn. I would see if he would at least eat canned food. Canned food is at least more of a balance diet than just chicken and rice. If he doesn't eat, be sure to give him some nutrical to help keep his blood sugar up since he is so tiny. It will likely take you becoming stubborn as well to get him to transition to regular diet, but you don't want him to miss too many meals. You could also slowly mix in some soften kibbles with the chicken to help him get use to the taste and over a few weeks, decrease the amount of water you use to soft the kibbles and decrease the chicken as well. If you end up just cooking for him, I would visit balanceit.com to ensure he is getting a balanced diet. I hope this helps !

This can be difficult. Finicky eaters are not uncommon with small breed dogs. Fixing this depends on how stubborn both you and Freya are. A dog who is healthy will not starve themselves to the point of illness. You can pick a high-quality food, I recommend the brands Royal Canin or Purina pro plan. Offer the diet and don’t offer her anything else. It is likely she will refuse the food and may do so for a couple days but eventually she will eat. You can try adding in canned food or meal toppers, a very small amount of shredded boiled chicken or some plain brown or white rice to make it more appealing. An alternative is to look into a diet more like fresh pet or Nom Nom pet food. These will be more like meals humans eat and you may have more successful. When you have a finicky eater, it is crucial not to offer any human food or food from your plate. Treats must be minimal. I hope this helps and please feel free to post any additional questions.

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.

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.