My healthy dog is a picky eater and won't eat her food. What to do?

I am sorry to hear Scully isn't eating well on her own. It is hard to say what is going on with Scully without knowing more details. Some dogs may get picky about their food and wait for their owners to put something tasty on top of their normal food. Some dogs refuse to eat if their stomach is upset. I would want to make sure there isn't something going on internally with Scully. She could have some gastrointestinal issues that are causing her to not feel well and not want to eat, like intestinal parasites. I would recommend you take her to your vet to be evaluated. In the mean time, you could try a bland diet, like boiled chicken and rice, as that is easily digested and easy on the stomach. I also like probiotics for dogs as this can help restore the balance of intestinal bacteria and often can entice dogs to eat as many of the canine ones are flavored. I hope Scully is back to her normal self and normal meal routine very soon!

For a dog that is used to eating fresh food, it can be a challenge to get them to eat kibble or canned food. One of my dogs is very picky and LOVES The Honest Kitchen products. I currently feed her 1/2 kibble and 1/2 The Honest Kitchen Keen. She has not missed a meal since I started feeding The Honest Kitchen. It is more expensive than kibble, but is very good quality food. Since I see that you are in CA, another option would be Just Food for Dogs. That would be a fresh food diet that is premade. Both companies are excellent, so see if Pepper likes either of those options. Good luck! I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

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.

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.

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.

There can be many reasons for finicky eating: https://www.petcoach.co/article/my-pet-is-a-finicky-eater/ My advice is to pick a high quality food and stick with it. The two brands that seem to be most palatable are Royal Canin and Purina ProPlan. Also, as long as your pet is healthy, its ok if he skips a couple meals. Dogs are smart and they often train humans to give them something else. Have him examined if illness or a medical cause is suspected. I hope this helps and please feel free to post any additional questions.

It sounds like Hershey may be bored with his food or getting other types of foods that makes him not want his dog food anymore. He otherwise sounds like he is happy and healthy. i would try to offer him a high quality dog food (canned food is very tempting for pets!) such as Royal Canin, Eukanuba, Evo or Hlil's Science diet. You can start with a canned food that is slightly warmed in the microwave to make it really aromatic. See if this temps him to eat a bit better. I hope that this helps and best of luck with your pet Hershey and his appetite. Take care.