# Finicky Eaters



## Bushi's Mom (Dec 2, 2003)

Bushi is now 11 months old weighing 4.4lbs. His baby teeth did not fall out, because he's not eating enough of his Dry Dog Food. Now we have to go to the vet to get his tooth pulled. Im trying to slow down on the Boiled Chicken he loves along with the Dry EUKANUBA DOG FOOD. In order for him to eat a lil Dog Food i have to pretend im eating it, and then i have to hand feed it to him........

Does anyone have this Problem?
Help
in need of advice................


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## TikisMom (Jul 22, 2003)

We have never given Tiki anything but dog food at meal time. He does receive a treat once in a while when I may "accidently" drop a piece of chicken or carrot on the floor while I am cooking. Some days he eats all of his food and on others he barley touches it.

Once when he wasn't feeling well I added a little chicken broth to his food, boy he at that up like there was no tomorrow! The next day he looked at me like I was crazy giving him that dog food again, so I added slightly less, I did this for a few days until he was back to eating his food straight up. You may want to try this by mincing the chicken and adding it to the dry food. Slowly decrease the amount of chicken he eats and increase the amount of dry food until it is mostly dry or all dry.

I don't know about you but if I were given a choice between chicken and dry food I would hold out for the chicken! Your only choice may be to eliminate it from his diet. It is much better for his teeth if you give a dental dry food; you will not have to have his teeth cleaned as often!

Judi


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## Bushi's Mom (Dec 2, 2003)

> _Originally posted by TikisMom_@Feb 9 2004, 11:23 AM
> *We have never given Tiki anything but dog food at meal time. He does receive a treat once in a while when I may "accidently" drop a piece of chicken or carrot on the floor while I am cooking. Some days he eats all of his food and on others he barley touches it.
> 
> Once when he wasn't feeling well I added a little chicken broth to his food, boy he at that up like there was no tomorrow! The next day he looked at me like I was crazy giving him that dog food again, so I added slightly less, I did this for a few days until he was back to eating his food straight up. You may want to try this by mincing the chicken and adding it to the dry food. Slowly decrease the amount of chicken he eats and increase the amount of dry food until it is mostly dry or all dry.
> ...










Thanks for Your Advice 

Bushi is sticking to his dog food... No more Chicken! He's getting use to eating his Dog Food Now, Thank God







I still have to act like im eating first. lol He is a Trip, luv him to bits......


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## a2z (Aug 23, 2004)

I have created a little dictator. She holds out for the people food and won't eat at all if I don't give it to her. Then, when her stomach gets empty, she throws up stomach acids (bile). That scares me so I giv e her what she wants.

Help!!!


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## Lissa (Aug 25, 2004)

a2z: Rocco did that for awhile too, but with some patience, I did manage to get him back on his dry food. However, as a stopgap to prevent him from vomiting the yellow bile, I purchased some chicken jerky with added vitamins from the pet supply shop. I "tricked" him by making some broiled chicken and gave him a few bites of the broiled chicken and then gave him a piece of the chicken jerky, which I had softened with low sodium vegetable broth. He ate that and then took some more from me. Next day, I heated up the leftover broiled chicken and the wet jerky. I only gave him the wet jerky and then a piece of dry jerky. He decided the dry jerky was pretty darn good and gobbled it up. From there, within the course of a week, I mixed small pieces of the dry jerky in with his kibble and went from there.

There are still days when he won't eat his kibble at all, but he now knows the jerky is a treat, not his meal. I do, however, try to vary his diet and do add chicken, brown rice, and steamed veggies in but, they are also treats. If he goes 2 days without touching his kibble, I'll try and take him for a longer walk, which seems to stimulate his appetite and he'll run straight to his bowl and chow down on the kibble. 

I can't say if this is the best way of doing things, but I wanted to let you know what worked for us. Hope this helps, sorry such a long post.

Lissa


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## Maxismom (Mar 24, 2004)

Oh my Bushis mom sounds like Maxi to the T
i have to put roasted chicken white meat on all his food before he will atempt to eat and thats also after he wants to eat what i am eating hadn fed because if i go and give him some in his bowl he won't eat it it has to come from my bowl
the only thing he does diffrent than Bushy is he is eating his dry iams more now i leave it on a tray for him and he eats it whenever i guess he is hungry but i notice it dwindling as the week goes


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## ilove_d&m (Apr 7, 2004)

Sometimes when Maya doesnt touch her food for a day ( I panic  ) I add baby gerber food(organic vegetables) to the kibble. I mix it really well and she eats the everything.


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## doctorcathy (May 17, 2004)

i dont think that the dry dog food would affect his teeth falling out. i know that ellie was on dry dog food and her k-9 teeth were still there. so we got those pulled out. 

sprite and ellie would throw up at least once a week---and it was because they didnt have any food in their stomachs. thats why i started on homecooked meals. it just sucked seeing them eat the bare minimum to survive. they actually like their food now and they seem healthy. well, definitely healthier than before. i've suggested to people to add some gerber baby veggies to their dog food. just so that the dog will eat more. sprite and ellie gained weight since homecooked feeding--they were underweight before that. 

good luck!!


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## Lilly521 (May 29, 2004)

Sometimes Sunny will eat his dog food but it seems like most the time he wont eat it unless i hold it in my hand, i have never given him anything besides his dry dog food, a dog biscute once and a while and he usually had one of those corn starch bones laying around (proubly not to healthy but it keeps him from chewing up my stuff and i dont like rawhide for him) he seems pretty healthy but a little more boney than i would like so i keep hand feeding him his dry food when he wont eat, now its not that i really mind hand feeding him and i really think he will proubly grow out of this but i just dont have the time to do this every morning and the idea of leaving him all day in his kennle hungary just makes me worry ( i dont want him to start getting sick when no one is home) is him not eating from his bowl normal he is only like 11 weeks old


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## LexiAndNikkisMom (Apr 13, 2004)

Lexi was like that when I first got her. She would only eat if I hand feed her or if I was right next to her. I finally started to feed her in her crate. I would give her the food for 30 minutes in the morning and then 30 minutes at night (your dog might still need to be feed 3 times a day). After the 30 minutes I would put the food up. She learned pretty quickly that if she was hunger she better eat at meal times. It sounds mean but she did very well with this for about 2 months and then she got spayed and I started to baby her again. So now we are starting over again.

Oh, by the way. I started Lexi on Innova dog food last week and she loves it. She's been cleaning her bowl every night. It is a hight calorie dog food so they said to give her no more than 3/4 a cup of food a day. She gets treats also but I have been very carefull to give her only 3/4 a cup of the food. My neighbor (the owner of Lexi's best friend) started to call me the dog food Nazi!







He is kidding, but he says I am mean to limit the amount of food she gets.


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## Brittany Lot (Jun 24, 2004)

I'm going through this with Zoe myself. She's about 4.5 months old. She eats Cesar soft food for breakfast, which she scarfs right up, and then a mix of Eukanuba Puppy kibble and Bil Jac Puppy kibble at night for dinner. 
She is having dinner right now, and as I type this I have to keep getting up to put more grated cheese on top of the dry food. She will only take bites of the kibble if there is cheese on top of it! I only put a small amount of it on each time but it is still rather annoying. If I just ignore her and leave the food alone, not putting any cheese on it, she just lays down and won't eat anymore.
Argh! :wacko: 
She's never been crate trained because she never really took to it so she just eats on the floor in the kitchen so I don't think that what worked for Lexi will work for Zo.
I'm REALLY hoping that she will grow out of this soon and just learn to like her dry food the way it is <_< .


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## mylittlebella (Aug 20, 2004)

Lexi's mom: Innova is great dog food. I have Bella on California Natural Puppy food which is from the same company. The difference is that the California Natural is a bit softer on their stomach and Bella was in the hospital for vomiting when I first go her so they suggested the California. She's doing ok with it. I don't think she loves it but she'll eat it. I'm going to try the Innova next to see if she likes it better. This company makes great doog food with no by-products.


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