Dogs not eating

Dublinstiofán

I've two Pomeranians and they're generally healthy.

They were both in with the Vet this week. We mentioned when we got them they
wouldn't eat any brand of dog food so we tried cat food and they really liked it.
we had been feeding them cat food ever since.

Anyway the vet told us that cat food is very bad for dogs and told us not
to feed it to em anymore. One is also overweight so he suggested not to
feed either dog scraps from the table from now on. And to keep em in
Another room during meals.

Long story short the dogs don't really know what hit em since that day
at the vet. The whole family have agreed not to feed them scraps and
we haven't. However I've had to try hand feed them the new Burns
Puppy mini dog food and other than that they haven't eaten since
Wednesday.

I'm getting a bit worried obviously at this stage. They were very used
to getting 'human' food and also pouches of wet cat food. How am I
going to get them to eat this dry dog food they're not too keen on?
And am I worrying too much? Will they eat it eventually when they
are hungry? Or should I be considering an alternative if they insist
on not eating for the weekend?

Thanks for any help in advance

andreac

Ok for a start, stop hand feeding them, they are well able to eat themselves.

Dogs won't go hungry so you need to be tough and not give in. They have been used to cat food for so long so might take a while to adjust.

Try soaking their food in warm water to help bring out flavour, smell etc.

Just offer them their dinner and leave it down for around 15 mins, if its not eaten take it away and offer nothing until next meal and repeat process.

Make sure they get absol nothing else apart from the meal they are offered. They will realise they get nothing else bar their dinner and will give on eventually and this could be days.

Dublinstiofán

Cheers for that, will persevere!

DBB

I don't agree with persevering in cases like this: if they're not used to eating dry food, you're going to have a lot of bother getting them to eat it. Why force this on a dog? Why make them starve in an effort to force certain foods on them? It's a very old fashioned way of looking at things imo!

This is not just anecdotal talk, it has been shown that dogs become very set on certain tastes VERY early in life (in the womb and early puppyhood), and to try to force them away from this is not particularly effective. I would question whether it's even ethical, to be honest.

Why should dogs have to eat dry? They seemed to do pretty well up to 20 or so years ago when dry food manufacturers brainwashed us all, vets included, into thinking that if we don't feed dry food, we're somehow failing our dogs? Well, I'm not buying that now!

I don't know whether cat food is actually bad for dogs or not: again, this might just be a myth, but I don't know enough about cat food to comment further.

So, why not try a doggy equivalent? I find NatureDiet to be super for fussy dogs. It's like tinned food, only it's actually healthy . It is a complete food, so your wee Poms should get all the nutrition they need from it.

Were I you, if they show any hesitation about eating NatureDiet (which is pretty good value in bulk from websites like Zooplus), I'd give them a large dollop of cat food with a little NatureDiet mixed in, then gradually phase the cat food down, whilst increasing the NatureDiet.

NatureDiet comes in a number of different flavours, some dogs really don't like some of the flavours, so you may have to experiment a bit! There are a number of other products on the market similar to NatureDiet, but for the money, the ND is the pick of them.

You also have the option of feeding your dogs a fresh diet which you prepare yourself. I have a really fussy little lady here who gets lightly boiled chicken and home-made chicken soup (made when boiling the chicken, I add some healthy veg and spuds to the broth, take the chicken out when cooked, then blitz what's left to make the soup!) She was on the raw diet, but went off it. She was also on various expensive dry foods, and went off all of them. Loves her chicken and soup though!

Anyway, the bottom line is, you don't HAVE to feed dry, and because your dogs aren't used to it, and may never get used to it, why persevere when there are perfectly healthy and preferable options available?

andreac

In my experience most dogs that won't eat dog food are just being fussy and stubborn and have been spoilt by their owners and have gotten used to eating what they shouldn't be so can take a while to adjust.
Of course they don't have to eat dry food, raw is better and I'm all for feeding raw.
But if its just a case of the dog being stubborn then that's different and most dogs will hold out as long as possible for something they prefer whether it's scraps or cat food etc.

DBB

andreac wrote: »

In my experience most dogs that won't eat dog food are just being fussy and stubborn and have been spoilt by their owners and have gotten used to eating what they shouldn't be so can take a while to adjust.
Of course they don't have to eat dry food, raw is better and I'm all for feeding raw.
But if its just a case of the dog being stubborn then that's different and most dogs will hold out as long as possible for something they prefer whether it's scraps or cat food etc.

Each to their own, I am just saying that I don't agree with the perseverance approach. I see no harm whatsoever in giving a dog food he likes, as long as it's healthy and fed in portions which keep him at a healthy weight. I have always found that it is exceptionally difficult to get dogs that have been fed X food for years to move to dry food... I feel that it's just not necessary, particularly in circumstances like the OP describes.

tk123

Why out of interest did you pick Burns - does the vet set it perchance? Burns has a high rice content which imo has to taste like crap - you've gone from giving them a tasty roast dinner to plain dry cream crackers - of course they won't like it!! Even the smell of it is just plain and gross smelling compared to a better quality food.
There's plenty of good quality wet foods out there like Nature Diet or Nature's Menu that they might transition to easier. If there's a Pet Mania near you they sell Nature Diet in single trays - handy if you want to try it because you can usually only buy it in multiples of 6 online in the one flavor.
Or maybe a fish based dry food like Barking Heads since they're used to cat food lol!! :pac: Robbies even might be an option - it's a mix of dehydrated rice and chicken that you add warm water to (if you're in Dublin Dog Training Ireland might have some samples).
Don't worry about wet food causing dirty teeth either - my dog's teeth have never been cleaner since taking him off dry food!
Nothing wrong with scraps either imo as long as you subtract from their daily portion of food.

fathead82

Try giving them half a pouch of cat food mixed in with the dry dog food(really well mixed together so that they cant pick out the catfood),keep giving them that until they are happy with it,then slowly reduce the amount of catfood every day until they are eating the dry dogfood by itself.
I never tried burns but one of my dogs is on barking heads & she loves it.