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Reasons Why Dog Stops Eating


VJB
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Since returning home from boarding kennel mid January, my dog has not touched her dry food or Tuckertime, which is her normal diet and she continued on this while at boarding. She has been vet checked thoroughly, and other than a few issues with back pain which we are dealing with, I have no idea why she won't eat her dry food at all. Any ideas....?

I have tried adding water, pumpkin, fish etc, but she tends to just be going for the fish bits and nothing else.

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I have a dog who has never been to boarding but also won't eat his dry food unless he's starving, and even then he will eat only enough to keep going. He also has raw chicken and bones, fish, eggs, meat etc added to his diet which he gobbles down straight away, so we think he just doesn't like dry food.

It's possible the dry food upsets her stomach, or the hardness and dryness makes eating it uncomfortable (perhaps check her teeth?) but otherwise she might just be like my dog since you mention that she also enjoys her fish, just not her dry food...

ETA my dog will actually suck chicken mince off his dry biscuits and spit the biscuits back out :s

Edited by jacqui835
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If I leave the dry food down, it will stay there for several days. I have to pick it up after a day at the moment, because I saw a possible rat the other night run along our back fence.

She had a gnaw on her deer antler yesterday for the first time in a while, and she is able to eat a deer ear. Her teeth and mouth have been checked twice.

I am giving her the fish, though not enough to fill her normal diet needs. Maybe a third of a cup at most. I am sure the kennels gave her the food (very reputable kennel), although she was sharing with another dog (peak period) so who knows what the situation is re feed times??????

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It seems that she doesn't enjoy her dry food if she is just eating the fish. Why not try her with other raw meals and see if she goes for that? It could also be a problem with her teeth, so I would probably have that checked out.

She does not tolerate raw foods well at all unfortunately.

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If I leave the dry food down, it will stay there for several days. I have to pick it up after a day at the moment, because I saw a possible rat the other night run along our back fence.

She had a gnaw on her deer antler yesterday for the first time in a while, and she is able to eat a deer ear. Her teeth and mouth have been checked twice.

I am giving her the fish, though not enough to fill her normal diet needs. Maybe a third of a cup at most. I am sure the kennels gave her the food (very reputable kennel), although she was sharing with another dog (peak period) so who knows what the situation is re feed times??????

Sounds like your dog may be the same as mine. Had a taste of the good stuff, and not prepared to settle for anything less anymore... I've left biscuits out for 2 days, and finally he will eat them after a particularly long exercise/play session but he is skin and bones. So now to keep him looking good, I am moving more and more over the raw side of things, and he is all the better for it. He has about 5 times more energy than what he did on the biscuits - I can take him to the beach now and he can swim for literally an hour and then do zoomies up and down the beach. He also defecates less, they don't smell as bad, and his coat is super shiny. Craziest part, it's actually costing me less to buy all the raw foods than what his premium dry food cost...

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If I leave the dry food down, it will stay there for several days. I have to pick it up after a day at the moment, because I saw a possible rat the other night run along our back fence.

She had a gnaw on her deer antler yesterday for the first time in a while, and she is able to eat a deer ear. Her teeth and mouth have been checked twice.

I am giving her the fish, though not enough to fill her normal diet needs. Maybe a third of a cup at most. I am sure the kennels gave her the food (very reputable kennel), although she was sharing with another dog (peak period) so who knows what the situation is re feed times??????

Sounds like your dog may be the same as mine. Had a taste of the good stuff, and not prepared to settle for anything less anymore... I've left biscuits out for 2 days, and finally he will eat them after a particularly long exercise/play session but he is skin and bones. So now to keep him looking good, I am moving more and more over the raw side of things, and he is all the better for it. He has about 5 times more energy than what he did on the biscuits - I can take him to the beach now and he can swim for literally an hour and then do zoomies up and down the beach. He also defecates less, they don't smell as bad, and his coat is super shiny. Craziest part, it's actually costing me less to buy all the raw foods than what his premium dry food cost...

VJB if you say she can't tolerate raw, are you open to cooking with a very tiny bit of raw? If she is OK with that, perhaps over time you can increase the raw. Jacqui 835 basically summed it up. If you can achieve this, you won't be sorry, and neither will your dog. One thing you must do is feed her edible bones such as poultry carcass, necks, wings, and pork, lamb or veal bones for the calcium content.

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Red meat seems to affect her mostly, chicken works well with her. Anything fatty doesn't agree, and bones make her vomit very soon afterwards. I tried a raw roo tail when she was a pup, and she did alright on this, but once the red meat started affecting her, we've not been able to successfully give her anything again, as the poo problems begin quite quickly.

Tuckertime does have red meat in it, although it has a reputation in not seeming to affect dogs who are sensitive to red meats. :banghead:

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I feel for you VJB............I have a dog who lives on dry food and lamb mince :laugh: (plus fruit, veges and yogurt & chia seeds)....It is the only meat that doesnt seem to make her itchy or sick.....So she doesnt get bones......I am waiting for the day she turns her nose up at her dry food.....Some days I hear her tummy grumbling away and wonder if she really isnt handling the kibble...She will eat grass frantically for a while, then seems ok...The kelpie on the other hand does really well on her kibble, mince and chicken bits..

Have you tried changing dry food brands???

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Thanks Lab Rat. She is currently on Eukanuba light. Originally she was on Advance. I have recently tried Royal Canin. The Eukanuba is the only one so far that has not given her grief.

Seems to have something to do with the fat content. I only recently slowly introduced the Royal Canin, as this is what they opt to feed at the boarding kennel,, but within a few days I could see the telltale signs of it irritating her system. Thankfully, kennels allowed me to bring my own food.

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although she was sharing with another dog (peak period) so who knows what the situation is re feed times??????

Did you not ask how they feed 2 strange dogs sharing a kennel??

Did there kennel look like one could be shut in & one out when being feed??

As a kennel owner i have to say the "peak period" double is really bad form but seems to be the in thing over east .

Did she lose weight whilst in boarding??

Could she have been bullied whist eating by the other dog ,if she has bad back pain the other dog may have been to much for her & she is slowly getting over it.

Did they feed the same variety of Tucketime that you do or a different one

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Hi VJB - have you also just tried soaking her kibble - just run warm/hot tap water on it till it floats and leave it to sit for about 20 minutes.

My youngster also doesn't like his kibble - hasn't from day dot - and if I add things like sardines, mince, whatever, he happily gobbles it all down. But just give him dry and he turns his nose up (he's not silly!). When he came back from kennels, I had the opposite to you - he happily ate the dry food and was excited about it (first time ever!) but has regressed to being unenthusiastic again.

So I give him 10 minutes to eat it and then take it away and he doesn't get the bowl again until it is the next meal time (I feed twice a day). This has helped, though sometimes it takes a whole day before he decides he is going to eat, but eventually he is hungry enough that he decides he had better eat it before it gets taken away again! I have never had a dog like this before, all the rest of mine are chow hounds and will eat anything and everything that are put in front of them :eek:

The problem with adding things all the time is that is what they come to prefer. It's okay if they will eat the kibble plus what is added, but you need to get her back to the point where she will eat the kibble and then she can sometimes have other things, if that is what you want. This is why I stopped adding things to Kalebs kibble and started just picking up the bowl and only allowing 10 minutes for him to eat it, then take it away for the rest of the day. Have you tried just getting some cheap homebrand sardines in oil (can she have those?) and just pour the oil from that all over the kibble and mix it in well and add some water as well - I find that got my fussy boy gobbling up his kibble in no time as well and even my oldies who can't tolerate too much fat in their diet, tolerated the sardine oil as well.

I hope she gets back to normal soon

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are you sure she received the dry food whilst boarding?

Can/will she eat bones/chew treats, so you can rule out teeth/jaw trouble?

What happens if you just leave food down for 10 minutes, and offer it again next day? NO treats/broth/fish etc.... ?

At work there are often posts about the same thing dogs being fussy over food. Advice from the dog specialist is as you suggest. Put it there for only 10 minutes (since thats plenty for a dog to eat in) and take it away til the following night. Reckons it takes no more than 3 nights and the dog will eat whatever the owners wants to feed it. But the trick is to never ever just leave it there as the food has no value then (and if outside youll probably be feeding the neighbourhood pigeons/doves/etc)

Likened giving the dog what it prefers to giving maccas to kids that wont eat healthier food ......

That is of course as long as the dog is healthy and nothing other than wanting the fancy stuff.

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I am feeling as if the kibble is 'off' in some way. She has certainly not been her usual self since returning from kennels, but is very much on the mend now that we know she has a sore back/leg that is being treated.

showdog, I am sure that the fact that she shared with other dogs the whole time proved too much for her, and I am almost certain that she hurt herself halfway through her stay. I provided the food, as well as the Tuckertime, and I guess there is no telling who ate what definitely, but I would like to think that the staff are thorough at these kennels.

I've done the whole soaking of kibble etc,,, and it gets left uneaten for an entire day, whether I pick it up after 10 minutes or not. I have to throw it out.

We are going to pick up some fresh stuff tomorrow. I was told today that Eukanuba actually had a recall recently on some of their food. This batch may have gone bad. She loves sardines, and I mixed with water and poured over dry food.... but she just 'fished' out the sardine pieces.

I'm going to get to the bottom of this business..... somehow! I will leave her the dry food and absolutely nothing else once I purchase a new bag. I will be interested to see if she eats from a new bag or not. I need to make sure that this stuff is not rancid or something before I get tough and insist on eating it. She is not a 'food fussy' dog, and has always enjoyed her kibble.

Edited by VJB
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How does it smell VJB??? I got an off bag of RC once, pain as I live an hour from decent dog food supplier! I took it back and the place I got it from agreed - it was off!!! It smelled strange, I guess rancid - as it wouldve been the fat that was off.....Have a good smell!

Our poor girls ate two or so meals of it before I clicked there was something wrong, poor kids :eek:

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