My puppy refuses to eat dry dog food?

I'm unmistakably far from rich, and at this moment, the main thing I can manage the cost of is dry pooch sustenance. At the time I first got her 3 months back (she is a chiuahua jack russel blend), she didn't consume anything, so in an endeavor to get her to at any rate consume something, I gave her some wet doggy nourishment on the grounds that she was just 6 weeks old and wouldn't be able to handle dry pooch sustenance great. She put on weight and did okay. I exchanged her to some dry canine nourishment and she consumed it for in the ballpark of two weeks and halted. Abruptly, she's begun shedding pounds and I've begun to stress. She's been checked and immunized. I'm persuaded that the weight reduction is an aftereffect of not consuming. I did an explore different avenues regarding her prior and she at last consumed. I encouraged her some chicken. This was the manner by which I knew. So fundamentally, she is starving herself since she doesn't need her dry pooch sustenance. I've even exchanged marks three times for her, and as of now nothing. She just needs table nourishment or wet canine sustenance. The issue I have with the wet canine sustenance is that it makes her have "runny crap" keeping in mind she is still in the any time that was spent being potty prepared, I can't handle that. She acts okay, she is lively and full of vigor. She's had her immunizations and everything.

What do I do? I would prefer not to use a ton of cash simply to get her to consume. I have never had a finicky pooch in my existence. Something else is that when she was consuming dry canine sustenance, her stools solidified up and appeared typical.

What would it be advisable for me to do?

if she is healthy (double check with a vet that she doesn't have tooth problems, etc) find a dry food that she likes and will eat. You already know that she has done well on the dry that you were using for a couple weeks. So, if the vet gives her an "all clear" you will just have to "tough love" and offer her nothing but the dry food.

No treats, no snacks, etc. Make sure you are feeding a good quality food (a named meat meal as the first ingredient, preferably no corn or at least that it is far down on the ingredient list). Give her a portion in the morning. Leave it down for 5-10 minutes and if she doesn't eat, simply put the bowl away until her next meal time. Puppies do best with 3 meals a day but twice a day is better than once. At the next meal, offer her the bowl again. A dog won't starve themselves, especially once they realize that you aren't going to cave in and give them something "better"

As I said, the main things to do before you try this:

- make sure she is healthy and isn't holding out for a physical reason. small breeds are notorious for teeth/mouth problems that might be making it painful to eat the dry food

- make sure you are feeding a high quality food. www.dogfoodadvisor.com will let you search for the name of your food and see if it has been reviewed. If your food isn't there or you are outside the US, you can check the ingredients yourself. Named meat meal as the first ingredient (Chicken meal, lamb meal, etc. You don't want anything that says "by-product meal" or even whole meat. Using the weight of the raw meat as the first ingredient is a sneaky way companies can make their product appear better than it is Whole meat contains water while meat meal has the water removed. Water is always removed during the process of cooking the food, so while chicken might be the #1 ingredient once it's cooked it actually winds up way down the list)

- if you have done the first two, don't cave. No sneaking her a little nibble of cheese or treats during training. No adding a couple spoons of wet food to entice her to eat.

- once you have her back on a schedule and eating good, you can supplement a bit. A raw egg a couple times a week is great for them.

Another thing I thought of. Be sure to measure out and keep track of how much she is eating. The guidelines on the bag are a good starting point but some dogs will need more food and some will need a lot less. Watch her weight and adjust as needed.

You can always add water to the dry food, and mix in a bit of canned food. Cut back on the canned food gradually, and eventually she will get used to all dry food.

If I have a finicky puppy I will add warm water to dry food period, and I find that most pups love lamb and rice food (like Iams, PurinaOne< and other good grocery store brands.) If you have friend with a dog, sometimes they learn to eat better with competition--having more dogs in a house, there won't be an finicky eaters, LOL.

sorry but Iams, PurinaOne and other grocery store brands are far from good. Dogs will eat them and do OK but never reach their full potential. It would be like feeding your chickens nothing but corn. Yes they would live and lay eggs but they wouldn't be getting the nutrition that they would from a balanced diet. They also aren't likely to live as long, be as healthy or as resistant to illness that an animal fed a proper diet would be.

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/purina-one-smartblend/ is an example. It only rates 2 stars because of it's bad ingredients.

Even Ol Roy manages to scrape by with 1 star http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/ol-roy-dog-food-dry/ so I would expect Purina to do better at 3X the price.


Compare that to http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/nutrisource-grain-free/ a 4 star food. I pay $45 a bag but a bag lasts my GSD almost a month. He eats 4 1/2 cups a day compared to almost 10 cups of Purina One. Plus, the corn content in Purina One can play havoc with allergies in a lot of dogs. We tried PurinaOne before. $28 dollars a bag that lasted a little less than 2 weeks. So the price came out pretty equal in the end.
An added bonus is - the better the food, the smaller the poop. That is because more of the food is actually used by the body vs ruffage that simply passes out the other end.

Of course, the best diet would be a raw or prey model diet but not everyone has the time or inclination to do the proper prep work to feed a natural diet.

With a dog that's dropping weight quickly, I'd be hesitant to go the "forced" route. Little dogs can be quite stubborn and a quick drop in weight can be detrimental to their health.

Instead, I would try mixing a little bit of wet food in with the dry. Adding water would also be a good idea. They also sell something that's like a doggie food dressing and a bit of that on top of the dry food can do wonders.

Definitely make sure she doesn't have any tooth issues that could be causing her not to eat. Also, try not to switch foods back and forth without gradually introducing them. There was just a dog at the animal hospital at my school that had major issues after having his food switched too suddenly.

My dog got bored with his food and we had to add a spoonful of wet food to the mix. Now he eats it up right away. Some dogs are more finicky than others, and just like people some tend to get tired of the same food over and over again.

Chickerdoodle13 said:

With a dog that's dropping weight quickly, I'd be hesitant to go the "forced" route. Little dogs can be quite stubborn and a quick drop in weight can be detrimental to their health.

Instead, I would try mixing a little bit of wet food in with the dry. Adding water would also be a good idea. They also sell something that's like a doggie food dressing and a bit of that on top of the dry food can do wonders.

Definitely make sure she doesn't have any tooth issues that could be causing her not to eat. Also, try not to switch foods back and forth without gradually introducing them. There was just a dog at the animal hospital at my school that had major issues after having his food switched too suddenly.

My dog got bored with his food and we had to add a spoonful of wet food to the mix. Now he eats it up right away. Some dogs are more finicky than others, and just like people some tend to get tired of the same food over and over again.

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I agree.