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Fussy Eater


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Guest Happytails

Bunny has always been a fussy eater! Thats actually a bit of an understatement!

 

We soon quickly discovered when we first got her that if there wasn't any fresh roast chicken, bunny would refuse the food! So for the past year bunny has been eating for each meal. At 12 and a bit and with 5 teeth

 

1.5 cups of nutro natural choice chicken and rice (soaked in warm water and drained)

torn up roast chicken

and a fork full of TOTW canned food

 

On top of this she gets a glucosamine tablet crushed and 2 pumps of grizzly salmon oil

 

At 12 and a bit and with 5 teeth this has worked well

 

Until 3 days ago.

 

Since then she has stopped eating in the mornings except to munch down the fresh chicken, and in the evening will eat about half her food.

 

She still has an appetite as she will tell us when it is dinner time and also comes up to her feeders, but just won't eat.

 

It also hasn't stopped her love of all treats!

 

I am thinking about home cooked food

 

Any ideas or recipes welcome

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Update

 

So DW and I decided that we would load on the chicken and soak the kibble longer, less wet dog food.

 

Results are that she ate the lot last night and the same this morning!

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I go through this with my lewellyn setter,, his is a snot,,, so,,, I sprinkle parmasan cheese through out the kibble ( he must think this is Olive garden) :lol I aslo do homecooked for my pack,,, find it is no more expensive then high grade cannned food,,, I mix it the kibble

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Guest lanielovesgreys

Sometimes one or both of the dogs will decide they no longer like their kibble. So I transition between the two formulas of kibble every 6 months or so.

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Guest greybookends

Bill is the worlds fussiest eater. One thing I figured out as he got older is that he will only eat once a day. You may need to just change the routine.

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Lori

 

There is no way bunny is as fussy as bill! She will eat left or right legs!

 

Bunny only likes her food if it prepared in a certain way or must contain chicken! No chicken, no eat!

 

Then again she is highly opinionated and will only go for walks on routes she wants to take!

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Sorry....I had to chuckle a bit.... Bless the picky eaters & stubborn we're going where I want to go walkers. They sure keep you on your toes.

 

How are her last 5 teeth? Could any of them be giving her some twinges?

Blessed is the person who has earned the love of an old dog.

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Guest Swifthounds

Sometimes people train dogs, and more often, dogs train people.

 

Around here, you eat what you're given or you wait for the next meal. Picky eaters are made not born and someday their lives may depend on whether they eat what they're given because it is given. Been there. Granted, though, my dogs eat a lot better and with more variety than many dogs.

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So when was Bunny's last bloodwork & urinalysis? If you are confident this recent change or increase in pickiness isn't a health issue then you have a choice. You can feed Bunny Bunny's way or feed her your way. At 12 yo, Bunny may just have earned the privilege of eating her way & walking her chosen route. :) Seniors are worth it.

 

Picky eaters are made not born and someday their lives may depend on whether they eat what they're given because it is given.

That is almost always the case. I used to believe it was always the case. Then The Monkey, my staghound Stellaluna, came to live with us. Monkey is a royal pain in the patoot when it comes to eating meals & has been that way from the day she set foot here. I give her food when I feed the others. If she eats it, fine. If not, I pick it up so no one else eats it or she guards it (because she will even though she isn't interested in eating it) and she gets it again next meal. Still, she is picky, picky, picky about mealtime. But she is 2 yo & hasn't starved yet. I have switched foods a couple times though to make sure it is high enough in calories & nutrient dense enough to support her activity level. Old age with the Monkey's picky appetite should be quite the culinary adventure. :rolleyes:

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Sorry....I had to chuckle a bit.... Bless the picky eaters & stubborn we're going where I want to go walkers. They sure keep you on your toes.

 

How are her last 5 teeth? Could any of them be giving her some twinges?

 

Possibly, She actually has antibotics at the moment to help as her lymph glands were a little swollen.

 

 

Sometimes people train dogs, and more often, dogs train people.

 

Around here, you eat what you're given or you wait for the next meal. Picky eaters are made not born and someday their lives may depend on whether they eat what they're given because it is given. Been there. Granted, though, my dogs eat a lot better and with more variety than many dogs.

 

Walli and Sully eat whatever is put infront of them although admittedly they are chow hounds. If it looks like food then they want it! Bunny however is different.

 

At 12 yo, Bunny may just have earned the privilege of eating her way & walking her chosen route. :) Seniors are worth it.

 

Seniors are definitely worth it!

 

Bunny joined us as a foster last year very soon became a permemant fixture as my wife fell totally in love with her and there was no interest in an 11 year old grey! Before living with us she lived with a couple where both had to be put into long term care (she has MS and he had dementia). When Bunny lived with them she to put it lightly was spoilt rotten! She was also walked off leash.......

 

Then when the parents were put into care the daughter of the couple fed her cooked chicken and wet food.

 

Finally she decided she couldn't keep Bun and so returned her to Glohw. Then after 2 foster homes (first one she got into a scrap with their grey and second had too many stairs) she arrived with us.

 

We were warned that she was a fussy eater but we soon found that roast costco chickens were the perfect solution!

 

She is a real sweetie and everyone who meets her loves her, her ears and her little habit of trying to carry her own leash! ( I will get a photo of this promise)

 

But as you can see from the picture below, its hard not to love "the bun"!

 

DSC_0084-1.jpg

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Guest Swifthounds

That is almost always the case. I used to believe it was always the case. Then The Monkey, my staghound Stellaluna, came to live with us. Monkey is a royal pain in the patoot when it comes to eating meals & has been that way from the day she set foot here. I give her food when I feed the others. If she eats it, fine. If not, I pick it up so no one else eats it or she guards it (because she will even though she isn't interested in eating it) and she gets it again next meal. Still, she is picky, picky, picky about mealtime. But she is 2 yo & hasn't starved yet. I have switched foods a couple times though to make sure it is high enough in calories & nutrient dense enough to support her activity level. Old age with the Monkey's picky appetite should be quite the culinary adventure. :rolleyes:

 

Some dogs are "easy keepers" and never turn down food, and some are less motivated by food. I had littermate brothers and one was an easy keeper and the other was the exact opposite. When my easy keeper got sick and we were trying to diagnose the cause, he stopped eating when I was out of town for a few days. When I walked in the door and put the food down he looked at it, looked at me, and begrudgingly ate it. He felt like crap, but he did as he was told. If he hadn't, he would have died from the starvation before we could diagnose the problem. Once he started eating, he perked right up. Unfortunately, within a few days the other symptoms worsened. It turned out to be cancer, but there's a huge difference between sending a hound to the bridge because of cancer and having to do it because he won't eat and is wasting away.

 

The worst IMO thing you can do for a dog not particularly interested in food is to give in and reinforce that behavior so that they become picky. When you do that, meals become something that must become more and more novel and enticing all the time. If they dog lives long enough, the monster you create with pickiness can get to the point where nothing is novel enough.

 

The dog is better off in the long run with the "tough love" and, if necessary, force feeding than with cartwheels of temptation. Of course a huge (and often overlooked) issue as dogs age is that their sense of smell lessens over time. Most of their "taste" is actually small, and sighthounds IME are even more scent motivated than a lot of other dogs. It doesn't help that kibble doesn't really smell like much of anything, mostly cereal with an enticing meat smell lacquer applied after cooking.

 

Should the powers that be keep them with me, my two oldest will be 13 in November and 14 in January. One is a chow hound and the other is my hard keeper. My hard keeper, Comet, probably wouldn't be with us if I hadn't switched him to raw for a whole lot of reasons beyond the smell/taste issue.

 

And, I forgot the most important part: Bunny is a real cutie! (oh, that face!).

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