Help! He lost interest in his food

[Robyn P]

I am aware that Carin Terriers are inherently stubborn, but Teddy takes it to a whole new level! 

When we got him last year we continued to buy the food that the breeder was feeding him so he didn't have to deal with a change. About 6 months after eating this brand of food (TLC dog food) he lost interest in it and refused to eat it, no matter what we mixed with it (peanut butter, rice, cheese etc...). We then switched him to Proformatrin dog food which is the brand that Pet Valu makes (not sure if there are any Canadians reading this, but I believe it may only be a Canadian brand). Anyways he took very quickly to this new food. Now again about 6 months later he refuses to eat this food. We went to the pet store to ask what to do, they generously gave us samples of different flavours of the same brand, and had Teddy test out which he preferred. He seemed to take a liking to a potato/salmon flavour so we bought a new bag. 

Today we opened a brand new bag and scooped out the food into his bowl. He came over, sniffed it and walked away. My husband and I were beside ourselves. We tried again mixing in peanut butter to male it more desireable but he just licked the peanut butter off and spat out the kibble. It is so strange because just this morning he ate the exact same flavour from the sample bag. 

We really have no idea what to do with him. We keep returning the full bags of dog food back to the shop. We don't know if he's just easily bored of the flavours or if the kibble is too hard for him to chew. 

Has anyone else experience this with their cairn? Has anyone moved away from kibble all together and are home making food? Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

[hheldorfer]

There's always the possibility that Teddy is trying to have his way with you, but I think there are a few things you could consider.  The first thing I would do is rule out any health problems - schedule a vet visit for a thorough check-up and make sure all is well, and check if he has any mouth/tooth problems that may be interfering with eating.  If everything is OK, you could try adding something to his food such as chicken broth, some vegetables (carrots or green beans, for example), some pumpkin (pure pumpkin, not the pie mix) or some shredded cooked chicken.  

There are some forum members who home cook food for their Cairns and have good results.  I'm somewhere in the middle; I feed Buffy kibble but add some of the above ingredients.  

[Robyn P]

Thank you for this.  We actually recently has his annual vet visit and everything seems fine.  Aa for a potential tooth problems, he is not in any pain and in terms of his behaviour he is still crazy teddy.

he is hungry and will eat other food.  We tried mixing some carrots with his food and he ate the carrots, we added a little bit of peanut butter and he licked it off the food.  We changed the flavour of his food because he seemed to like it but now that we bought a larger bag he doesn't want it. He has done this before with his old food brand and stopped wanting it.

we are considering some home cooked recipes as we know for sure he will eat that.  

[Lupinegirl]

Ah, this is sooo familiar.  My cairn is verrry stubborn about his food.  And like Teddy, he seems to tire of it every six months.  Except in Nikki's case, he refused to eat anything with rice, chicken broth, peanut butter, gravy, or anything else remotely resembling the food he was stuck on when he had a bout of food poisoning after a horrible housesitting incident. No need to go into detail since it is off topic and disgusting, but needless to say, we had a very finicky eater after that.  He refused canned food and other brands of kibble.  I could not even interest him in canned chicken or plain home boiled chicken! He went on a starvation strike for a week at a time, eating fabric and rubber toys instead of the bowls of human food we offered him and making himself sick from those inedibles.  I believe he was also going through his Terrible Twos stage where he wanted to challenge me over everything I did.  He turned play time into "Let's see if I can nip her hand and get away with it while pretending to reach for the toy!" or "I'm going to bellow at you when you reach for something I want."  He was impossible to take for walks, since he has figured out how to slip out of every harness and collar I've gotten for him, and he balked and twisted when he wanted to try to escape his harness.  He constantly wanted entertainment. He peed everywhere and chewed on furniture.  He screamed and panted so hard when I put him in his crate that I thought he was going to get heat stroke several times.  I don't remember what got him back into eating, but he was an absolute terrier Terror while he was angry, rebellious, and hungry.  My dad wanted to get rid of him.  

Cheese and ham have always been high value treats for Nikki so I tried tearing up tiny bits of that and mixing them with chicken, tiny pieces of carrot and green beans, and dog food.  I put pieces of kibble and treats in toys for him to play with.  I took his food bowl up to my bed room and made a game of tossing a piece of kibble down the hall for him to chase.

The novelty of eating in a different room and playing and searching for food made it interesting for him and eventually I was able to stop giving him treats and addons in his food.  I now have him on a mixture of Rachel Ray grain free kibble that is available at the grocery store nearest me, and an expensive air-dried chicken raw food by Wellness Core. The Wellness Core gives him the runs if he eats too much of it, but a fourth of a cup mixed with the Rachel Ray kibble has been both palatable to him, and agreeable with his stomach. At the moment we are on month six of this formula of food and he's healthier and more playful than he was this time last year, so I think this blend is a keeper as long as he'll eat it.  XD

Good luck with your picky boy. Maybe making a game out of chasing or retrieving his kibble out of a toy would whet his appetite enough for him to eat it? Or scooping the kibble with your hand to put your smell on it when you put it in his dish or offering him his food in another room for a brief time?  These guys get bored way too easily. xD 

[bradl]

The first thing I'd do with an otherwise healthy picky eater is give him a fast day or even two. No food, no treats.  

I'll change foods from time to time and even toss out a bag if I suspect there's anything off about it, but what I won't do is play games with it. Bowl goes down; bowl comes up. Eat or don't eat; that's up to the dog. No healthy dog will starve itself to death.

[Sam I Am]

RP have you tried a commercially prepared raw diet?  I don't feed kibble at all (lots do and that's ok) for a lot of reasons that I won't bore people with. Just a personal choice, however I have never met in my circle of canine friends, a dog that refuses eating a raw diet.

Edited January 9, 2017 by Terrier lover

[bradl]

Agree with TL on that for sure.

[Lynn in TN]

Kelly twice has refused to eat her kibble at the time I was feeding her Blue Wilderness. Both times it was recalled a few months later, because of to much calcium. I started home cooking for her for a while. I put her back on Kibble a year ago because of health issues I was having, and I just didn't have the strength to cook enough food for 2 dogs and 4 humans. She has been eating Taste of the Wild with no issues. Prissy on the other hand will eat anything, so I trust Kelly when she won't eat the food. I add some home cooked food as well. Just not for every meal.

 

 

[sanford]

Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn! Picky, picky, picky!... I just thought I'd add my 2 cents worth to the above comments. This is all very familiar to me. I went through this with Carrington until I was at my wits end. In our case, it wasn't food that he refused... It was treats. Admittedly, this was not as serious as food dislikes, but I relied on treats to motivate and train him and pretty much exhausted the options at my local stores. Eventually, Charlee Bears came to our rescue.

[kjwarnold]

8 hours ago, Terrier lover said:

RP have you tried a commercially prepared raw diet?  I don't feed kibble at all (lots do and that's ok) for a lot of reasons that I won't bore people with. Just a personal choice, however I have never met in my circle of canine friends, a dog that refuses eating a raw diet.

Here's your exception!  Kirby has twice turned away from freeze dried raw, two different brands.  He's just weird...

[Sam I Am]

Never tried freeze dried. Raw bison burgers are her favourite.

[lindasue]

Hum, can't help y0u here as Pegi eats anything and everything. 

But I think Teddy has some cat in him as I do see this frequently with our current cat, and every other cat we have owned!  Meow!

[LindaMC]

Maisie snubs her nose up at kibble, strange because she use to love it.....Taste of the Wild was her favorite and when we would get a bag, she'd stand in front of it and bark at our German Shepherd is she tried to go near it.    That was when she was a puppy; eventually she grew tired of the kibble and started walking away from her dish if there was kibble in it.  I started feeding her raw and she loved it and did well on it but she wouldn't eat organs and that was problematic as dogs need organs to balance out the diet.  Now I give her Freshpet Vital Grain Free raw, the chicken, beef, salmon and egg w/cranberries and spinach and she loves it.   When I was feeding her kibble, if she didn't eat it after 15 minutes, I would pick it up and put it away until dinner time and gave her no treats during the day but being a Cairn, she would hold out for a couple of days and I worried about her doing that.  Eventually I may try kibble again but as right now, it's Vital for her.

Edited January 10, 2017 by LindaMC

[Dempsy's Mom]

Elsie is a snubber - but give her long enough and she gives in or ... I break down and hand feed her.  Demps too will stick his nose up once in a while, but he is just holding out for something better.  They can be stinkers. 

[Min D]

We have had this problem recently- Tewcsby is now 10 months old, but about 1-1/2 months ago he started not wanting to eat.....I tried everything, then I did a bunch of research and found a site that made sense to me and used their tips ( if I can find the link I will post it later) a few things I learned -

Basically there are two types of dogs - one that eats everything at any time and the other - eats when hungry.

Dogs generally are not grazers, in the wild they usually eat once a day  or so and eat it all at one time.

Some of the questions you need to answer: 1) are they an only dog? - no competition for the food . 2) is there food always available to them - no need to eat it right away 3) do you get anxious when they don't eat - they feel the emotion, there were several others but they were the main ones.

We had made an appointment with the vet just to make sure there was nothing wrong, but decided to maybe try before the appointment which was three days away. Tewcsby had been given food 2-3 times a day, and different kinds of food , dry, treats, and the main food was raw ( with a mix of veggies etc in it 1/2 cooked - I just can't do the totally raw thing)  currently we are in Florida and he is eating "primal" . He basically snubbed his nose at anything and it appeared to be getting worse.

What we did -

picked up all the food

fed him once a day

Laid the food down, stood by , waited 1-2 minutes if he didn't eat it picked it up and put it away. 1st night

Never fed him anything ( no treats nothing) until the next supper time put the food down stood by waited - he ate about 1/3 rd, picked it up put it away. 2nd night.

After the third night of the same ritual - he ate the whole amount and has basically been ravenous every supper time .

We have added back some treats and give him dry food - a bit at lunch time or in the evenings, but he is very interested in having supper and looks forward to his food.

we never leave any food laying around.

We cancelled our vet appointment.

The first 2 days were hard but we didn't waiver and it definitely worked - hopefully it will work for you.

Tewcsbys mom.

 

 

 

[Dogband1]

We have Reilly, our 4th, and he is somewhat uninterested in food.  He is a 15 month old super strong, full of energy CT for sure.  Our first CT was ravenous, and the 2nd/3rd- brother and sister ate anything immediately to prevent the other from getting it.   We put out 1/3rd of Reilly's food in the morning and occasionally he will eat some, but mostly he waits past 4pm.  Then we give another 1/3 at 6 or 7pm.  Then final 1/3 is put out a bit later.  If he has not touched it by 9, it is picked up, and he will be more likely to eat tomorrow morning. 

You have many good suggestions listed above, but you may want to also consider these:

--put a few kibbles here and there, some just above nose reach on the corner of a table, hidden behind chair legs, etc.  Some easy to get to, some difficult to get.  Our guy will sometimes give it a sniff and walk away, or at others times eat the "hidden" kibbles and nothing else, and at others eat the "hidden" kibble and go and eat.  If nothing else, it is a fun game for the dog.

--put some kibbles in a rolling ball designed with a small hole, to allow a kibble to drop out here and there.  He will generally eat all of these in the ball.  If this does not work with his regular kibble, add just a very few from a sample bag of some different kibble [different smell] to the rolling ball to stimulate his interest. 

--take him to a buddies house that has another dog, preferably with a bowl full of a different type of kibble out.  Our boy will eat anything at another dog pal's house-------therefore he does not have an eating problem, he just wants to eat, when he wants to eat, or not at all.

--make sure he is getting lots of good long walks and exercise. Reilly gets a minimum of 2 mile walk per day, sometimes 3 or more plus play time.  Energy out at some point must be replaced by energy in .............he will eventually eat. 

Cheers to a long and healthy, sometimes stubborn, life with Teddy.  The stubbornness is just one of the many traits we adore. Right?

Edited January 21, 2017 by Dogband1