My puppy will not eat!

[onesojourner]

When we got our 9 week old puppy he was on that purina puppy junk and we switched him over to Canidae all life stages. My breeder free fed him so food has never been anything he ever gets excited about. we took him in for his 13 week check up and the vet said he needs to eat more. He just wont eat any more. He has the option. He seems to eat the food better if we splash some water over it but he still wont eat all of it. we are trying to get him to eat 1/4 cup 4 times a day. he might eat 1/8 of a cup on average. if we put water on it some times he its it all sometimes he wont. but once its wet we have to throw it out.

I have found a local pet store that sells nutro and Nature's Variety. both seem to be good quality food. Are there any other suggestions? I have also thought about the CANIDAE Lamb Meal and Rice Formula. does any one have better luck with any of those?

[oscar's mom]

I think all puppies go through this stage of not wanting to eat.

You propably have to put him in his kennel a couple of times a day so he will eat being undistracted. Or else you can try to hand feed him(pain in the butt)!

I personally love candiade for my dog, i think i give him the lamb formula.

Antonietta

[pkcrossley]

it's possible your puppy would prefer another flavor, but overall it sounds like the breeder managed to spoil your puppy's eating habits in a fairly short period of time. first you have to get him eating, then it seems like you have to provide him an environment that will nurture the best eating habits.

congratulations on getting him on a good food and off the junk food. if you temporarily put him on a dry food only, no treats, no free-feeding regimen, it may direct his attention to the idea that when the food appears in the bowl is the golden opportunity, he who hesitates is lost. keep him very active to work up his appetite. but you can't have him going without food if he should be stubborn (that wouldn't happen of course), so perhaps you need to both doctor the food and rotate the brands rapidly both to keep him interested and to allow you to learn which brand he prefers. you can put beef or chicken broth on it to make it yummy (or add peanut butter or even a sweet nutrient paste). since the best foods don't stay fresh very long after the bag is opened, get the smallest bags you can get of three good brands, and rotate them (a pet store where i buy graciously provided me little sample bags of sold gold and evo, which helped he discover a lot about my dog's preferences). if he hasn't straightened out of it or indicated a strong preference, get three small bags of different brands the next time. as soon as you can, begin to taper off the broth, if you use it -the salt content is really high. if you find he eats with little or no broth, you can begin to introduce occasional nutritious treats.

don't let this drag on, and my personal advice would be --don't resort to canned wet foods to get him interested! the sooner you can get him oriented to dry food, the sooner you will avoid his developing a finicky attitude that could last the rest of his life.

[jimnconnie]

There are things you can add to his food that might pique his interest. Yogurt, cottage cheese, scrambled eggs, sliced raw baby carrots, and sliced raw green beans are a few suggestions. Also, you might have to withhold food for 24 hrs. to get him hungry enough to finish his meal. Give him ample time to finish his meal, then pick up his dish, whether the food is all gone or not, and make him wait until the next scheduled feeding. These are alternatives to jumping from one food brand to another unless you really have to. Good luck!

[onesojourner]

oscar's mom I have noticed that if we put him in his crate with his food he usually does eat most of it. that might be the answer but I don't know if thats a bad habbit to get in or not.

pkcrossley thanks for all the good advice. I really am trying to get him to eat but it seems he is more likely to go eat poop than he is to eat out of his bowl...

I will go out tomorrow and get a different food. I think I can also get Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul. Has any one tried that?

Puppy formula

Chicken, turkey, chicken meal, ocean fish meal, cracked pearled barley, whole grain brown rice, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), white rice, oatmeal, millet, potatoes, egg product, tomato pomace, duck, salmon, flaxseed, natural chicken flavor, salmon oil (source of DHA), choline chloride, dried chicory root, kelp, carrots, peas, apples, tomatoes, blueberries, spinach, dried skim milk, cranberry powder, rosemary extract, parsley flake, yucca schidigera extract, L-carnitine, Enterococcus faecieum, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Saccharomyces cerevesiae fermentation solubles, dried Aspergillus oryzae fermentation extract, vitamin E supplement, iron proteinate, zinc proteinate, copper proteinate, ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, potassium iodide, thiamine mononitrate, manganese proteinate, manganous oxide, ascorbic acid, vitamin A supplement, biotin, calcium pantothenate, manganese sulfate, sodium selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin, vitamin D supplement, folic acid.

[pkcrossley]

i don't see anything bad about having him eat in the crate. once he is on a regular feeding schedule and he knows there will be nothing in between, you might still put the bowl in the open crate and he might like eating in there. i don't think it is uncommon for dogs to retreat to their crate (unlocked) to eat. some feel very vulnerable eating in the open.

[hallswel]

Every one of mine is told go to your room, which is a crate, and I feed them in the Crate. The crate is home a cave of sorts, safe haven.

I don't free feed because I have one that would eat all day long. I like to control what they eat.

I feed mine nutro max, I like the way the coats look on my kids but there are many good foods on the market. Other things to think about when you decide on food. Is it tasty for the pup? How difficult will it be to get when you forget and run out. If it cost more are you committed to the extra expense?

[onesojourner]

alright I am still looking for a food that is comparable to canidae. I was hoping nutro would fit the bill but looking at the labels it looks like they are just a shady company. they break all their rice parts into about 5 separate ingredients so the chicken meal ect. will look like its the main ingredient even though it isn't.

right now I am debating between one of the canidae lamb or chicken and rice formulas, or Nature's Variety Instinct. What ever I decide to go with I want to be able to buy locally. I have one more pet store that might have something else.

[pkcrossley]

how about gold seal? innova evo? newman's own organic?

[onesojourner]

I will keep an eye out for those. hopefully this store that carries canidae will have one of those.

[onesojourner]

do you have a link for gold seal?

[Barney's Mom]

I used to feed Barney Canidae, and he loved it. But I got so tired of ordering it and paying the shipping costs to get it to me. There were NO pet stores or feed stores within a 50 mile radius of my town that sold it. I then switched to Newman's Own organic. Barney seems to like it, but as of late he has not been too interested in eating. It has been oppressively hot here, and I think that may be why. However, he seems to eat every bite when I am HOLDING his bowl! Go figure.... I don't want to get into the habit of having to hold his bowl when he eats, so I have been putting a bit of organic low sodium beef broth on it. He gobbles it down now!

I noticed that you are from Missouri. Do they have the Kroger grocery store chain down there? Kroger just started carrying the Newman's brand. I believe Meyer grocery stores are the same entity as Kroger. They may have the Newman's brand as well.

Good luck!!

[Cairnmania]

It is really important that puppies eat enough and if you have a fussy one I think it's more important he eats than you worry about food quality. I would buy the Purina puppy "junk" food and see if he eats it. If he does, I would stick with it until he's older. It is nutritionally balanced and it is not going to harm your puppy, that's for sure. It's not a poor quality food.

When he's older you can switch around until you find you're happier with and he prefers, but he's too young now for him to be underweight just because of food preference.

If going back to what he was used to does not work than I would either try mixing in some wet canned food. If he likes the canned food that's what I would use. Your breeder may have actually spoiled your puppy by free feeding. It makes housetraining harder, but as a last resort you could also see if that works for him.

[Aurora5000]

You might try mixing in a spoonful of Canidae canned food and mix it up well with the dry.

Barney's Mom... a lot of the feed and seed stores carry Canidae.

You can go to their website and look.

[pkcrossley]

why did i say gold seal? i think i meant solid gold (must have got it mixed up with the nefarious blue seal --my apologies).

[jodi0553]

When I moved last month, my dog stopped eating and lost a couple pounds. Our local store had a promotion on solid gold recently - they were selling bags for like $5/bag to get you to try it. We bought our regular canidae + 2 bags of solid gold and have been mixing as we switch him over. Currey has gone wild over solid gold. So much for trying to mix the foods to switch - he picks out each and every piece of the Solid Gold and leaves the Canidae behind!!! We have the "Mmillenia" and "Barking at the moon", although not feeding him only "barking at the moon" since it is a high protein formula. Also got some Innova Evo and Canidae wet and have been able to get him on a regular eating schedule with the incentive of getting a tablespoon or so of wet each meal.

[onesojourner]

We did used to have a kroger around here but they are all gone now. Foods that have fish worry me since anything other than human grade fish is preserved with something that has been shown to cause cancer.

[Posey]

Hi, our Cairn, Nicky was the same way when we brought him home. He would hardly eat

the puppy food. We tried every brand, I think out there. Until we found ""Wellness" he eats

it all the time now. The vet said that if I cooked for him to give him half cooked food and half

"Wellness". He is well and content now. They can be very picky. But when the dog food scare came from imported products used in dog food. We were happy he has been "Picky Nicky"

Your puppy may be teething too. Their gums hurt during this time. "Wellness" available at some groomers or on-line.

[Bailey's mom]

Hi --We had One year old Bailey on Canidae all stages, but; living in upper Maine in a very rural section, We had to buy it online and the shipping costs almost as much as the food did. We finally found, one comparable, if not better. Merrick. We switched Bailey over and not only did he NOT have a problem with the switch, but; we think it is better. There are all flavors.