Some dog owners probably know that your dog is picky or a "small eater", which can be a bit frustrating. You could quickly become worried about whether the dog is now eating enough and thereby meeting its nutritional needs. Otherwise, it can be a bit of a jungle to find exactly what food the dog likes.
If you feed with a good quality dog food, the dog should be able to eat it. Pickiness is not natural for the dog, but unfortunately often something caused by the owner. The owner's behavior may be unconscious or with good intentions, but it is misunderstood love.
How does the dog get picky?
When you get your new puppy / dog home and at some point it has to change from puppy food to a young dog / adult food, the interest may decrease quite a lot. Everything new may be a little scary, but this is where we dog owners need to be strong. Many people may recognize that when the dog does not show interest in the food, we leave the bowl with the dry food standing and think "it eats enough when it is hungry". The bowl is still untouched for several hours after - maybe even until the same evening. Some may here think that the puppy must have some food in it and try to hand-feed it, which may arouse the dog's interest for a short moment because the food comes from our hand.
If the puppy still does not eat the whole portion, some may try human food. You might mix the infamous liver pate in the dry food and think "now it must eat", which it probably will too. The problem, however, is that it can happen that the dog in a short time bypasses the human food, so it either licks the liver pate off or sorts chicken pieces or whatever else we have mixed in the food from and only eats this. So leave the dry food in the bowl. Keep in mind that their noses are absolutely amazingly good so they are world champions in food sorting.
When you get to where the dry food is completely out of the picture and the dog sorts it out, you unfortunately have a bit of a problem as the dog will probably never eat his dry food as long as human food is an option.
So what to do?
If one reaches the point where the dog has become addicted to human food, there is still hope ahead. One must not lose hope even if it is going to take some time and discipline. There are various tricks in the dog book, but one should not expect a miracle overnight. In the following tips, of course, only the dog's dry food, and not dry food where human food is mixed in.
- Instead of letting the food bowl stand out all day, remove the bowl after 15 min. the times of the day when the dog gets food. The dry food loses its value if it is left out for too long and by only giving the dog the opportunity for food for a quarter of an hour, it quickly finds out that it has to stick to it. Also remember to store the dry food in a closed container so that freshness, taste and aroma are preserved.
- Leave the dog completely when it gets its 15 minutes to eat in. Give it peace and quiet so it does not feel monitored or pressured to eat. If necessary, insert the food bowl into another room and close the door so that the dog can take care of itself all alone in that room with the food. However, do not close the door if the dog has separation anxiety or something that makes it dislike being alone, so just walk away from it.
- Dogs are made to work and are nimble animals with good noses who love to be activated through play and training. Therefore, beat two birds with one stone and combine food with activation and nose work. This is done by taking the entire dog's portion of dry food and throwing it out on a lawn on a large scale, putting it into an activity ball, practicing training such as calls, sitting, tires, tricks and more. In this way, the food will increase in value as the dog must work for it and receive it as a reward.
- During this time when the dog has to get used to his dry food, avoid getting anything other than his dry food. Cut treats, chews and other snacks so the dog learns that it is dry-fed or nothing. This also requires that everyone in the household agrees that the dog should not have snacks or human food.
It may seem a bit harsh that you take such a turn from one day to the next, but the dog should probably learn it within a short time. Dogs are not harmed by not eating for some time, so do not worry if a few days go by. If it still refuses to eat and loses weight after some time - maybe a week or two, see a vet. It is individual from dog to dog and therefore an assessment by the owners on when to possibly. must see a vet, but as I said, dogs are not harmed by not eating for some time and this should work on even the most discerning dogs, if you have enough discipline as an owner.
