How do I cure a fussy eater?

[Coconutter]

Had a dog for two months. She is a rescue dog and is six. Not been mistreated, good natured, well-behaved, except when it comes to eating!

I feed her twice a day, Skinners complete which I put a bit of water in (she won't touch it otherwise). Sometimes she eats straight away but usually she sniffs it and walks away. I leave it five mins, try again, and if she still doesn't eat it after five mins I take it away until the next mealtime, which is what the rescue enter advised. Trouble is, often she'll do the same thing the next mealtime!

I don't feed her lots of treats, and often nothing else apart from her food. She was on Wainwrights and I switched but she was the same on that. She is in good health and no worrying or changed behaviour. Any advice appreciated as I'm worried she'll lose too much weight!

Some dogs just find plain kibble a bit boring. Mix it up a bit by occasionally adding things like a handful of diced ham or meat, pilchards or tuna, a raw egg, liver occasionally, leftover juices from a casserole, etc etc. Things like the oily fish and egg will also be good for her coat.

I'd also consider trying a different variety of kibble by the same mfr - lots of then do sample/treat sizes so may be worth experimenting.

The only problem is if I mix other stuff in with it she roots that out and leaves the rest!!

I'm a bit tougher with food! I suspect you're feeding more than she needs. How much food are you giving and how much does she weigh?

She weighs about 31kg; I'm feeding her about 4-450g per day which is at the lower end of what the dog food bag says

Ignore the bag! The bag lies.

I'd try feeding her 310g split over 2 meals a day and see if that sharpens her up. I have found that 10g of food per kg per day works pretty well for mine, (Labradors) they would be as fat as barrels on more than that.

I won't pander to mine, unless they're ill when they are hand fed delicious chicken and scrambled eggs.

Agree with Daisy.

Reduce the amount of food at each meal and keep doing what you're doing with regard to taking the food up after minutes or so and offer nothing else until next meal time.

A healthy dog won't starve itself. One of mine went on hunger strike for about 12 weeks as a youngster. She looked awful but was fine, had plenty of energy etc despite surviving on just a few mouthfuls of food a day (she's a giant breed). Sometimes nothing at all for a few days. She has never been particulalry food motivated. Some dogs just aren't.

I have had the same issues with my black lab (if ull believe it)! I have come to the conclusion that he will starve himself (nothing physically wrong with him) and ive tried every trick in the book! so my solution is variety. I switched him from to James Wellveloved as it has several flavours you can switch between without causing issues. That does the trick most of the time otherwise I add a quarter pack of Nature Diet which is very dense and sticks to all the dried stuff.

Good luck!