Puppy not eating meals

[Sofabitch]

I think I've over done the treats for training. (Which is going really well) but now puppy is so fussy! He won't eat his food. I buy really good quality food and treats. Which i think is the problem. I've tried weighing out his daily kibble allowance and using that for treats but he just takes it and puts it down and walks off! (Usually I'd mix it in with his food as I'd prefer him to be on kibble in long term.

Hes still full of energy and looks fine. So i don't think he is ill.

But this morning I put his food down. He sniffed it and then came to me and started doing tricks .

How do i get him to eat his meals.! Is it really just a case of not giving him any treats until he is hungry? I mean he should be hungry now. He didn't eat more than 1/5 of his meals yesterday and has had nothing all night. He got 2 tiny treats for going to the toilet outside this morning before breakfast.

He is 13 weeks and weighs 3kgs so not huge

My dog is now over 1 years old and I have spent months trying to get him to eat. I have good quality kibble but he used to eat it then sniff at it. I then mixed it with a bit of scrambled egg or cheese and he would eat it and then turn his nose up again after a few days or weeks.

I finally understood that he just gets bored with the same thing day in day out (even if I ate fillet steak everyday I would get bored after a while). I have found the sweet spot for my dog is good quality (not high street) wet food with a bit of kibble for crunch (70% wet 30% kibble). I alternate three flavours over the week and no matter what other treats he gets he does a little spin and devours his meals now which he never did on just kibble or the same flavour wet.

What I am saying is that it may not be the treats but more that the kibble doesn't smell that exciting (compared to wet, cooked or raw) and you may have to experiment with what works for your dog.

Have you tried soaking the kibble? Just pour a bit of boiling water over it and leave to cool. Smells horrendous, but that may be a good thing for your puppy! Long term as Bitey says, you'll probably need to mix flavours or add something more exciting.

When we got him he was eating wet trays. So i slowly mixed in kibble over 2 weeks (only up to about 50:50) But he stopped eating what I put down. I tried soaking it etc

We've tried raw. He ate it great for 1 day and then started refusing.

So (after a week of refusing) I went and got some good quality wet trays. He ate the first meal. But has refused everything since.

I'm mixing 70% wet with 30% kibble. And its good quality 80/20.
When he is really hungry he might eat 1/3 of what I put down. He is still weeing and pooing (a lot!) So he must be getting enough.

This morning I just put down wet. And still barely ate any and only with lots of encouragement.

I've been persisting with each attempted change for a week.

I even bought some sodding doggy gravy to mix and make it smell more appealing.

Oh dear even writing that sounds like I'm spoiling him.

the image of your pup doing tricks for more exciting good made me smile. Very sweet.

Is he on dry or wet or a mixture? I mix cooked eggs or bits of chicken, sardines in with my dog's food as she's not keen on just kibble.

Sorry, massive cross posts. I thought I'd posted ages ago when there were no replies but it didn't go through!

As a puppy mine was never really that hungry in the morning. Does he have a preference for certain meal times? If so maybe feed less in the morning and more throughout the day.

Is it possible that you're expecting him to eat too much? Sorry if that sounds patronising, but if he's bright and happy, weeing and pooing, it may be that he just doesn't need much?

I assume you're allowing for the treats as part of his daily food intake. When mine was little her meals were sometimes tiny as she'd done so much training!

He didn't eat a single meal yesterday.

No treats all morning. Then he had puppy socialisation at lunch time..so had a lot of treats. So I just didn't offer him lunch. No treats all afternoon. Put his dinner down at 7pm and he didn't touch it.

I caved at 9pm and fed him some treats as I was starting to worry... he ate those fine. But I only gave him a few high quality treats.

He's just woken up so 10pm-7.30am no food offered yet.

He still seems bouncy and isn't listless or anything that would concern me.

I'm having this exact same issue with my 6 month rescue pup. She needs a lot of training having never lived in a house before although we're making good progress to say it's only been 6 weeks since she came to us. I'm trying not to panic too much as she's full of energy and is pooing/weeing normally. She's just not interested in her usual food which is good quality wet. Won't entertain kibble at all. She does get a raw chicken wing everyday and some fruit and vegetables to nibble too. I think we may end up feeding raw at some point but reluctant to change too much for her as its early days.

So he didn't eat breakfast at all. No treats all morning so I went out and bought a can of dog food. I also put it in the microwave for 10 seconds as I read that warming it helps release the smell and make it more tempting.

Wolfed it down. ...i think it might be the jelly/gravy. The trays I had bought are quite dry.

Have you also tried wet fish flavours. My dogs favourite flavour is salmon. Personally I hate the smell as I don't eat fish but he loves it.

We haven't tried wet fish. But switching to tinned food and microwaving it warm has done the trip... i now have the world most spoilt dog!

What sort of dog? My Vizsla often does not have a first meal till 6pm. Was like that as a puppy too. Just not that bothered. He is fighting fit and proper weight.