6 month old puppy has lost his appetite

[PuppyMonkey]

Our daft golden retriever pup usually snaffles anything in sight and wolfs his meal down before you can blink. For most of this week, though, he’s been decidedly uninterested and I have to coax him to eat a bit at a time, and he’s still leaving loads.

He does however seem totally fine otherwise, running around the house like a mad sod and happily going walkies twice a day, all waggy tailed and cocky.

He’s on Royal Canin puppy maxi, and tbh when I’ve tried to introduce another brand gradually etc, we’ve had terrible runny poos and sickness. So we’ve always ended up giving up on that and sticking with RC.

Should I just continue seeing how we go as he seems perfectly ok in himself and he is eating bits. Or do we need to see vet?

I do think Xmas and the kids being off school, visitors etc has upset his routine and he’ll be glad to get back to normal.

TIA.🐕

Vet, it's been going on too long

Hmm, you may be right alan - although I just tried a bit of wet food that my sister left here (when she brought her dog round for a visit the other day) and he’s devoured that in one go!

Is the RC kibble?

Because kibble is really boring to a dog. We feed wet now because my dog can't digest kibble very well but before we found that out food time was a constant battle to get him to eat. You can get good quality wet food which is much smellier and tastier for them.

It is dry kibble yes, Bitey. I suspect it is a food boredom thing, the way he ate that wet pouch earlier, he certainly didn’t look like a dog with sickness etc.

Will try maybe mixing the wet and dry together first? Is that the best way if I’m going to move over?

I mixed the dry with wet simply so I didn't waste what I had already bought

He's teething and his gums hurt to eat dry food. Soak the food with water for a few weeks and slowly introduce dry food. It'll pass.

Thanks both. I do soak the dry food with water usually Sarah, he’s still not interested in the slightest this week.

I have quite a bit of kibble to use up, so maybe mixing some good quality wet food in with it could be the way forward. Although I suspect it’ll end up with him getting the runs.

Mix a bit of meat through the kibble, although it's a "complete" food it's not very interesting. But I'd also go with the teething suggestion if he's happily taking wet food.

If he wasn't eating at all I'd say "vet", but as it's just kibble he's rejecting I'd just change his diet to something softer. Mix through wet food up to 50:50 with his kibble, remember to adjust quantities appropriately.

Thanks again all. He’s managed to get most of his kibble down with a bit of coaxing (and added cheese ) but he’s definitely not his usual ravenous self. Still energetic, waggy tailed and up for a game of ‘throw the stick’ though.

Maybe it’s teenage hormones.