Help needed - dog off his food

[Racinglikeapronow]

First time dog owner plus worrier and hoping all the experts here can help. Sorry this is long.

Puppy is 7 months old. Always been a fussy eater but we found a combo of nuts and essentially those cooked raw foods you can get custom made he was happy to eat - not running over but eating it all in one go. He’s apparently allergic to chicken (we think more likely grass/pollen but he’s too young to get tested) so he’s been on lamb/beef/turkey.

2 weeks ago he was out of sorts and barely eating/struggling to get him to feed. Took him to the vet who said his gums were swollen and inflamed - likely allergic reaction and gave us an anti inflammatory cream. Since then his mood has improved, but his appetite hasn’t.

He is eating - 200g of nuts a day soaked in milk (morning & evening) but he looks at us like we are trying to poison him when we put his food down and runs away to hide in his bed. Eventually he will eat it with a lot of coaxing and eating it out of our hands not the bowl (takes up to half an hour to feed him 100g nuts).

He went to stay at my mothers who feeds her farm dogs very cheap food (think products of meat origin, oil, grain on the ingredients) when he wouldn’t eat his food she gave hers and he did eat it all up straight away. We tried him with it later on ourselves and he was less interested but more interested than in our food. He was a bit more into his food (as in he would eat with less coaxing) when we topped his nuts with the cheap stuff.

What do we do? We’ve tried putting human food in with his nuts (cheese/salmon), we’ve tried him on a nice smelly fish wet food with nuts etc. We don’t want to swap him to the cheap food - his poos were dreadful for a start and they’re usually perfect and it seems bad for him. But he’s not enjoying his food at all.

Should we take him back to vet? Would it maybe be he associates his bowl with pain of eating with a sore mouth and we should get a new one?

You are being played! He's worked out that if he is picky, he gets offered cheese, salmon...

Assuming his mouth is healed and there's no underlying health issue, I would decide on what you want to feed. I would measure out an appropriate portion, put it in his bowl, and put it down. I would entirely ignore him for 10 minutes, before picking it up.

I would repeat at the next meal time.

It will probably take two or three days, but he will work out that the cheese-fairy is no longer paying out.

(I'd also stop soaking his kibble in milk, as that's not great for them. Warm water is fine if his mouth is sufficiently sore it needs softening.)

I don’t think it’s that. When I said we put tuna / cheese in his food what I meant is it didn’t make any difference - he still wouldn’t touch it and he usually loves titbits of those. He just acts like it’s going to hurt him and will run away. Have to lure him over and hold him and try hand feed him telling him he’s a good boy etc.

Not sure what to do. Also tried the he will eat if he’s hungry but he wouldn’t eat the whole day so we didn’t want him to start getting weak too.

I too think you’re being played!
Have to lure him over?
He’s worked out that there are benefits to not eating. Something different to tempt him next meal. A fuss being made.
If vet check and fine then pick a decent food and stick with that. Offer a small amount. If it’s eaten then offer more next meal. If not then offer even less next meal.
No treats. No added extras.

Adolescent dogs become very fussy re food - or, at least, many do. Yours has the added complexity of the mouth reaction.

I'd get a vet check to confirm medically all looks fine and then I'd hold firm. Two meals a day, only dog food, limited treats (preferably the same food as dinner, e.g. nuts). Anything uneaten is picked up after about 15 mins and he waits until the next meal.

If you want to go easy on him then feed the cheap stuff now and slowly change back to his normal food, swapping about 10% more each day.

Two weeks is not very long to recover from the swollen mouth. My guess would be that if you hold the line, he'll settle back to eating.