Should I stop offering vegetables if my dog will not eat them?

[flowerpot13]

I am home feeding but not raw feeding. My dog doesn't like any vegetables. I've been trying for months and smearing things on them she does like but they they go in the bin. She will eat some types of fruit though. I've been reading about their diet and they can't digest vegetables anyway and wouldn't eat it in the wild. So is it best to just not bother giving her any vegetables.

What wild dogs (that are actually descended from the same species) are you referring to?
Dogs as pets descended from grey wolves, thousands of years ago. They are omnivores and were fed scraps - both meat and veg then.
But yes, if your dog doesn't eat them then don't give them. But if you are feeding your dog home made food just make sure that they're still getting the minerals and vitamins they need. Most cooked meat without bones won't give them the calcium they need.
What about something like cottage pie (made dog safe) with pulsed veg through the mince? Have you looked at Lilys Kitchen recipes?
My dog doesn't eat vegetables either unless they are well smooshed in.

My spaniel and DD’s Labrador love all fruit and vegetable, my terrier doesn’t. She won’t even come into the kitchen if the blueberries and strawberries are in sight. Mine are raw fed, mostly completes, with veg included, sometimes 80-10-10 without veg. The terrier spits out any identifiable bits of carrot, sometimes grands have bigger pieces than others. But she’ll happily eat her food with a teaspoon from these baby food pouches (pure vegetable purée, nothing added). I could blend up purées myself but these cost pence and life is short.

To answer your question, dogs are facultative carnivores, not obligate carnivores like cats, and they can thrive without vegetables, but they will benefit from lots of nutrients that won’t be in meals consisting only of meat, offal and bone (and eggs and fish).

I recommend The Forever Dog, by Rodney Habib and Dr Karen Becker, and Feeding Dogs by Dr Conor Brady.

I bought the lilys kitchen book the other day but haven't had the time to look at it yet. She gets things like milk, yogurt, cheese and eggs for calcium and she will eat chicken drumsticks and fish. I sprinkle mint on for her teeth. So far though she has just eaten around vegetables or not eaten anything she likes if she knows there's a vegetable in it. It's like children 😂

Are you removing the bone from the chicken drumsticks? Cooked chicken bones can splinter and cause a lot of damage.

I used to put a wide variety of fruit and vegetables in my food processor and blitz it all up. Then I froze it in ice cubes tray. I added an ice cube to each meal.

https://honeysrealdogfood.com/pages/diy-raw-food

This link may help with some ideas and also has additional info re: feeding and options and nutritional requirements etc.

You’d be much better feeding a whole raw chicken or duck wing, or a raw drumstick, or raw baby pork rib, as a calcium source. Your dog won’t get enough calcium from adding dairy alone. Will it eat whole raw egg with the shell ( broken, obviously)?

Raw meaty bones will also clean teeth rather better than a sprinkle of mint, which might help its breath but will neither prevent nor soften plaque.

I second raw bones for teeth. My dog has always had raw bones from the pet shop and he has lovely white teeth / normal dog breath ( thinking about it, his breath isn't offensive when he breathes on me 😅 )

She is attracted to raw meat but the last time she had raw meat she became very unwell and needed stomach injections and some sort of medicine in a syringe so I'm a bit hesitant about that. I'm not sure how I would get raw chicken bones but I'll look into it.

You can buy a pack of raw fresh chicken wings from your butcher or at any supermarket, presumably where you buy drumsticks (or do you buy cooked chicken?), some have frozen packs, possibly cheaper than buying frozen wings from a pet food supplier! Waitrose and M&S fresh chicken wings have the wing tips removed, so there’s more meat for the same weight pack. You can rub or cut the skin off if you or your dog prefer, I did when my tiny terrier was a puppy but not now. Nutriment packs of frozen chicken wing tips are available at some raw pet food suppliers, Just For Pets has them, but they’re expensive for what you get.

A rack of fresh baby pork ribs (Waitrose or Morrisons) is easy to cut into portions depending on the size of the dog. My tiny girl just has one, the spaniel has two still joined together, the Labrador will have 3-4 joined as he’s swallow a single finger-length one whole! They have raw meaty bones about three times a week. I also give them fish 2-3 times a week, either sardines or mackerel canned in spring water, or frozen whitebait (from Morrisons) fed frozen. They like a spoonful of cottage cheese with it, or Greek yogurt or kefir.

I lightly cook up pork mince and rice or pasta and add crushed egg shells, dog friendly fruit, veg, herbs and spices. They also have raw chicken necks, sometimes giblets or liver.

We buy frozen chicken drumsticks from our butcher which they eat each breakfast time (frozen), then cooked meat and pumpkin or sweet potato and greens for their evening meal. Neither of them (husky and malamute) will eat supermarket chicken, nor will they eat minced meat, raw or cooked.
The advantage of a butcher for us is that they may give you freebies. Ours give out fresh chicken carcasses each Saturday and they love it as a weekend treat.
Just a tbought, but have you tried homemade gravy with your veg?

I homecook for my dog. I puree all the vegetables and fruit and mix them with the protein. This helps digestion and my dog can’t pick the vegetables out of the bowl.

What are you talking about? Dogs are omnivores and absolutely would eat veg in the wild. Their teeth are literally those of omnivores and made to eat both veg and meat. If you are not getting the balance right doing the food yourself then you need to revert to a shop bought food that will provide all the vitamins and minerals it needs. Clearly it just doesn’t like what you are giving it.

I hope the drumstick has had the bone removed

DO NOT feed raw chicken bones!!!!!!! They will splinter!!!!

Gosh my dog adores vegetables, particularly beetroot. Makes his 💩 a worrying shade of dark purple. Most fruit apart from citrus.

Cooked chicken bones splinter. Raw ones are fine.

If you are home cooking please consult with a nutritionist to ensure your recipe is going to meet your dog’s needs. Dietary imbalances can seriously impact your dog’s health.

Raw feeding vastly increases the chance your dog will carry bacteria that can cause serious human health issues (we don’t eat raw chicken, but if you feed it to your dog and then your dog licks your face you’re achieving the same thing…) If there are young children or immunosuppressed people in the home, it’s strongly advised against.

Only cooked bones splinter raw is absolutely fine and great for cleaning teeth I've raw fed for 9 years now .

My staffie will eat anything apart from lettuce. We play whack-a-mole with a frozen carrot which she is allowed to eat once she 'catches' it. Basically a cardboard box with holes cut out of the top and I poke the carrot through the holes quickly. Could you do something like that? Make a game of it?

I've raw fed 9 years and i see this absolute nonsense all the time i have had 5 children in that time 1 premmie and not once and anyone got ill i open the food in their bowls on the floor and just use normal hygiene practices like i would handling any raw meat .

Nonsense is an interesting word to use there. You’re one household, in a population of many thousands of raw feeders, so your experience isn’t statistically significant and can’t be extrapolated across a population with a diverse microbiome, diet, immunity, and feeding practices. If you’d like some actual science, here are some papers - but feel free to dismiss the NLM as nonsense if that works better for you, or if your qualifications in that area are more robust than the people who wrote these papers.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8455362/

https://www.bva.co.uk/news-and-blog/blog-article/is-it-safe-or-advisable-to-feed-my-dog-or-cat-a-raw-meat-based-diet/

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC339295/

What sort of veg and fruit and how are you giving it?

Our dog is long passed but used to love a brussel sprout stalk and would take it off and gnaw at it for hours, also a carrot, would hold it in his little paws (big paws actually) and eat it like he was a rabbit or something. Whole apple, would get that and take it to a corner in case anyone took it off him and eat round the whole thing and just leave the stalk and seeds.

If it isnt meat, dairy or peanut butter (or the occansional croissant flakes) then ny French Poodle turns her nose up. Literally.

They only way I have ever got her to eat veg is my making it a pesto consistency and the n stirring it through the 80/10/10. She has no choice, will refuse the first few bowls of this and then relent when hunger takes over. I do this occasionally.

She absolutely hates fruit and veg. I don't stress over it.