We definitely have the least foodie lab. Whenever we feed Harley we have stood around encourging her to eat because we have had such issues with her not wanting her food. Lately DH has suggested that she is more likely to start eating if he turns away or moves away. We experimented with me and her and she will stand a little bit away from her bowl and look at it until I move away or turn away. Now we have never taken her food away or punished her in any way for eating her food, if anything we have encouraged it because she is a picky eater. We train with treats and she loves that. So I really don't know. We do not use any aversive techniques or dominate her in anyway. She is such a sensitive lab that we are very careful. Can anyone suggest an idea?
We generally eat when Harley eats so don't have this issue, but when another dog is here she won't eat in the same room as them or us, she wants to be alone to eat so we usually put her in the kitchen and close the door for a few mins. She will eat if we do this.
Is she otherwise keen to eat? Have you always used the same food? The reason I ask is because of our Springer Max. Until a year of age, we had terrible trouble getting him to eat and he was in danger of being too lean. One day, we ran out of his food and it wasn't available in the shop we could get to, so we had to buy a different food. Oh boy, it immediately became obvious why he was reluctant to eat - he hated his food. This new stuff was wolfed down in second and he never looked back. Stupid of us possibly, but it never occurred to us that he just didn't like his grub
Maybe it was too much encouragement? Lucky gets nervous if I get over the top with encouragement, because he associates it with having to do things he doesn't want to do. He thinks, oh I know this game when she really wants me to do something it's probably going to end up with me in the bath so I'll just go lie in my bed and ignore her until she acts normal again... Sometimes, we can put too much pressure on our dogs to do something, or to play with a particular toy or game, and it has the opposite effect!
For what ever reason Harley is not happy to start eating if you are close or watching and you already know that if you move away she will start to eat. So prepare her food without any fuss, place it on the floor and give her the cue to eat and then just move away and leave her to it. Once you have established a new routine and she is eating happily you can try moving closer while she is eating to prevent any potential resource guarding or you can just leave her to eat in peace.
My first thought is the same as @lucky_dog; sometimes trying to be encouraging can actually be stressful for our dogs, and makes them less likely to do what we're after. Especially with food - it may be the opposite of resource guarding; she's trying to avoid conflict by not taking the food when there's someone else around, in case they start to defend it. I'd just leave her to it
I really didn't think of it in this way, and this would be completely true to her personality type. And yes, we are only short two pairs of pom poms the way we cheer her on to eat. And we realised that was a bit much so now only one of us feeds her at a time. And just to add, we have a very joyful food ritual where we go fetch her bowl and she carries with us herself, it is so adorable. She puts it down next to the food bin and waits for her supper eagerly. Also if we don't watch the time and it gets to 18h00 and we haven't made supper for her she will continously touch us on our legs with her nose. So I know she wants the food. @FayRose we have had this issue pretty much from about 4 months old age. At first we blamed teething, then we blamed her being tired from play or puppy class or whatever, because labs love food right? She we originally had her on Royal Canin Maxi Junior, then at about 9 months we swopped to Hills large breed puppy because she was still eating without enthusiam unfortunately it didn't change with the swop to Hills. Now we are in the process of swopping to the Acana Heritage Large breed puppy food. And I must say that she likes the Acana very much. It may be the novelty but I think she will continue liking it. As far as does she eat well in general - I use very tasty treats for her for training and Kongs and then her high value treats are the foods she LOVES. And she is always happy to take a treat with great glee. I think she sees her bowl of food and her treats differently. But she is not a dog that will take food off counters, even though she can reach, and she will have a smell and a lick at something but she is often very fussy. But unfortunately for poor Harley she is pudgy, so even though she doesn't eat much she is a well rounded young dog. I am hoping the change from food with grains in will help with that too. Thank you so much for everyone's replies
Why not ditch the food bowl altogether, and just use her whole kibble allowance as training treats? Dogs don't need anything in a bowl - set meal times are a very human construct. It's not something I've done 100% yet; with three dogs, there's simply not enough time in the day for using all their allowance in training! But, Luna gets 15 pieces of kibble at meal times, that's all!
I think too much encouragement might be the reason. I put Hattie & Charlie's food bowls down together, give them their cue and I leave the room. x
From everything I've recently read on canine nutrition removing grain from the diet will probably make no difference to pudginess . Ruling out any health problems which may impact there is one cause for pudginess - too many calories in food and treats even if those treats are 'healthy' foods they still contain sugars/calories.
