Hello so my 10 week old lab has lost interest in her food.. it is so hard to feed her. I have to keep directing her to the bowl. She is healthy and has no health issues. She is growing healthily. I give her vegetables and she loves them and eats them within seconds, But it is getting increasingly difficult for her to eat her own puppy food.. it takes me 1 hour sometimes to get her to finish and now a days she doesn’t finish sometimes.. Any suggestions? Is this normal and what can I do to help her eat? Thanks!
pick a type of dog food, like a kind of kibble with a healthy high rating. stick to that type of food without exception. even for giving treats only use that kibble. pick 3 or 4 times a day when your puppy will be having her meals and stick to them religiously. after 20 or 30 minutes if she hasnt eaten the food pick it up and store it somewhere dry and keep it covered. and stop worrying.
So, here are the problems: The dog should eat because they want to eat and are hungry. They are not doing you a 'favour' by eating, and it should not become a situation where you are urging the dog to eat and they are resisting, or you are just setting yourself up for a whole lifetime of problems. I think perhaps you should conclude from this that she simply doesn't need the quantity of food you are attempting to get her to eat. Honestly, no healthy dog has ever starved themselves. I can't fathom spending an hour trying to get a dog to eat!! The reason why this is such a bugbear of mine, is because it is directly related to training. You NEED a food-motivated dog to be able to train. And there is so much training to do, that you need to do a huge amount of it in the house with young puppies. And you need to use their regular food to do this with, or they will end up the size of a house if you are using additional treats on top. You should not be feeding your puppy the amount specified on any packet or tin. You should be looking at your puppy's size and weight and deciding whether they are overweight, underweight or about right - and adjusting from there. Forget about what the packet says, they are always too generous in the recommended quantities...obviously it is in their interest, the more they can get your puppy to eat and you to buy... So: 1. Reduce the amount of food you are feeding by at least half, for at least 3-4 days. Your puppy will not die. For now, do not give other food, such as vegetables or treats or chews - since the puppy will just fill up on those, like a kid eating dessert and skipping nutritious main courses. 2. Put the food down at certain times of day (meal times) and remove it after 3 minutes if the puppy walks away from it. 3. Do not offer any further food to the puppy, until the next meal time. When you do the same again. Do not take pity on the puppy and think she must be hungry because she didn't eat breakfast and offer it to her sooner - no more, until the next meal time. Food is available at certain times of day. It is not freely available. Resources which are not freely available are valued more. If you ate chocolate all day, you would not value it as much as someone who has a treat once a week! You can find a similar version of this here: http://www.sue-eh.ca/page24/page39/ Once you have a relatively more food-motivated puppy, the next stage is to use that motivation and train with meals - stopping training as soon as you see a lack of interest in the food and putting it away until the next meal time.
