Puppy won't eat dry food
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Anonymous
| We adopted a 10 week old puppy from a rescue about 3 weeks ago now. We don't know her exact breed but we believe she's some type of Shepard mix. When we got her, they told us to give her wet food and then add in dry food as she was underweight and they wanted her to eat more wet food. Well we now have a puppy that pretty much refuses to eat dry food unless we mix in a lot of wet food with it. We have her on purina puppy chow and have been mixing in purina pro plan wet food. Unless we add in a good amount of wet food, she will just pick at it and barely eat it. She won't eat dry food on its own...I've even tried making it a little wet and still won't. I don't want her on wet food forever as it's getting expensive. She's over 3 months old now and is 15 lbs so no longer has weight issues. How do I get her to start eating just dry food? Do I try switching brands? |
Anonymous
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Try a different dry. If you can find Pulsar it's a great food.
Pure Bites chicken is a freeze dried treat you can crumble over the dry kibble to make it more exciting. |
Anonymous
| Add some water or chicken stock to dry food. Also. Better quality dog food. My dogs also like the grizzly fish oil added to their food |
Anonymous
| Boil 1 cup rice with a pack of ground chicken. Then get 1/2 teaspoon peanut butter-add 1 tbs hot water making gravy for the dry kibble. |
Anonymous
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A dry treat crumbled in the kibble is a good idea. My dog loves dried liver! It's best to keep the food dry so your dog's teeth and gums stay cleaner. If you switch brands, do it gradually because it's hard their tummy to make a sudden change.
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Anonymous
This. |
Anonymous
+1. We have a dog that was super picky when we adopted him. We had to find a food that worked for him first as it turned out the food we tried first upset his stomach badly. Once we found a food that didn't upset his stomach, he was still picky about his food so adding a little warm water did the trick. I think it was something about making the food smell a lot more since the warm water released all the stinky dog food smells. |
Anonymous
| We add a crumbled hard boiled egg to our dog's dry food. |
Anonymous
| OP here, thanks everyone. I tried wetting the food last night and that didn't help. Even tried adding more wet food to it and she still barely touched it. If I give her just wet food, she gobbles it up. I just don't want to start bad habits of having to always add something to the dry food to get her to eat. |
Anonymous
| I dont know why you want to continue with this power struggle with a puppy. Feed her what she likes. When she is older you might be able to renegotiate. Pets are expensive. |
Anonymous
If she no longer has weight issues, you may need to go cold turkey on the wet food. If we go a few days of giving one of our dogs extras with his food (carrots, plain yogurt, anything he considers a "treat") he comes to expect it and he'll go on a bit of a hunger strike if we stop adding the extras to his food. After a meal or two without the extras, he goes back to eating his food like normal, he's just hoping he can hold out and guilt us into giving him the treats again. Again, would only recommend doing this if the puppy is truly back up to healthy weight, if she still needs to pack on some pounds or is borderline, wait until she's more solidly in the clear before trying to get her to switch. |
Anonymous
Op here, thank you. She's up to 15 lbs as of a week and a half ago. When we got her, she was around 10 and they said she should be around 15 so now that she's gained the weight, she's where she should be. When we got her, you could see her ribs and now you can't see them so I'd definitely say she's doing well. I may try cold turkey and see what happens. I think she's just gotten spoiled with the taste of wet food and now doesn't want the dry. |
Anonymous
| I soak dry food in low sodium broth, they love it. |
Anonymous
My dogs get bored with their food every so often so I add the chicken/beef stock when they do, or yogurt. Every few months I will buy some wet food to mix in 1/3 rd to 2/3rds with dry food. The grizzly is daily over winter because it gets so dry. Water does not entice them back to their food. With a puppy on a food boycott, I may ween out the wet with a little less every day over a couple weeks and then none after that for several months. Or, go cold turkey. If the dogs gets hungry enough it will eventually eat. |
Anonymous
| I mix a little ground turkey, |