manj

Hi all,

My dobe is a very picky eater. He also gets bored of the same food very quickly. I used to leave his food out all day but now i have just started to bring it out once in the morning and once in the evening for half hour or so. If he does not eat it i put it away. He is on dry food. On occasion i mix in things into his food. But once i do it more than a few times he just stops eating it.

For example the first few times i used to mis eggs into his food he used to eat straight away, now he just treats it like normal food. The same goes for putting gravy on his food. Even fish at times.

On some days he is good but most of the time he will only eat in the evenings. And there have been many occasions where he has just starved himself for 2 days. He is just being stubborn and wants to eat what we eat. Does anyone here have any tips? He cant be ill because he will eat treats or what we eat when he is starving himself.

Thanks.

michael327

Just a thought - if you give him treats and what you eat "when he is starving himself", then could be that is what he is holding out for. You are reinforcing his not eating what you put down and he is getting you to give him other things. Smart little human behaviorist.

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"Life is just an experience, having nothing to do with good or evil, acceptance or rejection. Having realized that one has nothing left to do but laugh. - Long Chen Pa

In his grief over the loss of a dog, a little boy stands for the first time on tiptoe, peering into the rueful morrow of manhood. After this most inconsolable of sorrows there is nothing life can do to him that he will not be able to somehow bear. " - James Thurber


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manj

Thats true, but im not actually doing that. Ive tried that just to make sure he isnt ill and still eats, but i dont usually do that. What your saying is correct though.

On this topic is it ok for him to eat once a day or should they eat twice a day?

michael327

I feed mine three smaller meals a day, keeps them from getting too hungry and a little easier on the digestive system IMHO. They are 9 months. Will switch to two meals in a few. Also make them work for it. They now automatically go to their crates while I prepare their meals and wait till I say ok to come out. Before that I was getting mauled while preparing, had to stop that.

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"Life is just an experience, having nothing to do with good or evil, acceptance or rejection. Having realized that one has nothing left to do but laugh. - Long Chen Pa

In his grief over the loss of a dog, a little boy stands for the first time on tiptoe, peering into the rueful morrow of manhood. After this most inconsolable of sorrows there is nothing life can do to him that he will not be able to somehow bear. " - James Thurber


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TracyJo

You might want to check out this thread: Wyatt's First Match: + question on feeding
Post number 7 to be specific - DobeBug gives great advice on feeding and information on young doberboys in particular. Hope it helps!

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~Tracy

Doberman Talk Store

voodoolizard

zeus is a picky eater.

we had advice to put a small amount of hot water on his dry food as it brings out the smell and is more inticing.

we feed morning and evenning, and the warm water on food worked a treat !!

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Zeus,Missy & Clare

dobermansrule

one suggestion: be rigid in your feeding schedule. Feed twice a day, twelve hours apart. so pick how much kibble you want to feed a day, and divide in half. So if 4 cups a day, feed 2 cups for breakfast - pick a time - and 2 cups for dinner, twelve hours later. Put the food down, count to five. If the dog starts eating, let him eat. If he stops and walk away before finished, pick the food up. Don't say anything, don't make a deal of it, just pick the food up. Next meal, feed half of what he ate - so if he ate 1 cup then walked away, at dinner, feed 1/2 cup only. If he eats it, then at breakfast next day, offer 1 cup. Points: don't leaev the food out more than 15 minutes - that's his eat it or lose it window. Basically you are teaching the dog to eat and making the food an extremely valued commodity to the dog. And dont' feed anything else while you are teaching to eat.

There is lots of advise from those more experienced than I, but one day I and other newbies will be old timers with experience. But take this as current advise as I am living with a picky eater and what I described above is working. Where it has failed in the past is where we screwed up - not the dog - in not adhering to the schedule and plan.

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Please, pardon my obsession with doberbutts - they are cute you have to admit

Murreydobe

This is textbook behavior for a dog who's manipulating the owner by playing the food game. The stakes ALWAYS get raised, and it creates a never ending spiral of finding something new to put in their food to tempt them to eat.

I feed twice a day. If they don't eat, the bowl gets picked up after 10 minutes or so and they go hungry until the next regularly scheduled feeding.

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CH. Birchrun Who's On First, aka Razzle
Foxfire N KO Simply Madness WAC, aka Connor

WorkingInSTL

One caveat here...make certain the dog is healthy. If you are certain that there is no physical reason the dog is not eating, then, as everyone else has pointed out, the dog is simply trying to hold out for something better.

There is no documented case of a healthy animal ever voluntarily starving themselves to death. I really like the suggestion dobermansrule gave about teaching the dog that food is a valuable commodity. The version I have learned is a little more hardcore than that, but regardless, picky eating is a learned behavior, and the dogs brain can be rewired to look at food as something that should never be passed up.