Puppy Not Eating His Kibble

[Mini_M]

We feed Milo, our 15 week old toy poodle, 2 meals a day of puppy kibble (Nutrience brand) and 1 of raw lamb. He only eats about 5-6 little pieces of kibble for those meals, and then wolfs down the meat in 20 seconds.

We've tried not giving him meat for a few days, but then he hardly eats anything. We've also tried soaking the biscuits in water but he's still not very interested in them. We've also tried a different brand of food (Artemis) but he's not interested in that either.

We've been told that his puppy kibble is important for him as it has the vitamins he needs, but it seems like he's not eating enough of it.

Any suggestions?

thanks

[luvsdogs]

They say dogs won't starve themselves. So you could try not giving him anything, except water, for a day & see if he'll eat his kibble the next morning. Are you taking up the kibble after say 10-15 mins? & waiting for the next meal?

Another suggestion is to put him on a totally raw meaty bone diet. Which would include a small amount of offal & table scraps.

http://www.rawmeatybones.com/

[Nekhbet]

kibble is quite a concentrated food source and he wont need much as it is much richer then meat. You would be suprised how little dogs actually need, and remember his stomach is tiny!!

You would be better off feeding him a chicken wing/neck then lamb to get him used to chewing and keeping his teeth clean :D

[Odin-Genie]

We feed Milo, our 15 week old toy poodle, 2 meals a day of puppy kibble (Nutrience brand) and 1 of raw lamb. He only eats about 5-6 little pieces of kibble for those meals, and then wolfs down the meat in 20 seconds.

We've tried not giving him meat for a few days, but then he hardly eats anything. We've also tried soaking the biscuits in water but he's still not very interested in them. We've also tried a different brand of food (Artemis) but he's not interested in that either.

We've been told that his puppy kibble is important for him as it has the vitamins he needs, but it seems like he's not eating enough of it.

Any suggestions?

thanks

You could try mixing a spoon full of mince or yoghurt with the kibble. That would change the taste. It worked well with my dogs when they were puppies.

[Sandra777]

Has he always been like this or is it a recent development? At 15 weeks he might be starting to teeth and from what I know of Toy Poodles (not a lot!) this can be a difficult process for some with retained teeth etc. Perhaps his mouth is sore and he doesn't want to chew. A bigger dog can swallow dry dog food whole, I don't think a TP could manage this. The meat would slide on down without chewing.

Also, raw meat is virtually always more appealing to any dog than dry biscuits so if he's not all that hungry he's obviously not going to bother with the boring stuff.

If he's always been a picky eater and you are definite about wanting to feed him dry food then try mixing his food with other things as mentioned. IMO you're a lot better off feeding him a raw food or BARF diet, but each to their own.

Edited February 10, 2009 by Sandra777