Hey!
I haven't been in here for awhile...my apologies.
Sheba, my 4 year old Yorkie-Poo gets dry food for breakfast and canned for dinner.
She's very stubborn and is
everything to me so she plays that to the hilt!!
With the dog food recall going on, I have switched her food to ones that don't have questionable ingredients although, at this time who knows what is questionable and what isn't, you know?
I log onto the FDA site before every meal to make sure that what I'm about to feed her hasn't been recalled and I've bought a few different brands to keep on hand in case one is recalled so that I will have a back-up.
I have no problem getting her to eat the healthy canned food for dinner.
My problem is getting her to eat dry food for breakfast.
Sheba won't eat any dry food other than Beneful which is full of fillers and has dyes in it.
I'm at my wits end.
I don't want her to eat fillers.
I want her to eat all healthy food!
I went through this a few years ago...trying all of the healthy dry dog foods but eventually the vet convinced me to give her whatever she'll eat because they need dry food for healthy teeth but I'm not satisfied with that EVEN THOUGH I feel relatively confident that she is getting enough nutrients with her dinner.
I want her to eat ALL good food!
I had thrown out my Beneful dry after reading some discussion groups in which I found a few who have gotten sick from Beneful but nothing's been verified...
yet!
I saved a baggie full of Beneful for the transition though.
Right now I have 4 different bags of what the site dogfoodanalysis says are good foods and I've been trying all of them but she won't touch any of them.
I bought a bag of the Pro Plan dry food yesterday but she won't even give it a try. I have Nature's Recipe dry food, and a Science Diet brand that is slightly healthier than the Beneful but is also full of fillers. My friend recommended it because it's similar to Beneful and we thought we could trick Sheba.
I've been trying to get her to eat Authority dry food which I like it's quality for the last few week but she's more stubborn than I am. The only way she'll even give it a wiff is if I add some Beneful dry food in with them and most days she just eats the Beneful out of it and leaves the good stuff behind...
BUT she's still hungry because she barks at the table where her food bowl sits and pushes her nose into my hands and points to food bowl! (I can't leave her bowl down all day because of our 13 year old Sheltie will eat it)
I've tried gravies, I've tried dribbling toppers on it that I got from Petsmart and I've tried adding a small bit of reduced sodium chicken broth on it and heating it up. (she won't eat dinner unless it's at the right temp so I figured if it was warm maybe she'd eat it)
I've tried dribbling boiled chicken on it, scrambled eggs, etc.
I've also tried just putting plain Authority out and waiting for her to get hungry enough...all she does it go outside and eat grass to fill her tummy.
(she is one of those that just likes eating grass sometimes...)
My question is this...
Since it's important for them to eat dry food for teeth health and digestive systems, should I cave in and just give her the Beneful and feel confident that she's getting her nutrients she needs at dinner or should I keep trying?
Thanks you guys!! I want to do the right thing but maybe I'm over stressing about it.
Donna