my 4 year old 4lb. yorkie, Sammie, has always been a picky eater, but she's taken it to the extreme these past few months. oh, where to begin!!
for starters, she absolutely refuses to eat dry food-- we've tried all sorts of gourmet brands including chefs creations and ended up wasting a heap of money on untouched bags of food that other dogs would go crazy for.
for the past year, we've been feeding soft dog food.. mainly sticking to 1/4 cup of Beneful supper (roasted chicken recipe or beef stew.. is this stuff any good for yorkies? i'm beginning to doubt sammie's vet) for breakfast and dinner, all cut up into little bite sized pieces with fresh ingredients like steamed celery or bokchoy or chopped chick peas mixed in... occasionally a grating of parmasean or tiny dices of steak. We'd never fed her table food until we became seriously concerned that she would fall sick from malnutrition.. and even still, we only give her unseasoned and ungreasy things like pasta, rice, steamed fish, and tiny bits of apples or melons or other safe fruits.
the main problem now is that Sammie never eats something twice
. She will devour a bowlful of salmon one night and turn her nose away from it the next morning! she won't even have it the next week. i tried varrying things up by feeding her on a cycle (salmon with peas mondays, boiled chicken with greens tuesdays...etc), but once she's had something, never again
. the only food she's eaten more than once to the best of my memory was chickpeas.. and she never goes near them anymore. Alas, we're gotten into the habit of constantly changing things up for her, adding herbs to the fish the next day, steamed rice the next, and before we know it-- the food is more complex to prepare than my family's meal. We're running out of ingredients! at this rate, she'll stop eating altogether really soon..
The issue isn't so much that it's time consuming and costly, but that we're not even sure if feeding her this way is the right thing to do. if the family is busy one week (i go to school out of state) and are unable to prepare her food in advance, she'll just starve and lay on the carpet all day!
we'd ultimately love for her to start eating dog food again, but that's too ambitious for now. has anybody experienced similar concerns with their yorkie? We desperately want to get Sammie on a stable diet! Please help me find a solution.