[stobelie]

Hi everybody,

I have a problem.
My 10 months yorkie, Kiki, wont eat unless i hand fed him.
I got him when he was about 11 weeks. He is 10 months now.
He ate very little, n after a while, he barely touch his kibbles. I took him to the vet, she said he was healthy. She said probably he was just adjusting to new environment.
When i got him, the breeder fed him eukanuba, but i slowly switched it to orijen puppy, but he stopped eating it after a week, i noticed he got trouble chewing the big kibbles, so i switched again to artemis fresh mix small breed puppy. Then after another two weeks, he barely touch that also. I asked around, call the vet, he was just spoiled, she told me to try hand feeding him..so i did, n he ate..
Though he never eats a lot. I tried to put his food down on his bowl, so he can eat himself, but he wont touch it, but when i hand fed it to him, he eat some. i know i'm spoiling him, but this is a first time i got a puppy n i worried that he would starve. So i kept hand feeding him.
i tried to mix his food with chicken or cheese to get him eat more, it help a little.. i tried to give him snacks, but he didnt care much for snacks, though he love to chew raw hide.
i give him half a tab multi vitamins a day.
I checked with the vet, he got all the vaccine the vet recommended, also de-wormed as scheduled.

When he was 6 months, i took him to the vet again, just to make sure he was alright, coz he grew, n got skinnier. Vet said he was healthy, though he was a tad skinny. i tried to started scheduling his meal.
People said a healthy dog wont starve himself. And i have to stop being such a worrywart.
So i started to put his bowl of kibbles out 3 times a day. Leave it for 30 minutes, then took it.
He didnt touch it for 3 days!! Then the 4th day, in the morning, he ate, but only once. he didnt touch his meal again for another for 3 days, and ate once.
I tried this for 3 weeks, and i was devastated. He started to lose weight quite fast n the he was already skinny to begin with. His ribs n backbone was more pronounced than before. And he slept more through the days, and that worried me coz usually he was very active, he love to play a lot and run around. So im back to hand feeding him till now. He didnt lose weight again after that, but he didnt gain what he'd lost, coz he still ate very little. but at least he eat again, and he is as active as ever.

I also tried to do raw feeding. i chopped some chicken and he just sniffed, but he didnt eat that also, he just ran around the house with a chunk, n leave the house messy. lol..I tried this only for 2 days, i cant let him starve himself again after that 3 weeks.

I checked with another vet just a few days ago, just to be sure, coz i started to doubt the first vet i took him to.
but she also said he is healthy, but he sure is underweight.
Since a month ago, nightly i fed him lactose free baby milk, hoping he could gain some weight from that. but so far he is still as skinny, though he likes the milk. I asked the vet if thats okay, she said as long as Kiki didnt have a digestion problem, I can continue to give him the milk, so long as it's lactose free. I read quite a lot that milk is not really necessary for dogs, some even said its not good, but since he didnt have any bad reaction to the milk, i still give him that.

So anyone ever had a problem like this?
what if i have to go out of town or something? i dont want him to starve himself. i stopped taking vacation out of town since i got him..lol...im okay with that, but i really dont want him to depend on me to hand feed him forever. i dont think that's healthy.
What can i do to make him eat from his bowl? Come to think about it, ive been hand feeding him for about 6 months, excluding the 3 weeks i just told u. is it too late to change this habit?
any suggestion would be welcome..thx in advance