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tgsplano · 11-12-2010, 11:03 PM

Hi all. We have two female yorkies that we breed about a litter per year. We have had about 5 litters so we are by no means experts. The last litter we had was about 18 months ago - although we are about to have another soon; we kept one of the males from the litter because he was so small we couldn't locate a buyer that seemed responsible enough for a match. By the time he was old enough to go 8 hours without food, we were too attached to let him go so he is now a permanent part of the family. Everything was fine until last March when we took a road trip, but after letting someone keep our Pip, he has been very finicky about eating dog food. They fed him stuff off the table so it's been a battle ever since. Our other dogs went back to the regular dogfood easily, but Pip would only eat a little since then. The original dog food was Natural choice lamb and rice small bites. We switched to Iams small breed and he ate more of it for a day or so and we had the same issue. We use kibble and bits as treats for our dogs so we tried to see if he would eat it and it worked for a while but the problem just keeps getting worse. He currently weighs 1 lb 12 oz, so he'll have blood sugar issues if he refuses to eat a couple of days - so withholding food is not an option. He had a blood panel run and everything comes back normal so the vet thinks it is all him being finicky.

We have tried microwaving, mixing with canned food, straight canned food, soft bagged food, blending canned food and mixing, soaking with broth, etc. With quite a bit of coaxing, we used to be able to get him to eat enough but I read somewhere that you could do a cooked diet (equal parts meat,carbs,and veges) and put over the dog food and slowly reduce the cooked food to get them back onto a dog food diet. We tried this and we now have a dog that will clean every piece of dog food pellet in his bowl to eat the cooked food, but he won't eat any kibbles now. We've had to increase the amount of cooked food because he won't eat the kibbles, instead of the other way around.

We are out of ideas, but maybe someone has an idea. We plan to try to soak the food in whey, but havent' tried it yet. Is there a dog food, doesn't have to be high quality, that anyone has found that dogs just absolutely love - hopefully a small kibble? We don't mind doing the cooked diet, but we would like to have something we can leave out for him too. Do any of the pet food stores have a food buy back policy so you can try all their brands without so much waste?

11-12-2010, 11:03 PM	#1
tgsplano Yorkie Yakker Join Date: May 2005 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 32	Tiny Yorkie Won't Eat Dogfood Hi all. We have two female yorkies that we breed about a litter per year. We have had about 5 litters so we are by no means experts. The last litter we had was about 18 months ago - although we are about to have another soon; we kept one of the males from the litter because he was so small we couldn't locate a buyer that seemed responsible enough for a match. By the time he was old enough to go 8 hours without food, we were too attached to let him go so he is now a permanent part of the family. Everything was fine until last March when we took a road trip, but after letting someone keep our Pip, he has been very finicky about eating dog food. They fed him stuff off the table so it's been a battle ever since. Our other dogs went back to the regular dogfood easily, but Pip would only eat a little since then. The original dog food was Natural choice lamb and rice small bites. We switched to Iams small breed and he ate more of it for a day or so and we had the same issue. We use kibble and bits as treats for our dogs so we tried to see if he would eat it and it worked for a while but the problem just keeps getting worse. He currently weighs 1 lb 12 oz, so he'll have blood sugar issues if he refuses to eat a couple of days - so withholding food is not an option. He had a blood panel run and everything comes back normal so the vet thinks it is all him being finicky. We have tried microwaving, mixing with canned food, straight canned food, soft bagged food, blending canned food and mixing, soaking with broth, etc. With quite a bit of coaxing, we used to be able to get him to eat enough but I read somewhere that you could do a cooked diet (equal parts meat,carbs,and veges) and put over the dog food and slowly reduce the cooked food to get them back onto a dog food diet. We tried this and we now have a dog that will clean every piece of dog food pellet in his bowl to eat the cooked food, but he won't eat any kibbles now. We've had to increase the amount of cooked food because he won't eat the kibbles, instead of the other way around. We are out of ideas, but maybe someone has an idea. We plan to try to soak the food in whey, but havent' tried it yet. Is there a dog food, doesn't have to be high quality, that anyone has found that dogs just absolutely love - hopefully a small kibble? We don't mind doing the cooked diet, but we would like to have something we can leave out for him too. Do any of the pet food stores have a food buy back policy so you can try all their brands without so much waste?