Poor eating habits?
 

My yorkie Shadow is 2 years 3 months old and weighs 12 pounds. Is he big for a yorkie? All the ones I've seen are tiny. Anyway, he was eating Eukanuba Puppy for small breeds when we first got him but he stopped a few months later so we switched to Royal Canin for Yorkshire Terriers but he doesn't seem to like it anymore. Sometimes we even have to put treats with it to get him to eat but most of the time he just picks out the treats and doesn't eat his food. He just refuses to eat probably because my dad keeps giving him human food and regular chicken daily. It's very frustrating because both my dad and Shadow aren't cooperating. He's picky and spoiled and I'm getting tired of it. He also has a problem with chewing, he doesn't do it! Most of the time he chews one or two times and just swallows which he ends up throwing up whole pieces later. He also got into the habit of being hand fed. If no one hand feeds him, he will not eat and just lay there waiting for us to give it to him. Is anyone else having this problem or has had it before? I was thinking of trying to cut down the human food to every other day as a start. I don't really know what to do. And if it's not too much trouble, maybe list some better quality dry dog food?

I'd say cut out the human food completly, and Royal Canin is what I feed Rizzo, he has his days where he tries to pull off the not eating "I'm too picky for this" act, so I don't give him any treats at all and just put his food on the floor and let him eat as his leisure. Dog's wont starve themselves, trust me, just don't give him any treats or human food and leave his food on the floor for him, he'll eat when he's hungry.
Obviously I wouldn't recommend this for puppys though, we have to make sure that they are getting enough food in them (risk or hypoglycemia and what not) but for an older dog I don't feel like they are in that high risk catergory anymore so it's okay to do this. If he still doesn't eat after a day I reccomend seeing your vet to make sure nothing is wrong, maybe he has a double tooth that is causing him some pain? Would make it kind of hard to chew the hard kibble with a sore tooth.

Oh thank you. I will try that today but the whole treat thing is going to be a bit of a problem. Parents give him a treat everytime he pees. But we're moving soon and we have to see if he'll go in the right place when we're there. So I guess I'll work on that later. For now, no human food!

dogs love green tripe; you can add one teaspoon of solid gold green tripe to the food and he should eat it all up. they sell the can in petco by solid gold.
also you might want to consider high quality dog food; you can start with wet food since it's easier to digest and more palatable; check out welness simple solution lamb and rice or duck and rice. good luck

I'll keep that in mind and talk it over with my dad. I suppose it's going to be like trial and error with him, thank you.

These little guys know how to outsmart us every time. That is how they get their own way all the time.

My DH gives the dogs a "treat" for everything,even wagging their tails nice!!!
I bought a small bag of large kibble size dog food(different brand, flavor), put it in a special container on the counter and told him those are Treats.
Even if he gives the big dog a few its no big deal-dogs are happy.(way healthier and cheaper too!)

I would have a serious talk with dad about feeding the dog people food. He's not doing the little guy any favors. Would he have given you candy, soda, coffee, or alcohol instead of healthy meals when you were a toddler just because you asked for them? It took me a long time to "get it" myself, but my dog felt a lot better when I convinced everyone to stop sharing with her.

See my post on this issue here:

http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/yor...ml#post3280720

Also, we used to have to hand feed Bella too!! What do you put his food in...a bowl? A lot of Yorkies prefer their food NOT be in a bowl...something about sticking their perfect, precious little faces down in a bowl and getting them dirty, lol ;) If you haven't already, try feeding on a small plate, or if that doesn't work, right on the floor! (You can put it on a towel to keep your floor clean if you'd prefer.) Now, that being said, Bella went from eating on the floor to only wanting you to hand feed her. I finally put my foot down and stopped the hand feeding business altogether! She still didn't like the dessert plates I was using because they had some depth to them, so I found some square appetizer plates at Bed Bath & Beyond (B. Smith Appetizer Plates (Set of 6) - Bed Bath & Beyond) that the corners are curved up, but the sides are really low, and she's totally fine with them!! The main thing is, he has you trained to feed him each piece by hand, so why ruin a good thing?! :p He's being stubborn, which Yorkies are notorious for! I believe in feeding Bella how she likes to eat (on a plate or the floor, and even soaking her kibble if that's what she prefers), but you have to put your foot down somewhere! Good luck! :)

^^^^ Shoot!! Forgot to say, try soaking the kibble if he's not chewing it. He may just not like chewing hard food, and that's ok, not all do. See the link in my post about soaking kibble. ;)

It would be hard to tell if 12 lb is large for your little guy. Yorkies come in all sizes from the very tiny to larger. The easiest way to tell would be to see if you can easily feel his bones. If they are easily felt then 12 lbs is not too big. But if there if you have a hard time feeling them he could probably loose a little weight. I'm going to guess that he is probably overweight being fed human food.

It is just not health to feed human food and you need to explain this to your dad. Mine are all in the 11 to 12 lb range but they are bigger yorkies. They eat about 1/4 cup of food twice a day. I try to limit their treats as well.

If he is not eating his food when you put it down then I would not leave it out for him. Pick it up and offer it at a later time. He will eat if you cut out the treats and other snacks that he is getting. Good luck and welcome to YT! :)

Ok, good grief!!! Sorry! I just saw that you asked to list some good quality dry foods. There are a lot of differing opinions on what foods are "quality", but the ones I consider to be of above average quality that we've tried AND are easy to find are Natural Balance and Wellness (both can be found at Petco). Petsmart has Blue Buffalo, and from what I remember it looked to be of pretty good quality (that's the only good brand I know of that Petsmart carries). As a general rule of thumb, if you can buy it at Walmart or another chain super store, it isn't a great quality. There are what a lot of people consider to be better foods out there, like California Natural and Innova to name a couple, but they're a little harder to find. And honestly, it just all depends on your dog.

I use Natural Balance and it has worked well for us. Pebbles has allergies to corn and chicken so we always run into that issue. NB makes a line of Limited Ingredient foods. We are currently using Brown Rice and Lamb but have tried other varieties of the LI kibbles too. :)

It seems to me that NB has a nice little niche in the dog food business. They seem to offer a lot more in the way of meeting the needs of dogs with special dietary issues than any other company (that I know of anyway :p). We use NB Organic because Bella has MVD and it's the only kibble I've been able to find that has <25% protein (I believe it's 22%), has chicken as it's only meat protein, AND doesn't have any organ meat in it. They also have a really nice selection of canned foods that meet a variety of needs as well, like I mentioned before. ALSO, they have the dog food rolls!! Before I knew about Bella's MVD, I would get the mini rolls and cut them into tiny pieces to use as treats for training. It was a good option because even though she LOVED them and thought they were treats, they were actually just dog food!!