Rice or Canned Food?
 

Recently, Sasha has started to become picky with her kibble again but I'm not resorting back to what I would've done 3 years ago which was to keep switching foods so she would become interested again. She eats Blue Buffalo Wilderness kibble and I'm extremely pleased with the results that its given her.

To start off, she gets Primal Raw in the morning and then her kibble at night. She went through a little spurt where she began throwing up bile so on some days, I'll feed her 3 meals as opposed to 2 depending on how active she is during the day. I was only feeding her 1/8 cup of kibble for dinner and had always wondered if it was too little, but she never had an issue with eating that amount so I thought nothing of it.

Now all of a sudden, she doesn't seem to want to touch her kibble but yet I know she's hungry and if she doesn't eat it, she'll end up throwing up bile later on. I cooked up some rice and added about 1-2 spoonfuls to the kibble and of course she has been gobbling it up ever since. My question is, would it be better to add some canned food as opposed to the rice or would it be ok to continue adding rice? Her kibble is grain-free and I've always preferred grain-free but she needs to eat lol and I don't want her to become chubby if that's what the rice will end up doing. Opinions?

Thanks!

Is she eating the Primal and not the kibble or neither?. If she's eating the primal you can stick to that. If i had to choose though i would pick a high quality canned over the rice.

I think it's a mistake to doctor up a food just because a dog isn't as enthusiastic as it once was about the food. Unless Sasha is very thin, I don't think you need to tempt her to eat. Kibble is supposed to be tasty enough so they will eat it when they are hungry, but not so tasty that they will overeat. I think the more you do to encourage her to eat, the fussier she will become. I don’t think adding rice is a good idea, it’s not balanced. Her total diet would have too many carbs and not enough protein.

What about home cooking for her? It's easy, they love it and you can manage weight without cutting down on portions. It's also healthier.
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She gets both Primal & kibble. The only reason I feed both is in the event that I would either have to board her somewhere or take her with me if I had to travel, kibble is just easier. Plus, I sometimes don't always remember to take the Primal out to put in the fridge :rolleyes: I had a feeling canned food would be better than the rice. Thanks!

Personally, I don't like having to "doctor up" the food anyways for that reason, but she was getting to the point where she was throwing up bile so she needed to eat.

Yes, I agree, it sounds like she much prefers her Primal Raw to her kibble, could she get that at both meals? Another option is sprinkling parmesan cheese on kibble. It's a very low fat cheese, they can't pick out the pieces and only eat that, they have to eat the kibble, and it has a smell that most dogs love. Also, very little is needed to attract them to the food. I personally believe that that would be better than adding rice which would change the overall daily nutrients your dog was getting.

I decided to give the canned food a try. I would only be adding a spoonful anyways, just enough to coat it. As I said before, the only reason I feed both Primal Raw and kibble is in the event that I ever had to board her somewhere or if I needed to travel and she was able to come with me, kibble would be much easier to bring along than Raw. I tried parmesan cheese years ago when she was extremely finicky when it came to her food and it didn't make any difference. She couldn't have cared less that there was cheese on there.

Yeah, I think that’s a better choice than the rice, at least you know the canned food is nutritionally balanced. Hope this works for you!

:)
Thank you! I gave her about a spoonful with her dinner yesterday and she gobbled it all up. She kept going back to the bowl to check if there was more, sniffing all around it to make sure she didn't drop any and must have licked the bowl clean for almost 5 minutes. :rolleyes: Let's just hope this continues and that she doesn't decide to try and test me.

Lol, it sounds like you found a hit! :D