My dog refuses to eat dog food.I tried using different brands but to no avail. He'd rather starve to death than eat dog food. He only like eat meat and meaty products. I tried mixing dog food with bits of meat, but to no avail. Any tips?.

P.S.

My dog is a German Shepherd.

I take it you are feeding him dried food? Have you tried swapping to a different brand of dried food?

Yes, I'm trying to make him eat the dried dog food. I've tried several brands but nothing appeals to him.

We cook for ours and they only have dried for supper, Breakfast and lunch are mince vegetables and pasta.

Not all dogs enjoy dry food it must be quite boring I always think.

You may find soaking it in water is more appealing for him you could try that.

How old is your dog? how often do you feed him? for how long have you tried each food? What was he fed on prior to you having him?

Never thought about soaking it, might help. I'm going to try this. Thanks


He is a year old and I feed him 3x a day. He prefers the Wet dog food and meat. I've been trying to substitute his usual dinner for the dried dog food. Technically, he is my sister's dog but she's out of the country because of work and I'm taking of him for a few months.

Ours was a picky eater, we ended up trying fish based kibble and he's been fine since. Fish4dogs do small trial packs - if you want to try.

Yep, try soaking we never leave it dry. Ours' sometimes turn their noses up even when soaked but if we pop a tin of sardines on top it magically disappears in seconds!!

We managed to get our dogs eating dry food by mixing it with a bit of water and a dollop of ketchup.

i'd be careful using ketchup, i'm pretty sure ive read that tomatoes are poisonous to dogs....

It seems they are I never knew that!!

My two would never eat dry food on it`s own so I just mix half wet and half dry with chicken on top and they have had that for 5 years. Never had to take them to vets either since their original jabs.

oh crap really?????

Luckily no harm was done, and I no longer have them anyway.

OP - try brown sauce instead

I never knew that, I advised on here to give tomatoes to bitches, to stop them from when they pee ruining their lawn,

a friend has a GSD and she did the exact same thing. she's now almost three and still refuses to eat some times.

have you tried proplan with him?
it has a higher meat content than some other dry foods and a fairly strong smell.

to this, add a quarter of a tin of wet dog food, and mash the wet food all over the dry so it has a coating and see if that helps.

webbox chub rolls are good for getting my friends picky GSD to eat, probably use about 1/8 to 1/6th of a roll on each meal just to cover the kibble and while she doesn't wolf it down, she does eat it.

seems to just be something they do.
she still goes for around 3 days without eating a full meal, as i've said :/

going for things like applaws which are 75% meat doesn;t always work out for dogs who like "meaty" things, we thought this would work for lil, but she just turned her nose up at it - expensive food to turn your nose up at, very glad we just picked up samples of things!

im pretty sure brown sauce is made from tomatoes too

Try feeding him twice a day, put the food down, give him 20 mins, if he's not eaten it take it away. He'll soon learn when meal time is. Too many feeds in a day and leaving food down can turn then into picky eaters.

Do you soak the biscuits? Presoak them and add a bit of meat, a small a punt won't do any harm, gads are nortorious for being picky.

Thanks for the great advice everyone.

I think like many other things "poisonous" to dogs they would need to ingest a huge amount to make them ill. Mine have a tomato occasionally and no harm done, would I give them pounds of tomatoes daily ? no it would probably make them ill.

Great advice. We always give our dogs soaked dried food, which they enjoy. I think that like with kids, you can encourage faddiness by faffing about.

I guess I have been lucky - only ever had medium size dogs and they always ate anything they were give, or could scrounge, or steal!

I inherited a young black lab who was almost 50% overweight at the time. A few months ago - I finally had the seal of approval from my vet - that he is now just about at the upper limit of a good weight - but it has taken three years of being strict with his diet. No where near feeling his ribs, but he looks glossy and healthy - on Iams Low in Fat. He has one biscuit in the morning and a dental rask in the evening. No "human" food - just what I trust is a balanced diet for a dog.

Of course being a lab he will eat anything at any time - and even today got into my rubbish bin when I was out and chewed the cat sachets to bits ....lol. I love him dearly and want him to live a long and healthy life.

My long time vet has always recommended feeding only a dedicated animal food - as it is designed for dogs.

Also -and this may be more controversial -one meal a day, which is apparently better designed for a dog's digestion. ?

Friends with other dogs also seem to follow the same regime - one meal a day.

Not judging or criticising those who seem to follow three meals a day (and how many little snacks?) - but I wonder whether the OP with the German Shepherd might see a difference if he was fed once a day - and if he turned up his nose - the food was retrieved after 20 minutes.

I have never, ever heard of a dog starving himself and if so - would recommend monitoring by a vet if he got seriously underweight. But I do know that dogs are very clever in realising that if they turn down their main food - they might get treats! My dog would happily survive on cheese and bacon if I let him.

the thing is, for a GSD to have their full ration in one meal, it would be a very big meal, and they're a breed that is susceptible to bloat

the one i mentioned earlier in the thread, i feed, twice a day when i have her, i think her owner tries to do the same, but leaves the food down all day if she doesn't eat it on a morning, for example.
she eats two meals with me, but then my dog is usually around so that could be an incentive to get her food before he gets to it. (he has three small meals a day, he's also on a very low calorie - high bulk diet which in just a few months has him almost down to his ideal body score, he should ideally be on two meals, but he got so used to eating at the same time as our older dog who used to need to eat little and often to avoid her being sick, that the routine has just stuck.)

my friends GSD has a mug and a half of proplan in each meal with a covering if meat, and she's still at the lower end of the amount of food she should have for her size according to the bag, so three mug fulls of food in one sitting for her?
it just doesn;t sound healthy to me. it's too big a risk with some breeds.

their digestive system is generally designed for the to have a binge diet, as wolves do, but the different shapes and sizes of some modern dogs, it just doesn't suit all of them to eat in this manner.

Just to clarify op, when I said Thame the food away, I wasn't meaning double her next meal, keep it the same as it would be has she of eaten the first meal. As xdow says- a double helping will cause different issues. It important to take the morning food away otherwise he/she will pick, then be less hungry at night. But keep the meals the same size (reduce to 2 a day) and if she doesn't eat one, then she'll be more ready for the next,

We do 3 meals because Mollie particularly brings up yellow bile if she has just one meal a day, so vet suggested little and often so her digestion had something to work on and that has worked for us. Betty is tiny and couldn't eat all her food in one go she would explode with such a tiny tummy.

No offence taken but you have to do what is best for your dog IMO.

Also having seen a greyhound with bloat who ate once a day it put me off one meal for mine rather rapidly.

I'm afraid I just do the tough love approach with my dog, if she doesn't eat she goes without, no treats, no snacks, nothing until next meat time!

She caught on within the week and now eats everything put in front of her, even tablets lol.