Picky eaters?

[Anna]

Liesl is so picky when it comes to eating. She will not eat just dried food but I've been buying Fancy Feast cat food to put a little on top of the dried food to help entice her. It seems to work but she still doesn't get overly excited over food. Is this normal for a Cavalier?

[Kingofthehouse86]

ONE thing stop feeding her cat food...cat food is for cats, dog food is for dogs....wat food are u feeding her, if they make a canned form try that mixed in, or the Natrual Balance food roll works really well... The canned food I use for King is Vets Choice Meaty Mix Chicken....it only has 3 ingredients:chicken, chicken broth, garlic...also try a lil garlic powder over her food that always seems to help wit any pups at work...any we have some picky eaters there..plus King is a picky eater too... He gets his dry (Innova:Evo) canned (vets choice meaty mix chicken) and food roll (NBL food roll) all mixed together....u could try anything to get her to eat...just make sure its dog food...lol

[judy]

zack didn't like any kibble, he would eat eventually if i left the food there, after hours, he'd eat it, but reluctantly. I think part of the problem has been that most kibbles have big pieces and he's had trouble chewing them up, he has to take it to the carpet, lay down and chew up once piece at a time. I also tried several seemingly appetizing canned foods, Wellness, various flavors, Canadae, Merrick's Grammy's Pot Pie, but he was not interested in those either and i couldn't leave them in the bowl, they'd spoil.

I just happened to try Innova Evo kibble and he, for some reason, actually acts like he likes it. It's higher protein than the other kibbles i tried, almost twice as much. Maybe that's why. Aaron said that this makes Evo more like cat food (i think) so that could explain why he actually seems to like it. He definitely likes the cat's kibble, which i have to guard and keep away from him.

Evo also comes in small easy to chew pieces.

If you haven't tried it, it might be worth a try (Innova Evo).

[Maxxs_Mummy]

Also, if she's having problems chewing it up, soak about 2/3 of it in some boiling water until cool then add the other 1/3 for crunch.

Might make her eat as the soaking very often releases smells that are quite yummy to them

[Cathy Moon]

Lately I've been reading that it is not safe to feed dogs garlic - it is as bad as onion for dogs.

Another member who has a picky eater has sprinkled a little shredded parmesan cheese on the kibble, and her puppy likes it.

[Anna]

Thanks for all the good tips. I'll have to stop feeding her the cat food One annoying thing about it (with any canned food) is when she does leave some, which she often does, I have to dump out the rest of her food b/c it turns to mush and am afraid it will spoil. I've switched her kibble before...she came to me on Eukanuba puppy for small breeds and now she is on Science Diet. I'll have to look into some of the other ones you guys mentioned! I know when Liesl goes to my mom's house, she begs and begs for my mom's English Setter's food (they are on some kind of Wellness). The problem with her is when I do switch her food, she loves it for about 3 days and then ignores it after that. I'm afraid that switching her food too much is not good for her system. I always switch her food very gradually, but I still get worried. Thanks everyone!

[WoodHaven]

ONE thing stop feeding her cat food...cat food is for cats, dog food is for dogs....wat food are u feeding her, if they make a canned form try that mixed in, or the Natrual Balance food roll works really well... The canned food I use for King is Vets Choice Meaty Mix Chicken....it only has 3 ingredients:chicken, chicken broth, garlic...also try a lil garlic powder over her food that always seems to help wit any pups at work...any we have some picky eaters there..plus King is a picky eater too... He gets his dry (Innova:Evo) canned (vets choice meaty mix chicken) and food roll (NBL food roll) all mixed together....u could try anything to get her to eat...just make sure its dog food...lol

Many of the high quality raw mixes can be fed to dogs or cats. I wouldn't freak out about adding a tablespoon of cat food to dog food- some breeders do this to get a bit more taurine into the dogs diet. I would NEVER feed dog food to a cat (too much ash- cats get urinary issues) and usually not enough protein. FWIW, Sandy

[Kingofthehouse86]

Cathy, I found out pretty much the same bout garlic then, y do they put it in their foods, can't figure out why...but it works wonders to keep fleas away...lol

[melanie]

I had the same problem with Sadie. She would go days and not even touch her kibble. We tried them all and everytime we switched, she acted like she liked it but that only lasted 1-2 feedings. I also tried raw and she wouldn't go near it. I have since started cooking the raw medallions and mixing it with her kibble and now she never misses a meal. She loves it!

[judy]

Cathy, I found out pretty much the same bout garlic then, y do they put it in their foods, can't figure out why...but it works wonders to keep fleas away...lol

it didn't help with fleas for zack. In Dr Pitcairn's book, he says there has been research showing clearly that garlic had no effect on fleas. He said there were studies of brewers yeast that were inconclusive, some research showed it had an effect while others said it did not.

because zack got abnormal red blood cell results after i gave him tablets with garlic for a couple of weeks, and he got sick, i looked into the garlic thing a lot. The impression i have is that, one, it's much worse for cats, two, onions are much worse than garlic, and three, it would take a lot of garlic to cause a problem. I now would avoid garlic, although there's no reason to be sure that's what caused zack's illness since several other things could've explained it, the vet guessed it might be a combination of things.

But garlic has been definitely shown to cause anemia in dogs and especially cats that can be fatal, and does need treatment. Again, from all the stuff i read, i don't think small amounts are dangerous to dogs (i could be wrong), but you never know, each dog is different and if a dog had preexisting vulnerability related to red blood cells, i would not want to add garlic to what they are dealing with. So i'll avoid it, but i wouldn 't be worried if zack had some every now and then as an ingredient in food or treat. But i wouldn't want him to have raw garlic cloves

here's something from the ASPCA
http://www.aspca.org/site/DocServer/...dInterest=1101.