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Picky eaters?

Anna

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

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

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!
 
Kingofthehouse86 said:
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
 
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
 
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!
 
Kingofthehouse86 said:
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/vetm0805_562-566.pdf?docID=5602&AddInterest=1101.
 
Judy when i stated that garlic works wonders for keeping away fleas, basically i wrote it because I heard it from a trainer i kno (from my area) not exactly sure if its true...but as far as the garlic thing I've been putting a lil bit of garlic powder on King's food for I believe almost a year...he hasn't shown any problems with it...it's also only like a 1/4tsp of it too...i use it as kinda a seasoning for his food
 
Thanks

Well, I took some advice and bought Liesl some Innova Evo today. She seemd to really like. But, like I said in the past, she likes things for 3 days and then turns her nose up to it. So, if she's still eating it in a week it will be a miracle! I realized how bad Science Diet is though (what she's on now)! I'm a horrible mother for feeding her that stuff! If she starts to get fussy with the Innova I'll try the boiling water bit. I do sometimes think that her fussiness is b/c she has trouble chewing the kibble. Thanks everyone for the help! One more thing to throw out there...what's everyone's opinion on Greenies? I've never gotten them for Liesl b/c I've heard bad stuff about them. Any comments?
 
I cannot give my dogs greenies any more because two of them get diarrhea, and one bites off big chunks, which is not safe, it can cause an obstruction.

I give them bully sticks, also known as pizzles. I take the stubs away before they swallow them. I usually trade a dog biscuit for the stubs. :flwr:
 
i think of greenies as being risky, it's rare that there's a problem with them but it only takes one time and the problems however rare are real. i got rid of the ones i had but zack found one under a chair and chewed a piece off and vomited and this big unchewed piece was in the vomit, and later he had a loose stool that was green.

i used to give zack bully sticks and edible nylabones, lamb and rice flavor, and then i started giving him booda bones and compressed hoof. He loved it, but he is not thrilled with kibble and i found that if he had those tasty sticks to chew on, then he completely abandoned his food, and he chewed the sticks harder and harder so that he could eat them because, i assume, he was hungry. so finally i stopped giving those kinds of things to him altogether and he just chews on his chew toys, and he gets lots and lots of chewing in with those, plus he chews his kibble, eventually.
 
When I was in getting Liesl's food today, the lady who owns the store was showing me the bully sticks and said they might be a better option than the greenies. Next time I'm in there, I'll grab her a few. I usually let her have plain rawhides (under my supervision) and she does pretty good with those (e.g. no funny side effects). The only time Liesl had a greenie was when I took her to work with me one day...the secretery keeps some in her desk for another little dog that comes in. But I noticed that when she pooped, I could see the chunks of greenie in the poop. Better safe than sorry I guess.
 
Read the Kayla thread nearby for advice on what to do about dogs that decide not to eat a particular food afetr a few days, as a matter of habit. This is common for puppies (and adults) to do IF they can get away with it and it is imp[ortant not to start offering reagular changes of food to try and entice them into eating. :)

Cat food is a major no-no for dogs. Cats have totally different needs and there are ingredients in cat food that are actually very bad for dogs over the long term. Dogs tend to like cat food because it has a higher meat content as cats are pure carnivores and dogs are not. Try mixing in a little shredded broiled or boiled chicken or browned ground beef instead.

Everything anyone needs to know about feeding cavaliers here, as well as a good dry kibble list:

www.roycroftcavaliers.com/manualfeeding.htm
 
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