Fussy eater

Hi everyone!

I don't know if anyone remembers us... but I adopted Pickles one month ago. She's a sweet, tri-colour. I'm crazy about her.

One thing... she's a fussy eater!! I'm shocked. I always thought dogs were gung-ho eaters who were happy with anything. Not my Pickles. Sometimes she eats... sometimes she doesn't. She seems kind of ambivalent about food. (Something that I am NOT and so I'm puzzled...)

I'm trying to relax and just say, "when she's hungry, she'll eat...."

I got a few free samples of different dog foods but she seems as interested/disinterested in them as she does any other dog food.

She seems happy and healthy and all of that so I'm only mildly concerned.

Does anyone else have a fussy-eater cavalier? How much do you feed them?

Yes, I have a fussy eater, fussy over kibble. I give Dylan 50g of James Wellbeloved and 20g of Nature diet mixed in and a little water added. he seems to enjoy it most of the time like this

I have two hoovers and one with an aquired good appetite, but izzy used to be a fussy eater.

I don't know where you are but he liked Butchers tripe, Natures Menu and fishy flavoured Winalot. he would eat about three quarters of a tin of these with a very small addition of biscuit. When he'd eat kibble, usually Pero Gold (it's sweet and has crunchy pasta pieces) or Vitalin Premium (also sweet coated), he'd eat less; about one and a half handfuls. With these , he also had a morning Bonio biscuit.

How big (weight) is she? How active? Is she fit or fat? (does she have a distinct waist when viewed from above?) How old is she?

Be sure you don't start trying to coax her to eat, hand feed, etc (see threads in the training section on this ).

Some dogs are just a bit more picky and you are right to just relax. Few dogs will starve themselves. A lone dog will often be more ambivalant about food. Best solution is to get a second cavalier! :lol:

Pickles is about 9 months old now. She's on the small side.

She ate last night and then, later this evening after our walk, she ate quite a bit so I think it's as you all have said... dogs rarely starve themselves. She'll eat when she's hungry.

The funny thing is that my cats follow her around and wait for her to hedge on her food and then they zoom in. They haven't been very thrilled with her coming into our house but they DO enjoy her dog treats and her food when they can get their chops on them.

At her age she should be on just two (or even just one) meal(s) a day, and I wouldn't let her free feed all day; I'd want to get her on regular meals. Most puppies her age would eat around a cup measure of food a day. I'd try giving her 15 minutes to eat and then lift the food and don;t try to see if she will eat a bit more during the day -- just the 15 minutes twice a day or once a day with the full daily amount. How much extra are you feeding in terms of treats? Her daily total should really still be that one cup INCLUDING treats so she may well be filling up on the extras and therefore not interested in her food. Many of the store treats like Bonios are huge and the amounts they say are OK are way, way, WAY too much food! (their goal is to sell more food!). For example the Bonio package I have for the small size treats say you can feed 4-8 biscuits daily. Just four biscuits would be half the total amount of food I give each of my dogs in an entire day, so if I fed normally PLUS all those treats they'd be eating 50% more than they should be and on their way to obesity.

Puppies are pretty good at eating just what they need. Less active dogs will eat less and dogs with slower metabolisms, too.

This is a good page on feeding cavaliers:

http://www.roycroftcavaliers.com/manualfeeding.htm

Karlin,

I think Pickles has probably had too many treats and that's why she isn't eating her meal.

I only feed her 2x a day. A small meal in the morning and then a larger meal in the evening. (this would be about 1 cup a day as you suggested...)

However, I had been giving her some treats so this might explain her loss of appetite.

Thanks for the info.

I have a picky eater too. I'm on the same page as you, I never imagined a dog would actually "consider" whether to eat or not. With my past dogs, it would take less than 30 seconds to finish up their food bowl.

One thing I try, is to make the food more interesting for Ginger so she doesn't tire of it. Sometimes I mix the dry food with carrots, oranges, bluesberries, cottage cheese, bananas, chicken and so on.

I think Karlin is absolutely right that the best thing is to get a second Cavalier - that's what I've been telling my DH for the past three months!

Yes I agree with Karlin.
I had a fussy eater, Mika is 8 months very fit but far too lean.
We have made an addition to the family with a second cavalier called Merrilegs, he certainly eats now and has such an adorable friend.:luv: