golden retriever not eating?/fussy eater

kezzygirl

Hi All, we have a 2 1/2year old golden retriever girl who is soooo fussy it it unbelievable.

We feed her allsorts of dog food but after a few days she refuses to eat what we put in front of her. She had some of my mum's dogs food-chappie and so we bought her some cans to go with complete biscuits.After a week, she stopped eating the chappie. She also nudges the bowl to move the biscuits out of the way!!This week,I have bought her 'butchers superior', a new dog food. However, we are now on day 3 and she has not eaten her breakfast. She does tend to wolf down our cats' food if given the chance,but has not done this past few days.

We have noticed that she occasionally overnight vomits clear yellow liquid-bile?

any help appreciated, we are at our wits' end!thanks

kezzygirl

W have tried-Iams-on its own,mixed with gravy,mixed with water, butchers,pedigree chum, tesco and morrisons own brand, + chappie.we always give her complete biscuits too-own brand. even meat on its own she won't eat. If we have scraps left over from tea we will give them to her-roast,shepherds pie,sausage and mash and veg...she wolfs them down in one.

aliasojo

kezzygirl wrote: »

If we have scraps left over from tea we will give them to her-roast,shepherds pie,sausage and mash and veg...she wolfs them down in one.

It's possible she is getting far too much salt. That can cause vomiting.

I suggest you stop feeding her scraps, I think you're doing her no favours tbh, she's the canine equivalent of a fussy child and you're loading her up with goodies, but goodies that are not actually good for her.

I think you should get her checked at the vet to make sure there isn't an underlying reason for her vomiting.

Then assuming all is well, you need to feed her suitable food and stick with it.

Have you tried dried kibble type food? Chappie has a dry food version too.

krlyr

She has you well trained, refusing one type of food gets her a tastier/more novel alternative!
I would say, find a good quality food with a strong flavour and then be firm. A healthy dog shouldn't starve itself, and although it can be tough, sometimes it's just a matter of training rather than the dog truly being fussy, so you need to stand your ground.

I had a fussy pup and although I did cave it and hand-feed her (using a fork!) for a few days, I wasn't prepared to mess around trying various types of foods when she was on a good quality food that she'd eaten fine in the past.

What I did was buy Naturediet wet food - it's a good quality wet food that's not full of sugar and salt, plus you can zap it in the microwave and feed it warm. This makes it a bit more smelly and appealing to a dog too, so helps with tempting them. I initially fed just the Naturediet for a few days, by fork, then she had to eat it from her bowl, then I slowly added in her normal biscuits and lowered the proportion of Naturediet I added to it. Eventually she just needed a teeny slither of Naturediet, and I stopped microwaving it, and as long as I added that little slither she'd eat with a gusto (she'd still eat the dry on its own but not half as enthusiastically, and I figured it didn't really cost much or take much time to add it in).

The foods you're feeding are cheap foods, and cheap foods are usually flavoured to appeal to the dog because they're such poor ingredients (mostly bulking out/filler ingredients like corn/maize) so it's going to be like phasing a kid off of greasy McDonalds and salty ready meals, onto homemade meals full of veggies - it will seem bland to their tastebuds until they adjust, but with time they will get used to the new flavour and it will be a whole lot healthier for them.

I would agree with stopping the scraps, and use a tough love approach - pick the food you're going to feed, put the bowl down, pick it up after 10 minutes regardless of how much (or little) she's eaten. If you're concerned that she's not eating at all, offer the bowl every few hours, but only for that 10 minute window. It shouldn't take too long for her to twig that you're not caving in this time, and if she's hungry, she'd better eat what's on offer.

One option you could consider (but it needs a little research and for you to be comfortable/confident in feeding it) is a raw diet - my dogs find it much more appealing than dry food (though they find dry food a bit of a novelty now!) and I feel it provides great mental and physical stimulation, much more than a simple bowl of biscuits.

Dogs often produce bile if they are going for longer periods without food - mine will do it if they've had to skip dinner for some reason (e.g. one of mine has to do a fasting blood test every once in a while), I may come down to a small bile puddle in the morning. Some dogs who are fed only once a day may produce small amounts of bile, which stops by giving the dog a small meal or snack in the evening. Given her fussiness at the moment, I would say it's likely that it's her stomach being empty and just the stomach acid letting bile accumulate.

Wickwar

i boil up chicken carcass which i get from the local butcher for next to nothing(45p per kg) makes a nice jelly & loads of meat.Mix it with the kibble & they go mad for it.

kezzygirl

Thanks for your suggestions!! She is a very 'stressy' dog-constantly whimpering etc and pacing up and down.

I will try giving her it for 10minutes and then removing the bowl,hopefully it will work!
thanks again

krlyr

Stressed dogs can lose their appetite - more typically seen with situations like a reactive dog refusing to take treats out on a walk when spotting the trigger (another dog, someone in hi viz, etc) but if she's stressed in the house that may be affecting her appetite too. Have you tried calmative products, such as Adaptil plugins, Zylkene or Calmex supplements, a t-shirt/Thunderwrap/anxiety wrap, Rescue Remedy in her water, etc?

May be worth a vet trip to rule out a medical condition or injury stressing her out too (my dog started getting more and more anxious and a vet trip showed hypothyroidism - anxiety is a symptom and as the thyroid function declines, the symptoms get worse)