Switching things up!
 

Well I posted about a week or ten days ago about eating issues that had recently arisen:
http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum...ng-issues.html

I followed the most reasonably (meaning logical and least drastic) advice and tried the 20 minute rule with very little results. He pretty much still just ate when he absolutely needed to, and emptied his bowl fewer than 3-4 times in the past week. The past few meals I've been taking one Natural Balance treat bone (large breed size--which he still LOVES to eat) and crushed it up into his kibble. When I did it this morning, he literally nosed around the bowl looking for the bits of the treat and otherwise ignoring his meal. That was the last straw for me, so it's on to the food changing carousel! We have decided to try out Orijen and see how that goes. Don't think I'll see any results the first few days since we'll still be mixing in his NB kibble but I really hope he starts eating his food again. The other two foods we really considered were Cali Natural and Blue Buffalo, and I also was considering Canyon Creek Ranch. Please wish us luck!

Good luck, hope he likes Orijen as much as ours does (she has been on 6 Fish for quite some time and does great on it). A nice thing about Orijen and similar kibbles is that because it is nutrient dense and high in calories you don't need to feed as much of it as you do a lot of other foods.

Even though our girl enjoys her kibble, we still keep it fresh for her by rotating varieties of Nature's Variety Instinct canned food as a topper and also add salmon oil and a little canned pumpkin to each meal. She only gets a spoonful of pumpkin and a couple spoonfuls of canned food, but the extra flavor keeps her interested in her meals ... Or at least it seems to.

Have you tried boiling some ground beef, cooling it and adding it to his kibble? If not, it's worth a try, you can get G.B. for a good price. Coat the kibble but don't let it get the kibble soggy. You might try straining it and giving him the meat later.

Yeah, the whole issue with his eating kind of came about when he got too used to being fed a little chicken and shredded cheese with his kibble. At first he ate it all up, but then he gradually started to eat just the chicken and cheese and now he will hardly touch his kibble. I love to add extras to his kibble (beef hearts, ground beef, chicken, etc) but right now he needs to eat just his kibble. Once he gets back into that routine I will gladly start reintroducing some extra goodies to his meals.