Picky Eater or Not adjusted yet?

[ILoveMyGSD03]

Hi all, Glad that I have found this forum and I have really enjoyed all the information I have gained from reading everything.

Anyways, I have an 10 week old black and red GSD that we picked up last Thursday. Everything checked out great at the vets office, no parasites, giardia, or coccidia and he has solid stool. We are currently feeding him Blue Buffalo Large Breed Puppy (breeder had him on this) I feed him 3 times a day a cup each serving. The only thing is he isn't eating all the food. Since we have had him I will put the food down, he will either ignore it and go play or take a couple of bites and he's done. So I pick it up after 20 minutes and do this again at lunch and dinner. He has only eaten 1 cup since Thursday. I have read the picky eater thread and every other thread about picky pups. When should I start adding something so he will eat his food. I really don't have many choices to change his food to that are high quality as I live in a small town. Help please!

[ILoveMyGSD03]

Ok so I have had 55 people look at this, yet I can't get just one reply? Thanks!

[BAN-ONE]

This happened to me in the past. The puppy was given BB but showed little to no interest when I got him home. After a few days I switched him to Orijen. I stated with 25/75 ratio, the larger being BB. What he did was eat all the Orijen and left the BB. So next day did a 50/50 mix and did the exact same.
I don't think it's necessarly BB but try something else for you puppy.

[Gretchen]

I don't think our dog ever liked eating kibble. She did like Royal Canin GSD food, we used the kibble in place of training treats too. Eventually we ended up doing raw, and is never picky with raw.

You can order dog food online, many times you can order small sample sizes so you are not stuck with a 10lb bag of stuff you don't like. I order our dehydrated raw directly from the company since its not sold in my area.

[asherkain]

I have had my puppy for two weeks now and I still have a hard time getting her to eat all of her food. I feed her Taste of the Wild puppy bison mixed with Nupro joint supplement, a cooked meat like chicken or beef and a little cottage cheese, but she still would rather play then eat.

It seems like she does like her food, but she just gets so distracted with the world around her. I have another dog and I found she eats more when I feed them at the same time. Just today I noticed her licking my other dogs bowl after he finished, so I tricked her into eating her full meal by putting the rest of her food in his bowl. She ate it all up, silly puppy.

Another thing I do to get her to eat most of her food is ball up the mixture in my hand and feed it to her as treats while we practice our sit, down and place commands. She is more focused when we are training, so she eats what is offered to her as a reward.

Not sure how much this helps, but maybe your puppy is also just distracted like mine and feeding her from your hand while doing a little training would help.

[ILoveMyGSD03]

Thank you for the replies everyone! It definitely must be the kibble because I have mixed several different things with it and he either licks it off or eats around it. So looks like I will be switching to something else. The breeder said she never had a problem with him eating when he was with her and he is a good weight and looks healthy. Wonder why he changed his mind? It is VERY frustrating!

[Bear GSD]

Originally Posted by ILoveMyGSD03

Thank you for the replies everyone! It definitely must be the kibble because I have mixed several different things with it and he either licks it off or eats around it. So looks like I will be switching to something else. The breeder said she never had a problem with him eating when he was with her and he is a good weight and looks healthy. Wonder why he changed his mind? It is VERY frustrating!

He might have eaten well at the breeder's because he was competeing with siblings for food, now that he has no competition he feels like he can be picky.

I would switch brands and see if he will eat, I also would give him a little less if he is not eating all his food in one sitting. My pup was always a self regulator and rather than wasting food I just decreased the amount until I felt that he would eat it all. Good luck

[ILoveMyGSD03]

Originally Posted by Bear GSD

He might have eaten well at the breeder's because he was competeing with siblings for food, now that he has no competition he feels like he can be picky.

I would switch brands and see if he will eat, I also would give him a little less if he is not eating all his food in one sitting. My pup was always a self regulator and rather than wasting food I just decreased the amount until I felt that he would eat it all. Good luck

The only thing is, I can tell that he has lost some weight because he hasn't really eaten anything since we brought him home. A few bits here and a few bites there and not he doesn't even want treats when we are working on commands, he would rather be rewarded with a tug of his toy. I am going today to either get a new dog food of possibly switching to raw. I need to do some research with ram as I don't know where to start.

[Bear GSD]

Originally Posted by ILoveMyGSD03

The only thing is, I can tell that he has lost some weight because he hasn't really eaten anything since we brought him home. A few bits here and a few bites there and not he doesn't even want treats when we are working on commands, he would rather be rewarded with a tug of his toy. I am going today to either get a new dog food of possibly switching to raw. I need to do some research with ram as I don't know where to start.

Your pup sounds like he's not really food driven and more toy driven, which is ok.
If you want to research feeding raw, I would check out Lauri's website. She's a member of this forum and her website is very informative, here's her link:
Welcome to the Raw Dog Ranch