[Annamarie]

I've never seen a dog scared of its food. Our picky eater, when he DOES decide to eat... spreads his front and back legs out wide apart and approaches his food with great caution. He's really jumpy when he's eating and the slightest thing (like someone walking into the kitchen) will make him stop eating.

I've tried feeding him in his bowl, in a people bowl, on a plate... different food (wet, dry, meat...), I can't figure out what he's so scared of.

I'm also fed up with trying to get this dog to eat anyway. I've changed brands numerous times, tried wet, dry, a mix, homemade, putting meat and his dry food into a blender so he can't pick it out... all he ever wants to eat is home cooked meat chunks, the occasional boiled potatoe or carrot, and little niblets of rice now and then. He wants nothing to do with dry food of any brand or flavor. If I make him home-made, I'm afraid I'm not giving him well rounded nutrition and he just picks out what he likes and leaves the rest anyway.

i've tried leaving dry food out all day, i've tried putting wet and dry and home cooked down for 20 minutes twice a day and taking it away, there's just nothing I can do to convince him to eat.

at this point he's losing weight again because he's going three or four meals in a row without eating before he reluctantly takes a few mouthfuls of food and then resumes the hunger strike. UGH!!

How do I get this dog to eat! (I should also mention he's had every test under the sun done for stomach related stuff and there's nothing wrong with his health. this is just pure fussiness!)

[Curbside Prophet]

Have you tried feeding him by hand, using the food as training aids, or in a stuffed Kong?

It's hard to sy why he may be acting fearful of his food, but it may not be his food at all. Take a loog at the environment in which you feed him. Is there anything of novelty that may be casuing his fear? Maybe you feed him under a tall plant, and leaves looming over his head scare him. Maybe you feed him next to the vacuum cleaner and the towering figure scares him. Maybe you feed him in a room with a flooring material that he's not confident on. These are just ideas, but take a look around...perhaps simply removing something scary could remedy everything.

[Annamarie]

we feed him in the kitchen in the same place he's been fed since he was a puppy and he's been fine. it's only since i came back from out of town that he's been doing this... about 3 months now. he started it when i fed him in a new place (i had to bring him, i was gone 2 weeks) and has brought the habit home and never gotten over it.

i've tried hand feeding him, though I didn't want it to come to that I had to do something when he was so thin... it doesn't work most of the time. plus i don't want a dog that must be hand fed at every meal. i've even tried microwaving his food for 10 seconds so it's warm and it works sometimes.

the only thing i can think of now is to rotate the different kinds of meat and fish i put with his meals and to make it daily. so much work though

[Occy]

drop the food on the ground, see if that helps - if it does you can get a flat tray for his food

[Annamarie]

I'm going to try moving his food to a quiet corner and actually come to think of it he does prefer to eat kibble off the ground. good call sometimes if i put it in a pop bottle or kong he'll eat it out of that (sometimes... most of the time he just spreads it all over the room LOL).

[briteday]

One of my dogs prefers to eat in the privacy of her crate, away from the distractions of a busy household and other animals. I also vote for trying food on the floor. I've had a couple of foster dogs that wouldn't eat out of a bowl or plate, but would eat if I put it on a plastic placemat on the floor...easy enough to rinse off in hot soap and water after the meal.

Where did you board the dog while you were gone? Was it a kennel or someone taking care of the dog for you? Has the vet xray'd the abdominal area to check for anatomical / structural abnormalities? It's just not normal for a healthy dog to starve itself.

But then again I have two pigs, er, papillons! And our pom came to us uninterested in food until we introduced her to our raw meat diet here.

[Annamarie]

I didn't board him while I was gone, I brought him with me. He was eating in a new house and was stressed because of the trip understandably, plus there was another dog around. He eventually did eat more because the other dog was there, but he brought the habit of acting timid around his food back with him.

the vet has never x-rayed him, we've taken him to 3 different vets to make sure there were no stomach problems and had numerous blood, fecal, and urine tests done and plenty of physical exams done. no vet ever wanted to do x-rays because they didn't feel there was anything wrong with him.

if all i did was feed the dog cooked meat every day, yes he'd eat. but that's not a complete diet and I can't do that. i did try making him food and he just picked out the meat and turned his nose up at the rest.

he's now on canned only food with a vet multivitamin supplement. so far he's eaten 2 small meals and 1 big one last night. he also didn't approach his food nearly as fearful.

Originally Posted by briteday

One of my dogs prefers to eat in the privacy of her crate, away from the distractions of a busy household and other animals. I also vote for trying food on the floor. I've had a couple of foster dogs that wouldn't eat out of a bowl or plate, but would eat if I put it on a plastic placemat on the floor...easy enough to rinse off in hot soap and water after the meal.

Where did you board the dog while you were gone? Was it a kennel or someone taking care of the dog for you? Has the vet xray'd the abdominal area to check for anatomical / structural abnormalities? It's just not normal for a healthy dog to starve itself.

But then again I have two pigs, er, papillons! And our pom came to us uninterested in food until we introduced her to our raw meat diet here.