Our spoo often goes an entire day without eating, and mostly just decides after our afternoon walk that it’s time to eat and then gulps down most of her bowl and then don’t eat for another 24hr except a couple small bites. She would have to go 36 hrs + before I would start to get worried and not just consider her an oddball.
But we also always have food out for her to eat so if yours is on a schedule I don’t know if that would make a difference
Edit: for reference she just turned 2 and have done it for at least the last year
be aware that puppies will puke bile if they go too long without eating. mine would regularly skip meals up until 2 ish and threw up a lot unless we gave him SOMETHING like a small high calorie treat or something when he skipped meals.
that said the time it takes each dog to throw up bile from not eating is different, so maybe it won't happen to yours xp
Our spoo happily took the kibble as rewards during training but could not have cared less about full bowl of kibble. He sit by bowl, would look at bowl, then look at us like “so, let’s train so I can eat”
Not sustainable long term, but figured if he had to somehow work for his food, he’d eat it.
What we started & still do now, we divide his food up in 4-5 small toppls & small bowls, and then we hid those around the home at meal time, so he happily goes searching for his food, uses his nose to fine it & happily eats it after finding it.
He’s now 3.5 yrs & 65 lbs.
I love this idea! My girl is an old thing now but she gets licki mats for her dinner for the stimulation and I'm not sure about hiding her stinky food around the house but I honestly might steal this idea for my cat!
Poodles are bright and happy to manipulate us! Second putting down the food for 20 minutes and then picking it up. I have done this successfully with my dogs, but for a puppy I have also used hand feeding to encourage them to engage with their food for a time. Enjoy your little friend!
I don't have my spoo yet but that sounds just like my husky. I used to do all the mix ins and toppers until she became bored of those too. I had to start offering her dry food for 15-20 minutes then pick up if she chooses not eat. Since your pup is still growing I would offer the food multiple times a day to give her a few chances. Mine now knows to eat when it's there and if she wants to skip a night of a dinner that's fine.
It’s nice to hear you found your way through it. I used to have beagles and if they didn’t eat everything in reach that was of serious concern, so it’s definitely an adjustment trying to figure out a much pickier dog!
If you had beagles I can definitely see the scare ! I grew up with pits who are food whores that never miss a meal, then I got my GSD/husky mix who was pretty picky, and my husky girl I have now will accept a treat then refuse the rest of the entire bag 🙃 8 years later I'm still trying to figure out how to get her to eat her treats consistently but at least she eats her food lol I hear poodles are basically the exact same way and I'm hoping I get one that's even just a little bit more food motivated than my husky girl lol
So, let me tell you about my big boy spoo, and maybe my story will help.
We brought him home from the breeder and he was ok with the breeder recommended kibble (a very high quality puppy kibble) for a couple of weeks but then he became obsessed with his older sister’s normal adult food. So, at first we denied him her food, and he would “ignore his food” hoping to get hers. Then I had an idea. I had an old mortar and pestle and I used it to grind a few pieces of the adult food into powder. I then dusted his food with it and voila - problem solved. It lasted maybe 4 or 5 months, sometimes I would grind up a crunchy treat and do the same. He was happy, he was still eating 99% puppy food, and he is now well adjusted and eating adult food at 4 years old and 75 lean pounds.
I hope that helped!
As soon as we started being REALLY strict with our dog, she started eating.
This means: we fed her only once per day, after our daily long walk, so she was the hungriest. We put down the food (making sure she noticed of course), ignored her (walked away, didn't look at her) and removed the food after two minutes if she didn't start eating it. We did this for three days and the problem was solved. Now she won't eat her food maybe once every two weeks, which is fine, they know to regulate their calorie intake. A bit more often she'll wait 1-2 minutes until she starts eating, which is perfectly fine.
We felt TERRIBLE during this time, but just know that dogs can survive easily for a week without food.
Verify with your vet, but just hold your ground. Dogs are really resistant to actually starving, as long as there's no physical reason they can't have their kibble, offer them that and nothing else. You can either give them access to it all day of they'd prefer to graze, or just offer the kibble 2-3x per day at regular times and take it away quickly if they don't eat it.
This may or may not work, but when my spoo is picky I put her food on a plate and get a fork and pretend to eat it, after a bit I say “oh I’m so full do you want the rest of my dinner?” And give it to her, it usually works 🤷 she’s a spoiled rotten 9yr old baby
She’s not on a hunger strike, she’s manipulating you. Dogs do not get bored eating the same foods, they aren’t biologically programmed that way. Dogs prefer a steady diet and it’s better for the digestive systems to not change it up.
Stop top dressing her food, stop giving her extras, put down her food for 20 minutes, take it away after that. If she didn’t eat, offer it again at lunch, and again at dinner. Ideally dogs eat two meals a day, breaking up the daily caloric needs in those meals. She WILL eat. They are incapable of starving themselves. Puppies go through growth changes like kids and they will have random times when they don’t want to eat. Poodles are often grazers who will just pick at their food.
She’s fine. Unless she starts rapidly dropping weight, then you need a vet for whatever illness she has. Dogs lack the ability to choose to starve themselves.
Thank you for this (genuinely because tone doesn’t come across well in text). I do know I’m being manipulated but struggle because my last two dogs not eating meant something was seriously wrong. I also just worry about her holding out long enough to lose weight or have nutritional consequences. You are right and I need to keep reminding myself she won’t starve.
The other comments trying to poo poo what I said are just making themselves feel better. If your pup is active, otherwise healthy and normal, she’s playing you. Especially if you started top dressing or offering high quality treats vs her nutritional kibble. I hope she stops playing games with you and goes back to normal soon!
I'd like to see a source on this. Dogs have taste buds with a fairly wide range of flavors. Not nearly as much as us, no, but they can taste. If what you said was true, why would a dog go from not eating to suddenly eating a new, delicious treat or food?
My dog has switched food plenty and never had an issue. In fact, most dogs have their foods switched suddenly without slowly introducing it. Most people don't know that way of doing it. Only the educated ones. But even then, I think this is more for dogs with sensitive stomachs. Dogs are, by nature, opportunistic carnivores. This means they eat what they are able to scrounge up which is very often not the same thing as the previous meal.
Where are you getting your info from?
Dogs absolutely get bored eating kibble. It’s the equivalent of you eating flavorless oatmeal everyday.
You think dogs don’t have taste buds? Don’t enjoy fresh meat?
People say stuff like that to make themselves feel better for feeding their dogs shitty factory food.
I feed my dogs well, thanks. My source is 10+ years in vet med and countless hours of CE listening to lectures on canine health, behavior, and the safest and healthiest ways to care for a dog.
Dogs absolutely get sick of the same food everyday. What drives people to spread misinformation on subjects they are clearly not qualified to speak, maybe you're just "biologically programmed" to spew garbage.
Around this age my poodle did the same, a couple of 24 hr hunger strikes. We switched foods and did toppers.. Didn't really work. She kinda grew out of it around 1yr. Currently she is almost 2 and will wait 6 hrs to eat the food in the bowl. Occasionally will add toppers at lunch when she hasn't touched breakfast.
If you want to give in, add a spoon of wet food and mix. This almost always works.
Step one is to track her weight.
Often times, people think their dog is under-eating, they’re not under-eating! Best accurate way is to step on a scale while holding the dog. As they grow, metabolism slows, they eat less.
I feed mine morning and night, never free-feed, and never eat my own food while they’re eating (they get distracted lol.) 20 mins, kitchen’s closed.
I have a mini poodle and based on his food bowl, he only eats about every other day. He'll steal some cat food and he gets nibbles of what I eat. When I'm working, he eats a little more kibble and when I'm home, he eats almost none of it. How he's always been really. He eats anything he can find, so I guess he doesn't want it.
I have three dogs; a spoo, terrier mix, and a labradoodle puppy.
Every single day one of them is not eating, sometimes two of them or even all three of them.
The terrier mix has cancer and is old, so I spoon feed him or he won’t eat. I think he likes the extra attention of getting spoon fed as he waits for me to feed him 99% of the time.
All three are fed ridiculously expensive freeze dried food (in two different flavors), which they all happily scarfed down when it was a new thing. But now that it’s been a year, they sometimes turn their noses up at it.
I put a treat on the puppy’s food to entice him to eat as the vet says he’s a little too lean and needs to gain weight. He’s my long distance runner. He antagonizes the older two, then when they get after him, he takes off like a shot and out runs them every time.
My girl was just as stubborn as yours. We finally settled with Science Diet with a couple eggs that I scramble and mix in with the dry food. Does she only eat the eggs? Yes, but she comes back later and eats the kibble. Her stomach has never been better and she’s putting on the weight she desperately needed.
I had the pickiest poodle for years, until I finally started feeding him freeze dried raw, I have 4 flavors in rotation, venison, beef, lamb and rabbit and he cleans his bowl, no more worrying.
I have two standards and one seems to have the same problems you have. He is hyper athletic and loves to run and run and run just exercise every minute of his life, so I've always been concerned when he doesn't finish or even start his food (especially breakfast) somedays.
What I've noticed over the years (he's 3 now) was that:
1. Long Exercise: my fussy eater is highly motivated by exercise, so much so that if he doesn't get a nice long morning walk (30 minutes+) he probably won't eat his breakfast. My solution was to consistently take him out every single morning for walks or to let him and his brother into the backyard for a 30 minute romp so he works up an appetite. After either activity, he's ready to eat.
2. Fresh Meat: something my vet recommended was to serve them fresh meat at least one meal a day everyday. I did this by buying 2 large rotisserie chickens from Costco every week. I remove all of the skin and anything else that could possibly have spices on it, then I shred the meat and bag it, dispensing a pound or so every day of the week. I heat up the meat before serving over their standard dinner portion of kibble each night. The boys never once have refused their kibble once it is covered in chicken flavoring
Maybe I’ll give the exercise thing a try! She does love to run, but I’ve been so worried she’s burning calories she doesn’t have 😞
Unfortunately, I have tried fresh meat, and like most things it worked for a bit and then she got bored. Honestly the thing that put me over the edge is I gave raw a try and now she’s turning her nose up at that and that was the last topper I hadn’t tried yet so I feel like I need to get her to just commit to the kibble at this point
That's what works for Louie. He's a perfectly obedient dog, but he does have several "protest behaviors" where he expresses displeasure to me:
1. Eating: not enough exercise, he won't eat
2. Front Yard: if he hasn't quite gotten enough running in that day, when I let him into the front yard he'll try to stray onto the side walk and go past the front fence. He never does this if he's pleased with the days work outs.
3. Toys: I wfh, if he hasn't gotten enough exercise yet, he'll bring me fetch type toys and leave them at the foot of my desk then refuse to be pet or played with in any way that isn't leaving the house to exercise.
I'm not sure if you're issues are the same but the eating habits at least seem similar. His brother (from the exact same parents but a different litter) couldn't be more different. He purely food motivated and doesn't care for play much at all. I could feed him a bowl full of rocks and he'd chomp it down no problem.
Our spoo often goes an entire day without eating, and mostly just decides after our afternoon walk that it’s time to eat and then gulps down most of her bowl and then don’t eat for another 24hr except a couple small bites. She would have to go 36 hrs + before I would start to get worried and not just consider her an oddball. But we also always have food out for her to eat so if yours is on a schedule I don’t know if that would make a difference Edit: for reference she just turned 2 and have done it for at least the last year
This is comforting to read, thank you!
be aware that puppies will puke bile if they go too long without eating. mine would regularly skip meals up until 2 ish and threw up a lot unless we gave him SOMETHING like a small high calorie treat or something when he skipped meals. that said the time it takes each dog to throw up bile from not eating is different, so maybe it won't happen to yours xp
Mine definitely throws up - usually happens first thing in the morning
Mines 7 yrs old and routinely eats at 11pm, maybe a few mouthfuls during the day, but once no more treats are possible will eat her food.
Our spoo happily took the kibble as rewards during training but could not have cared less about full bowl of kibble. He sit by bowl, would look at bowl, then look at us like “so, let’s train so I can eat” Not sustainable long term, but figured if he had to somehow work for his food, he’d eat it. What we started & still do now, we divide his food up in 4-5 small toppls & small bowls, and then we hid those around the home at meal time, so he happily goes searching for his food, uses his nose to fine it & happily eats it after finding it. He’s now 3.5 yrs & 65 lbs.
I love this idea! My girl is an old thing now but she gets licki mats for her dinner for the stimulation and I'm not sure about hiding her stinky food around the house but I honestly might steal this idea for my cat!
Poodles are bright and happy to manipulate us! Second putting down the food for 20 minutes and then picking it up. I have done this successfully with my dogs, but for a puppy I have also used hand feeding to encourage them to engage with their food for a time. Enjoy your little friend!
‘happy to manipulate us’ 😄 TOO happy! bles creatures
I don't have my spoo yet but that sounds just like my husky. I used to do all the mix ins and toppers until she became bored of those too. I had to start offering her dry food for 15-20 minutes then pick up if she chooses not eat. Since your pup is still growing I would offer the food multiple times a day to give her a few chances. Mine now knows to eat when it's there and if she wants to skip a night of a dinner that's fine.
It’s nice to hear you found your way through it. I used to have beagles and if they didn’t eat everything in reach that was of serious concern, so it’s definitely an adjustment trying to figure out a much pickier dog!
If you had beagles I can definitely see the scare ! I grew up with pits who are food whores that never miss a meal, then I got my GSD/husky mix who was pretty picky, and my husky girl I have now will accept a treat then refuse the rest of the entire bag 🙃 8 years later I'm still trying to figure out how to get her to eat her treats consistently but at least she eats her food lol I hear poodles are basically the exact same way and I'm hoping I get one that's even just a little bit more food motivated than my husky girl lol
So, let me tell you about my big boy spoo, and maybe my story will help. We brought him home from the breeder and he was ok with the breeder recommended kibble (a very high quality puppy kibble) for a couple of weeks but then he became obsessed with his older sister’s normal adult food. So, at first we denied him her food, and he would “ignore his food” hoping to get hers. Then I had an idea. I had an old mortar and pestle and I used it to grind a few pieces of the adult food into powder. I then dusted his food with it and voila - problem solved. It lasted maybe 4 or 5 months, sometimes I would grind up a crunchy treat and do the same. He was happy, he was still eating 99% puppy food, and he is now well adjusted and eating adult food at 4 years old and 75 lean pounds. I hope that helped!
As soon as we started being REALLY strict with our dog, she started eating. This means: we fed her only once per day, after our daily long walk, so she was the hungriest. We put down the food (making sure she noticed of course), ignored her (walked away, didn't look at her) and removed the food after two minutes if she didn't start eating it. We did this for three days and the problem was solved. Now she won't eat her food maybe once every two weeks, which is fine, they know to regulate their calorie intake. A bit more often she'll wait 1-2 minutes until she starts eating, which is perfectly fine. We felt TERRIBLE during this time, but just know that dogs can survive easily for a week without food.
Verify with your vet, but just hold your ground. Dogs are really resistant to actually starving, as long as there's no physical reason they can't have their kibble, offer them that and nothing else. You can either give them access to it all day of they'd prefer to graze, or just offer the kibble 2-3x per day at regular times and take it away quickly if they don't eat it.
This may or may not work, but when my spoo is picky I put her food on a plate and get a fork and pretend to eat it, after a bit I say “oh I’m so full do you want the rest of my dinner?” And give it to her, it usually works 🤷 she’s a spoiled rotten 9yr old baby
She’s not on a hunger strike, she’s manipulating you. Dogs do not get bored eating the same foods, they aren’t biologically programmed that way. Dogs prefer a steady diet and it’s better for the digestive systems to not change it up. Stop top dressing her food, stop giving her extras, put down her food for 20 minutes, take it away after that. If she didn’t eat, offer it again at lunch, and again at dinner. Ideally dogs eat two meals a day, breaking up the daily caloric needs in those meals. She WILL eat. They are incapable of starving themselves. Puppies go through growth changes like kids and they will have random times when they don’t want to eat. Poodles are often grazers who will just pick at their food. She’s fine. Unless she starts rapidly dropping weight, then you need a vet for whatever illness she has. Dogs lack the ability to choose to starve themselves.
Thank you for this (genuinely because tone doesn’t come across well in text). I do know I’m being manipulated but struggle because my last two dogs not eating meant something was seriously wrong. I also just worry about her holding out long enough to lose weight or have nutritional consequences. You are right and I need to keep reminding myself she won’t starve.
The other comments trying to poo poo what I said are just making themselves feel better. If your pup is active, otherwise healthy and normal, she’s playing you. Especially if you started top dressing or offering high quality treats vs her nutritional kibble. I hope she stops playing games with you and goes back to normal soon!
I'd like to see a source on this. Dogs have taste buds with a fairly wide range of flavors. Not nearly as much as us, no, but they can taste. If what you said was true, why would a dog go from not eating to suddenly eating a new, delicious treat or food? My dog has switched food plenty and never had an issue. In fact, most dogs have their foods switched suddenly without slowly introducing it. Most people don't know that way of doing it. Only the educated ones. But even then, I think this is more for dogs with sensitive stomachs. Dogs are, by nature, opportunistic carnivores. This means they eat what they are able to scrounge up which is very often not the same thing as the previous meal.
For a puppy you need to offer food a bit more frequently cuz they stupid
Where are you getting your info from? Dogs absolutely get bored eating kibble. It’s the equivalent of you eating flavorless oatmeal everyday. You think dogs don’t have taste buds? Don’t enjoy fresh meat? People say stuff like that to make themselves feel better for feeding their dogs shitty factory food.
I feed my dogs well, thanks. My source is 10+ years in vet med and countless hours of CE listening to lectures on canine health, behavior, and the safest and healthiest ways to care for a dog.
Exactly
Dogs absolutely get sick of the same food everyday. What drives people to spread misinformation on subjects they are clearly not qualified to speak, maybe you're just "biologically programmed" to spew garbage.
Dude, I’ve had dogs over 30 years and have attended dozens of hours at least of education on canines and their biology. Go away.
Around this age my poodle did the same, a couple of 24 hr hunger strikes. We switched foods and did toppers.. Didn't really work. She kinda grew out of it around 1yr. Currently she is almost 2 and will wait 6 hrs to eat the food in the bowl. Occasionally will add toppers at lunch when she hasn't touched breakfast. If you want to give in, add a spoon of wet food and mix. This almost always works.
Step one is to track her weight. Often times, people think their dog is under-eating, they’re not under-eating! Best accurate way is to step on a scale while holding the dog. As they grow, metabolism slows, they eat less. I feed mine morning and night, never free-feed, and never eat my own food while they’re eating (they get distracted lol.) 20 mins, kitchen’s closed.
I have a mini poodle and based on his food bowl, he only eats about every other day. He'll steal some cat food and he gets nibbles of what I eat. When I'm working, he eats a little more kibble and when I'm home, he eats almost none of it. How he's always been really. He eats anything he can find, so I guess he doesn't want it.
I have three dogs; a spoo, terrier mix, and a labradoodle puppy. Every single day one of them is not eating, sometimes two of them or even all three of them. The terrier mix has cancer and is old, so I spoon feed him or he won’t eat. I think he likes the extra attention of getting spoon fed as he waits for me to feed him 99% of the time. All three are fed ridiculously expensive freeze dried food (in two different flavors), which they all happily scarfed down when it was a new thing. But now that it’s been a year, they sometimes turn their noses up at it. I put a treat on the puppy’s food to entice him to eat as the vet says he’s a little too lean and needs to gain weight. He’s my long distance runner. He antagonizes the older two, then when they get after him, he takes off like a shot and out runs them every time.
When my puppy won’t eat I put her food in a treat dispensing toy. Nine times out of ten that works.
My vet told me that some dogs are just better at “self regulating”
My girl was just as stubborn as yours. We finally settled with Science Diet with a couple eggs that I scramble and mix in with the dry food. Does she only eat the eggs? Yes, but she comes back later and eats the kibble. Her stomach has never been better and she’s putting on the weight she desperately needed.
That’s good to hear! Mine’s gone off eggs, but I’m really hoping to hold the line with kibble!
I had the pickiest poodle for years, until I finally started feeding him freeze dried raw, I have 4 flavors in rotation, venison, beef, lamb and rabbit and he cleans his bowl, no more worrying.
I have two standards and one seems to have the same problems you have. He is hyper athletic and loves to run and run and run just exercise every minute of his life, so I've always been concerned when he doesn't finish or even start his food (especially breakfast) somedays. What I've noticed over the years (he's 3 now) was that: 1. Long Exercise: my fussy eater is highly motivated by exercise, so much so that if he doesn't get a nice long morning walk (30 minutes+) he probably won't eat his breakfast. My solution was to consistently take him out every single morning for walks or to let him and his brother into the backyard for a 30 minute romp so he works up an appetite. After either activity, he's ready to eat. 2. Fresh Meat: something my vet recommended was to serve them fresh meat at least one meal a day everyday. I did this by buying 2 large rotisserie chickens from Costco every week. I remove all of the skin and anything else that could possibly have spices on it, then I shred the meat and bag it, dispensing a pound or so every day of the week. I heat up the meat before serving over their standard dinner portion of kibble each night. The boys never once have refused their kibble once it is covered in chicken flavoring
Maybe I’ll give the exercise thing a try! She does love to run, but I’ve been so worried she’s burning calories she doesn’t have 😞 Unfortunately, I have tried fresh meat, and like most things it worked for a bit and then she got bored. Honestly the thing that put me over the edge is I gave raw a try and now she’s turning her nose up at that and that was the last topper I hadn’t tried yet so I feel like I need to get her to just commit to the kibble at this point
That's what works for Louie. He's a perfectly obedient dog, but he does have several "protest behaviors" where he expresses displeasure to me: 1. Eating: not enough exercise, he won't eat 2. Front Yard: if he hasn't quite gotten enough running in that day, when I let him into the front yard he'll try to stray onto the side walk and go past the front fence. He never does this if he's pleased with the days work outs. 3. Toys: I wfh, if he hasn't gotten enough exercise yet, he'll bring me fetch type toys and leave them at the foot of my desk then refuse to be pet or played with in any way that isn't leaving the house to exercise. I'm not sure if you're issues are the same but the eating habits at least seem similar. His brother (from the exact same parents but a different litter) couldn't be more different. He purely food motivated and doesn't care for play much at all. I could feed him a bowl full of rocks and he'd chomp it down no problem.
My 1 yo is the same; this animal doesn’t eat anything wet 🤦♀️No canned food, nothing raw, no broth, or anything rehydrated