<p>My dogs are getting to be very picky eaters. </p>
<p>I need some better ideas of what to try.</p>
<p>(Both are small dogs)</p>
<p>What does your dog like for …</p>
<p>Dry food</p>
<p>Wet food</p>
<p>Are these pricey???</p>
<p>And is your dog picky? Or will he/she eat ANYTHING you put in the bowl…LOL</p>
<p>dry food
evo
chicken small bites</p>
<p>i only have one small dog, so i can’t be a judge of price…$15 or so for a small bag.</p>
<p>I have two dogs who are picky eaters. They seem to like Wellness Small Breed. I also like it because when they eat this, their poop is firm & they seem to have less frequent poops -easier for me to clean up. </p>
<p>This is a premium brand – so it does cost – but its also high calorie so you can feed less of it. I haven’t paid a lot of attention to cost, however, because I used to own a big dog – and the little guys just eat a whole lot less overall, so I haven’t really stressed over the cost. A 12lb bag is about $25. </p>
<p>They also seem to really go for Canidae Grain Free Salmon, but I don’t actually feed them that as their main food – the pet store near me gives away little free sample bags, and this brand also has a strong smell, so I use it for training treats. (I don’t want to feed them the stuff, because then it might lose it’s appeal for training – better to have something they think is special. )</p>
<p>Another tip: I got both dogs, separately, as older puppies from the pound – I thought I should feed them twice a day and I’d put down the food in the morning, and they would nibble but not eat it, same with dinner. I always had leftover food at the end of the day an it was hard to know how much they were eating. I shifted to one feeding per day, around 5pm … and boy, did their appetites improve! They also became a lot more enthusiastic about training.</p>
<p>Our dog had been a picky eater and then started only eating wet food which got expensive. Tried many brands and finally found one called Chef Michaels. She LOVES it. We have the filet mignon flavor because my D loves filet mignon and wanted her pup to try it. She eats and finishes it like it is wet food.</p>
<p>It’s horrible but you asked…the biggest treat for my (big dog) is Kibbles and Bits (only on special occasions)…my vet calls it Chex Mix for dogs. He also love raw marrow bones which he gets often for his teeth and coat. But in terms of dry food he eats Diamond Premium. I used to love Bench & Field 26, but I can’t find it anymore.</p>
<p>We fed our dog Purina One for years but as he got older, it wasn’t treating his digestive system too well. My boss said she fed hers Eukanuba so we tried it. DH loved it because the poo was much easier to clean up in the backyard but our dog never really took to it. He had always been an enthusiastic eater but just picked at the Eukanuba (would take him all day to finish the bowl off…very out of character). He just didn’t like it. </p>
<p>So now we have switched to Authority dog food (got it at PetSmart). The dog loves it and is back to gobbling up his food.</p>
<p>I have one with allergies so she eats Eagle Pack Holistic Select Anchovy, Sardine and Salmon dry. The younger dog is on a grain free; no know allergies, but the grain free has been wonderful for him. He eats Acana Grasslands or Pacifica which is a wonderful food and company. Yes, the food cost more, but you feed less and the waste in the yard is so much smaller than those on foods with grain. I would love to switch the older dog to the Acana Pacifica, buy she is allergic to white potatoes which is in the food.</p>
<p>For picky eaters, if you don’t mind adding to their kibble, yogurt is a great addition. Mine also like pumpkin in their food when needed. I don’t like adding to their main meal as some dogs then become accustom and then won’t eat their food without something added. Because I do allow mine to have table food by hand, they don’t look for it in their bowls.</p>
<p>I’m finding that a very well accepted food is Lotus. It’s baked, not extruded, and seems to have better flavor. It’s seriously pricey however, and while the dogs love it, their owners only liked it at the intro pricing. It’s about to be discontinued in my shop if I don’t start seeing repeat purchasing at the regular pricing because it’s not paying for its shelf space …</p>
<p>Other foods for picky eaters … Chicken Soup (dry) and Grandma Mae’s Country Naturals. For a small dog, lots of them seem to like Solid Gold Wee Bits. Wellness, in general, seemed to have palatablity issues, although some dogs do like it.</p>
<p>Oh boy… do I even want to go there after all we’ve been through??? Cause you won’t like my answer!</p>
<p>Lamb and rice followed by beef and rice. It’s not a brand name thing with her. She just preferrs rice based dog food over corn meal and wheat based dog food.</p>
<p>But of course she does cartwheels down the hall way when i make her home made dog food of dirty rice with ground lamb and beef with sweet potatoe.</p>
<p>Go figure. My dogs hated Solid Gold Wee Bits & it gave them runny stool. They will also eat a brand called Natures Variety/Prairie kibble – apparently they preferred that to whatever I had packed for them when they were staying at the dog sitters – I ended up mixing the Wee Bits with the Prairie to finish it off. But generally they are pretty happy with the Wellness, and my vet was happy when I told her that I was feeding that. </p>
<p>I guess the thing about picky eating dogs is that they all have their own preferences. </p>
<p>I usually only feed kibble in their dishes, and don’t feed them from the table. I’m afraid that if I started cooking good stuff for them then they would only get more picky, and I’ve read that dry kibble is better for their teeth. </p>
<p>Another tip: sometimes the way they are fed makes a difference. Mine are both young terrier mixes and very active – so I can take a kibble they are not particular fond of and stick it inside a food-dispensing ball (a hollow ball with a hole so that the food spills out when the ball is rolled around) – and they are delighted to roll that all over the place, munching along the way. And I can cram stuff they won’t take from my hand into a kong, and they will stay occupied until they’ve managed to lick the kong clean. (They are kong geniuses – they’ve figured out that dropping the things from high places is a terrific way to to loosen up whatever has gotten stuck out of reach of their tongues).</p>
<p>My dog (a boxer) eats the dry dog food we buy at Costco. We switch it every time between the green bag and the reddish bag. He likes it fine. We don’t buy him dry food.</p>
<p>He also has liked every other type of food we’ve ever offered to him. He’ll eat any table scrap I give him which includes a lot of variety but very little quantity since it’s not that good for him (I’ll sometimes give him 2 beans - 1 at a time for example or the tiniest piece of a tortilla or a piece of tomato). He also eats fallen avocados and Fuyus in the yard. He loves it all. I guess I’m lucky, however, he was a rescue dog so maybe he had times in the past where he couldn’t be picky.</p>
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<p>Our dog loves to try to get the raspberries off of the lower hanging bushes in the summer!</p>
<p>Wow…some of these brands I’ve never heard of. Where do you get some of the uncommon ones? PetSmart? The vet’s office? </p>
<p>My dogs have fallen in love with those dehydrated chicken strips from Costco and Sams Club. These, of course, are treats (dehydrated chix breasts), but they will beg and beg for them and will ignore the “real food.” The doxie will sit straight up on his hiney (like a prarie dog…LOL) and stare at me like I’m the meanest momma on earth. </p>
<p>We did just try the Chef Michaels…the doxie will eat it (and so will my cats!!!), but my yorkie/chihuahua mix turns her nose up at it. Ugh!!</p>
<p>We’ve tried Costco, Eukanuba, Sams Club, Purina One, and Beneful (all types…including the wet version).</p>
<p>Has anyone tried that dog food that’s has its own fridge section in the store? Can’t remember the brand name.</p>
<p>(My cats - who are still technically kitties - LOVE rose petals. They eat them like potato chips…Weird!)</p>
<p>Many of the higher grade foods are available at specialty pet stores, not PetSmart. That said, in some cities, the chain stores are starting to carry what I consider better foods; at least better than what that currently sell.</p>
<p>My oldest when through so many different foods before we found one that worked for her stomach as well as her allergies. I spent more time researching dog foods than anything else I have ever done! Along came the second dog and I had to find the right food for him. Boy did I long for the olden days when the dogs at what ever I brought home!!</p>
<p>Both my dogs lovelovelove both flavors of Costco wet food. We are struggling with dry food though. Suddenly nothing pleases either pup–perhaps because they are getting less exercise just now since I haven’t been feeling well and have been walking them less.</p>
<p>I can get the food I mentioned (Wellness) at Petco & at another store near me. There’s also a place in the SF Bay Area called Pet Food Express that sells just about everything. </p>
<p>For those who are posting about larger dogs – I used to own big dogs, but for the past year have become a small dog person instead… and there is a huge difference, starting with the food. I just think that the little guys are the picky eaters (possibly because they really need less – we owners probably inadvertently fill them up pretty quickly with dog treats and tidbits from the table).</p>
<p>The lesser known, high quality brands may only be available at independent pet stores. With little in the way of an advertising budget, the smaller brands have more money to spend on what’s in the bag. </p>
<p>The big box pet store chains (generically known as Petcosmartlandia) carry heavily advertised national brands – easy to sell because of the brand recognition regardless of quality. </p>
<p>The vets’ office will have Science Diet (and Hills prescription diets) and possibly a second brand that has a prescription diet side.</p>
<p>The supermarket will have heavily advertised corn based foods because they are cheap to manufacture.</p>
<p>In my shop we recommend you read the labels. Look for a food with a meat as its first ingredient. A meat meal is OK, a <em>byproduct meal</em> is NOT OK. I like whole foods, so rice is OK, but rice gluten, rice flour and rice bran are not OK. Suggest you stay away from the fractionated grains. We do not carry or recommend foods with corn or wheat, as those foods tend to be allergenic. In addition, corn is deficient in lysine, an essential amino acid. </p>
<p>I tend to feel that there is not a lot of value to the various life stage foods, or breed size foods … but rather a dog owner should think about what he is trying to do with the food and feed the dog, not the bag. And don’t get me started on the mini-yorkie food and the goldendoodle food, and the doxie food … I am so not impressed!</p>
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<p>Ok, let’s hear it. You’ve got me very curious.</p>
<p>speakinig of avocados and backyard snackers… our border collie would dig up the pecans that squirrels buried in the yard, crack them and worry out the tiny bits of nut.</p>