What can I do to get my dog to eat?

You have a picky eater[] Tough love is the ONLY way to fix that, IMO.

Pick a good food that you like. It sounds like you have one that you think should agree with him. I probably wouldn't switch, because something new could turn him off, at this point. Natural Choice (assuming that's Nutro?) is a decent enough food that it shouldn't be causing any issues with palatability. Remove all treats, chewies, etc. ALL of them. As of today, he no longer gets treats, for anything. He's a big enough boy to potty without a treat. All he gets is 2-3 meals per day of plain dog food. His meal is left in his regular feeding place for 15-20 minutes, and any remnants are removed at that point. He gets NOTHING until next meal time.

Bullet will probably throw up, from an empty stomach, before he eats. That's ok. It won't kill him to throw up bile a few times. If you hold out, you will likely end up with a pig dog who eats whatever you put down. If you don't hold out, things may get worse, or they may stay the same. Some people won't do tough love, because they think it's horribly cruel, but it saved my dog's life. It got her eating again, when she was horribly ill, and desperately needed all the strength she could get. She's a chow hound, now, and eats anything I put in front of her. A bowl of plain broccoli is just as fair game as a bowl of meatballs.

Go get some EVO canned (beef is $1.50) here, and put it a couple tablespoons mixed with some water, let set for 5 mins to absorb the water. I promise you he will eat it all.  If you can't find EVO get Canidae or some other qualtiy canned food.
 
Your dog is drinking alot and needs water or broth added to the dry.
 
You can make some healthy no sodium chicken broth and freeze.  Heinz gravy and Vita-gravy has stuff in it I don't think is healthy.

I use to do tough love. He would get breakfast for 30 min, if he didn't eat, it would get taken away. Same with supper. He would go for no more than 24 hours without eating before in haling his food. This was the routine from when he was 2 months old, until a week ago when our doctor said he needed to eat and leaving the food dow was ok. He's always been a somewhat picky eater, but now that he throws up every time he doesn't eat and has been doing so for a good month now, forcing him to eat seems to be the only option.

I like the the canned food idea. I will try that next time I go tot the store I will look for some food. Until then, I will try some chicken broth or beef broth as I plan to make a roast tomorrow.

I agree with Jennie on this one my pug was the same way.  I realized it was all my fault i would give him canned in his dry and he would eat the wet and spit the dry on the floor.  So i started just giving him his dry food alone and then the canned food after he ate his dry.  Kind of like a doggie dessert.  He wouldn't touch the dry for about 2 1/2 days.  I felt bad but when he ate the whole bowl of dry without me sitting on the floor next to him i knew it was all worth it.  Now i can sit anything in front of him and he will eat it. It may sound horrible but trying a ton of new things to try to get him to eat will just make it worse than it was. 

you can also put a little warm water (not hot) over the kibble and let it soak in for a minute or two. it drives our sometimes picky dogs crazy when we do that.

as mentioned before, we have also added canned food to the kibble. i usually put it in the bottom of the bowl and put dry on top. i dont want them picking the canned food out and leaving the dry. with canned food the smellier it is the better. as mentioned above evo is a good smelly one. if you are shopping at petsmart, the blue buffalo is pretty smelly too.

our dogs will also go nuts for their food if i add a little plain yogurt. just 3-4 tablespoons full is all i add.

we have also added some no-sodium canned green beans before that works well. chopped cucumber (when it was in season) worked well too.

I have thought about this one for a while now, and decided that if I want my dog to eat he is going to have to starve himself. I agree that by adding things to his dinner appears to make him more picky. I use to put yogurt in there to help with some of his troubles. I hid pills in small peanut butter balls. But now, all he will get is his pills and dry food unless he just flat out refuses to eat and gets really really sick. I just need my husband to stick with the program. He loves to spoil the dog with everything.

He hasn't really eaten anything much since yesterday around 3 pm so it will be interesting to see if he manages to eat dinner tonight.

I will try this for a few days, unless he perks up, I may try warm water, or small amounts of canned food. He will learn to eat what he is given and when, or he will have to go hungry. Thanks

I had the hardest time with this myself, and actually did it and solved all the problems. I did just as you stated, if they didn't eat in 1/2 and hour, up it came, I have to tell you I felt like the Worst[:@] Mom ever. However, it worked and that was many years ago. Good luck, it isn't easy[]

Kaiser has gone almost 24 hours without eating before. I usually mix evo or merrick canned in, and he likes it. I bought a container of cottage cheese last week and have been adding a spoonfull to each of his meals, and he has devoured every one since.! Yesterday, when i got the cottage cheese out of the fridge, he started salivating. I honestly thinks he likes it better than the canned.

He will learn to eat what he is given and when, or he will have to go hungry.

It'll work for you. I wish you the best[]

If I were you I'd try some different foods and see if that just fixes the problem. Usually I'd recommend "tough love" but it sounds like this dog may actually have an upset stomach-- the food is making him feel sick.
Also, there is nothing wrong with routinely mixing canned foods or fresh meats with kibble, as long as it's YOU deciding what to put on. Don't offer dry kibble and then when the dog refuses to eat add something to it, that just trains the dog to wait and see what else he might get; if you are going to add stuff, add it before ever offering the meal to the dog. I don't think feeding a meal of nothing but dry kibble is very healthy, I always mix something wet in there.

I will say that when I fed Natural Choice to my dogs, the majority of them barfed in the mornings. Don't know why.  They don't do that on any other food, but every time I tried them back on Nat. Choice again, they'd be nauseas and barfing every morning!  I would try to switch to something else and then apply the tough love route.
Good luck.

Well, I've been down this road many many times over the past few years. 
 
I've found that it's actually easier to just go with the flow until she's eating the right things again.  If I let her stop eating completely, then it's very hard to get her back.  I will give her whatever she wants to eat now to keep something in her stomach.  I don't think the vomiting bile is good for them and you should try to at least give him a cookie or something (just one will stop it for Willow and she's 50 lbs) so he doesn't do that.

ORIGINAL: mudpuppy

If I were you I'd try some different foods and see if that just fixes the problem. Usually I'd recommend "tough love" but it sounds like this dog may actually have an upset stomach-- the food is making him feel sick.
Also, there is nothing wrong with routinely mixing canned foods or fresh meats with kibble, as long as it's YOU deciding what to put on. Don't offer dry kibble and then when the dog refuses to eat add something to it, that just trains the dog to wait and see what else he might get; if you are going to add stuff, add it before ever offering the meal to the dog. I don't think feeding a meal of nothing but dry kibble is very healthy, I always mix something wet in there.

He didn't start getting sick in the morning until he started with Natural Choice, maybe we are better off trying a different food. Thanks. We are almost done with this bag, so a switch may be in order.

In some ways I was partly blaming my husband for his picky eating habits. Each time we would get a bag of food, he would have to pick out a different flavor. I remember reading back when I had my shorthair pointer, that switching foods, and flavors caused a picky eater. I was wondering if this was not part of our problem.

Another part of our problem is me. I was so desperate to get the dog to eat something to prevent him from throwing up, I would put stuff on his food to make him eat. Peanut butter, cheese ect. Got to the point if he was bored with a flavor, he would turn his nose up until I tried something else. So I have resulted to tough love.

Good news is the past 2 nights (tonight included) he's inhaled his dinner. Bad news is, dinner is all he got. Now a couple of questions here. If he is only eating 1 meal a day, should I increase the amount of food at meal time? He has been getting 2 cups in the morning, 1 in the afternoon, and 2 at night (providing he eats all of it) which fallows in with the chart on the back of the bag for his weight. But if he is only eating dinner, he is only getting 2 cups.

Another question is, how long will he continue this before he catches on that he will have to eat what he is given or go hungry? I realize it's only been a couple of days, but my husband is a softy and not only do I have to be tough on the dog but on my husband as well.

Oh and a side note, that he has been doing well on his medicine. He takes 2 pills a day and has not gotten sick since last Friday, even though he is not eating.[sm=clapping hands smiley.gif]

I personally don't think any dog should have to eat just dry kibble all the time. They most definitely appreciate a variety and that doesn't automatically make a picky eater. That's not to say that I think people should cater to a dog turning up their nose at food. I give Gingerbread kibble mixed with either canned food, meat, or babyfood. If he doesn't eat it within 15 minutes, I definitely don't offer him anything different. In that case he doesn't eat again until the next mealtime.

Edited to add that I've heard of several instances where dogs vomited a lot when eating Nutro Natural Choice. I definitely think it's worth a try switching foods. I personally wouldn't feed any brands at Petsmart, but that's just me. []