I have a 5 month old puppy which I have had 2 weeks. The breeder told me she is very good at eating her meals. Since being with me she has been very picky to a point she wasn't bothered it she ate it or not. I have tried various ways including putting fresh tripe in with her complete food and also soaking her complete food as she is teething with it seems a lot of discomfort. Any suggestions would help and perhaps there is something I haven't thought of.

Could you be trying to feed her too many times each day , with too much food?
Have you tried offering her  less meals each day and less food too, and not leaving her food down to eat whenever she feels like it. Set meal times for 10 to 15 minutes and then taken away. Also strictly NO treats either! until she has learnt to eat her meals properly. Keeping your puppy a little hungry for a while will do her no harm.

( I hope your tripe was the Green tripe offered raw? ) some dogs absolutely love it , but others take quiet a while to get used to it!!!  Phew !

As above try offering less food and take it away after 15 mins or so and then it goes down at the next meal. You need to be persistent and not feed anything else otherwise you are at risk of creating a picky puppy that has trained you to only feed it what it wants :)
I have read of pups holding out for nearly a week eating but then soon get the message that that’s what they’re getting.
And of course if you are concerned it is anything more then a vet trip is your next course (I’m sure you’ve already thought of that).

Bear with me on this one!
I have a husky x gsd bitch, I got her at 13 weeks when her previous owners decided they couldn't keep her, she was a tad fussy when I got her, but has increasingly got worse and worse. It is maddening as I have never had a fussy dog before, if a dog ever refused it's meal, I would make a point of letting the dog see me bin the food and it's not taken many binned meals before the dog decided it's better to eat what its given.
However, this bitch (nearly 12 months old now) is so clever, she has learnt to hold out for the really tasty stuff, at one point I was even roasting a chicken especially for her, every couple of days!
I've tried taking her food back up, feeding her in a different room, feeding from a different bowl (she'll eat better off a plate than out of a bowl), feeding her by hand, breaking up food into tiny morsles, changing brands of dog food, trying raw feeding, pretty much every thing I could think of, yet she remains a fussy madam that is far too thin (vets aren't worried, but it's not nice to be able to feel her spine so easily and see it when she bends over, if she wasn't so furry she'd look like a cruelty case).

I have noticed that she seems very bored about the idea of eating, so sometimes I'll be able to get her to eat quite a bit by getting her to do some basic obedience and rewarding her with morsles of her meal, or chucking pieces of kibble on the floor for her to chase and eat (she has a high prey drive) can tempt her to eat some. Somedays it's bliss and she'll just eat like a 'normal' dog, but that's only a couple of times a week.

I also have a 4 month old lab puppy, who would eat untill he burst if he had the chance, so I have been freezing food in the middle of marrow bones (to give him something food-orientated to do between meals), but the fussy girl has decided that these are really interesting and will eat the dog food out of them!

I've literally just this morning offered her her breakfast (dry kibble), she turned her nose up and walked away, I then offered her a bone with frozen food in and she's taken it off to her bed to eat, she's on her second bone now! All I've done is soak some kibble in some warm water to let it go a bit soft, stuff it in a marrow bone and plonk it in the freezer, she gets an 'interesting' meal and I get some peace of mind that she is actually eating - yay!!!!

I now think that some dogs are 'fussy' because eating is boring for them, so perhaps it's not what you are feeding your pup, but how, she may prefer to 'work' for it in some way, even if it's only scatter feeding?

My GR boy is exactly the same!  Not that interested in food at all and steadfastly refuses kibble of any kind.  He is fit and healthy so I cant understand why he just isnt food motivated.  I too have found that he will refuse food out of a bowl but will eat it if its stuffed in a bone.  I have reached the point that I dont care HOW he eats as lond as he eats!

My GR boy can be the same too! There are occasions when he would look like a toast rack if he wasn't so furry. I've tried giving him an extra meal at lunch time but then he'll refuse his tea! He's otherwise fit(very) and healthy, so as I would rather he was thin than fat (and there are many much younger dogs that are!) I'm trying not to worry and let him fill out in his own time. I don't think kibble is particularly appealing, the girls don't have a problem with it, but he isn't keen. He eats more than twice what the girls get, but is still thin. Which is frustrating when judges continually tell me he's lovely, just too thin!!

I have dogs that eat but I know people who have adopted the ditch the bowl procedure.in other words food is given via training .it doesn't have to be complicated training but things like scent work are good.i know a lot who have had success with both training and fussy eaters doing this . Food in kongs can be helpful anything that makes them use their brains   is good. It also works for fast eaters if they have to go looking for food or do some thing and have food as reward

If your dog is not keen on dry food would it be worth trying raw feeding (assuming you haven't already)? Especially if she was happy to have the marrow bone stuffed with kibble - maybe she is telling you something?

When I tried him with some raw to see how he got on with it he backed away from it and looked at me as if I was trying to poison him.  Must admit the look he gave me did make me laugh!

> If your dog is not keen on dry food would it be worth trying raw feeding (assuming you haven't already)? Especially if she was happy to have the marrow bone stuffed with kibble - maybe she is telling you something?

I've tried her on raw, I thought it would be an easy fix what dog can resist some juicy raw tripe? but she looks at it with utter disgust! My Mastiff would go mad for raw tripe or raw liver, she looks at it with horror and on the odd occasion she's actually taken a scrap form me, she's spat it out like I've tried to poisen her! She does like a raw bone from the butchers, but I'm not having them about at the moment as the other pup can be very guardy over some food items (dog-dog food guarding) and I fear that may cause trouble, so I'm working on his guardiness at the moment.

Oh, she will eat raw carrots, she considers them quite a high value thing and will actually jump up and rob them form me when she sees me with them.

I think she's just the sort of dog that likes to be doing something and eating from a bowl is just too boring for her.

> When I tried him with some raw to see how he got on with it he backed away from it and looked at me as if I was trying to poison him.  Must admit the look he gave me did make me laugh!

Ha ha ha, snap!!!!
The face is priceless isn't it

How I solved my puppy who's the same not interested in food. I soaked her dried food put in raw tripe or cooked minced beef or lamb and what really solved the problem was mixing in 1 or 2 desert spoonfuls of Goats Yogurt which she loves and there's no stopping her now and she has put on 2kgs in 2 weeks. She now has 2 meals a day scrabble egg for lunch or a tripe stick.  If i leave the yogurt out she is not so interested so that the secret

> I soaked her dried food put in raw tripe or cooked minced beef or lamb and what really solved the problem was mixing in

I've tried adding cooked minced beef, she refused to eat it. I've tried adding cooked liver (her absolute favorite food, that she would eat 24/7), but she'll just pick the liver out, if I smash the liver up and mix in with soaked (or standard) kibble, she'll refuse to eat it any of it :( I also tried  mixing in some beef dripping to kibble soaked in warm water, she ate that once, then refused to touch it again. I've tried adding greek yoghurt (which she like), but again, this wont get her to eat kibble or wet food.
She really is the most frustrating of dogs ever. When I was feeding her Roast chicken, after a week of that, she'd only eat it when it was still warm from being out of the oven, once it had cooled, even if I re-heated it, she would refuse it.

My plan was to find something she would like, establish a raliable feeding/eating routine, then slowly merge back over to a more standard food type, but, with all the things I've tried to do to encourage her to eat, I've only ended up teaching her to be fussier :(

This is to both of you with dogs that are reluctant to eat

Would feeding kibble via a Kong Wobbler where the kibble falls out of a small hole as the Wobbler is batted around the room suit him do you think. He would be working for his food and there's the amusement factor of bits falling out helter skelter, for you as well as him
I feed my golden with one of these or a Green slow feeder in order to slow her down with food greedy madam that she is. Never had a golden that showed lack of interest in food unless they were seriously ill, although all my goldens have been spayed bitches which would make a difference

I do have a wobbler that dispenses kibble and he will play with it for about two minutes and then lose interest.  Like Mastifflover I have tried just about everything ,  worried myself silly over him not eating but as there is obviously nothing wrong with him, (full of energy, playful etc) I now just try to accept that he is just the exception to the rule and just isnt that bothered about food.  So different to the other dogs I have had.

> Would feeding kibble via a Kong Wobbler where the kibble falls out of a small hole as the Wobbler is batted around the room suit him do you think. He would be working for his food and there's the amusement factor of bits falling out helter skelter, for you as well as him

I've not tried a kong wobbler, but have got a ball with holes, that kibble can fall out of, she's not in the slightest bit interested in that. It's worth trying a kong wobbler though as even if she isn't interested the lab pup will love it (anything to do with food is a big hit for him ), so thanks for the good idea

> worried myself silly over him not eating but as there is obviously nothing wrong with him, (full of energy, playful etc)

Same with my girl. Fit as a fiddle, she has so much energy it's unreal and is utterly tireless. I have no idea how she stays so energetic, but she's obviously getting enough nutrition.
She had a really good day for eating yesterday, she ate 3 entire bowls of dog kibble. Today she had a couple of stuffed bones (equal to about 1 small bowl of kibble) and is not interested in anything else. I'm trying my hardest to not let it bother me, but it's really hard as all my dogs have been utter foodies, so this is so unnatural for me lol

My youngest is picky like this, her mother was worse as a puppy and grew out of it so I'm hoping she does. I might try the Kong wobbler as she does prefer food dropped on the floor to sitting in a bowl. She isn't skinny, but she is now a bit small and immature at 1 year old as she's been picky for some months. As a puppy in the nest she was quite greedy, I don't really know how that changed. She does chop and change, she's on mixed adult and junior (as she liked pinching the adult out of the other dog bowls) and some days she prefers the bigger kibble, some days she acts as if she's far to delicate to crunch that up and will only touch the tiny pieces. Tried mixing it with beef mince, cheese, scrambled egg, and we get the same lack of enthusiasm. I try to employ the 'eat or starve' regime but it's so hard when I'm trying to get her to body up!

Its hard not to worry about them.  More gray hairs and wrinkles every day!  Good job we love them eh.

My oldest is picky. He goes through phases of being very very picky but luckily raw has helped a lot with him. Hes still very skinny but I think it's just his tendency as he has 800g raw plus bones plus chews a day and is around 26kg. I've tried feeding more and he just skips his next meal.

Things I've found help not yet mentioned are - adding some cheese cubes or tiny bits of sausage or chicken to the kibble in the wobbler- the enticing smell and random element seems to keep him interested. Or coating the kibble with a very thin layer of pate or butchers tripe before stuffing it in the kong and freezing.

Ultimately there's not a great deal you can do really. At least though skinny it sound as if all our dogs are happy and full of energy.

I don't know if others have suggested this (haven't read all your replies) but do you still have her on puppy food?   I have found that mine, not as young as 5 months, more nearer 8 months, tend to 'go off' puppy food at which point I switch either to a Junior version of the same brand, or straight to adult.  

Then there's the question of maybe she's simply missing the competition at meal-time.  Some do, finding new things to explore way more interesting.

I'd not pander to this too much or you'll had a faddy feeder forever.   Depending on how she is, you may be ok cutting out lunch now, upping the amount you give for breakfast or supper.   Occasionally my Whippet isn't that bothered by Breakfast (she's 9 years now) in which case I pick up after about 10 minutes, or sooner if my Basset tries to get to her bowl, refrigerate it and put it down for the next meal.   And she has no treats during that day.    You may find you have to do similar - no treats, hard and frustrating as it is, until she starts to eat properly.

Assuming she has no health problems ...... teething can  be traumatic for some puppies but the vet can give you something to ease any discomfort she has.

> Oh, she will eat raw carrots, she considers them quite a high value thing and will actually jump up and rob them form me when she sees me with them.

My younger dog went through a phase of not wanting his food, he's fed in his crate, and he would hide behind his cushion as though I'd given him a bowl of snakes and scorpions.  He likes carrots, so I got him eating by putting a tablespoonful of chopped carrot on top of his food - once he'd started eating he found it wasn't so bad. I wonder if that would work for your carrot-lover?

He's another one who was very thin as a pup - ate plenty, but backbone and ribs very noticeable, although he had enough energy for two and a very good gleaming coat.  He didn't fill out until he was about two and a half (years), and was also slow to mature mentally, still quite puppyish until 3 years old, and nicknamed "The Baby".

You've only had her 2 weeks, that tells me that whatever she was on before you got her she ate (according to what you were told) & now she will not. I suggest you ask the other owner what was she fed on >including< non dog food things (maybe sweets or other rubbish stuff, human cake etc etc & many other etc's), if they tell you those sort of things then thats why she is not eating what your offering, a problem might be >that the other owners don't tell the truth about that sort of thing< & just say a dog food item.
Apart from that if you choose just one food (maybe a small part cooked meat & another one or two different dry foods, in seperate bowls, at the same time once per day (eve) and stick to it no matter what, ( a couple or 3 days maybe 4) and do not change that one & one only routine then your dog eventually will eat.

Ask yourself, ''When was the last time I heard of a dog starving itself to death?''

I have a deep chested breed and would never feed once a day and especially not at 5 months.

would never feed once a day and especially not at 5 months.

Interesting, the above was obviously directed at my post. If you read the first post again properly you will see this dog is not eating very well at all, not even one meal per day consistently every day >and my post was not to you at all, it is specifically to the poster who cannot get their dog to eat,>> even with your implied successful previous suggestions to him/her.
Please don't post at me again on this post >>and keep this post on topic, for the dogs long term sake!

Wait ok, ''Could you be trying to feed her too many times each day , with too much food?''

That thought is on my mind and some others as well, tiny bits & pieces of this & that throughout the day can amount to quite a lot for a tiny little 5 months old puppy, the same with adult humans, bits and bobs of this & that all day leaves little appetite for a full meal at night, it is behind my thinking of getting the dog hungry first by no food rather than 5 or 6 small puppy type meals per day.

To, original poster, do you have any idea what weight in these bits & bobs your dog is eating throughout the day amount to????

Hi. This is a conversation on the internet on a public forum where anyone may post. My opinion is as valid here as yours even if you disagree with it. You must be having a boring week as you seem to be trolling this site with joyful abandon, but as we all suffer your posts you may too suffer mine. I will post just as I please. If you dont like it I suggest you use the block function to avoid seeing my posts.

> got him eating by putting a tablespoonful of chopped carrot on top of his food

I had actually never thought of this, thanks, I'll give it a whirl

> He's another one who was very thin as a pup - ate plenty, but backbone and ribs very noticeable, although he had enough energy for two and a very good gleaming coat.  He didn't fill out until he was about two and a half (years), and was also slow to mature mentally, still quite puppyish until 3 years old, and nicknamed "The Baby".

Thanks for that, it gives me hope

My picky princess finally developed some enthusiasm at about 2 or 3 years old and has been eating normally for years now, though I've never quite brought myself to cut out the extra minced beef. We may have had a breakthrough with her daughter who is a year old and also rather picky, as she has happily eaten kibble for the last 2 nights with a teaspoon of pate thoroughly mixed all through so all the kibble is coated. :-D

The pate seems like a really good idea. I will try that!  Thanks for the suggestion .

https://www.barkerandbarkertreats.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=136

may be worth a try, they also do a smaller pack. Used it with about 5 different dogs in the past - worked every time

My golden went off her food a bit when she was about 7 months, so I did something similar to the pate. I got a pouch of natures menu and made a big show of putting about a teaspoon into her kibble with some warm water and stirred it altogether whilst commenting how nice it was etc (daft I know but it seemed to make her very interested). She gobbled it all up. Over the next few weeks I gradually reduced the wet food, but still put in the warm water and continued making a show over her meal so she thought it was the same as the previous day. I got to a point where there was no wet food or warm water,  I just pretended there was and still stirred it up saying yum yum.. She thought it was worth having and ate it all up.
Now, of course, she's always looking for any crumb to eat and keeps trying to eat the food put out for the birds as well as acting like the starving millions as a meal time approaches.