THIS IS A QUESTION ON MY FRIENDS BEHALF.

She has a 15 month old English Bull Terrier, and is struggling with enormously. (SP)
He is refusing to eat anything from his bowl.
She has tried everything including getting him a new bowl and feeding him outside. (Not that that really could help)Changing his diet? But none of these seems to help.
He loves the uncooked Cocktail Saussages from the Supermarker, but that is all he will eat.(Oh, Except for treats, given out the hand.

I have discovered for them that he would eat out of my friends hand. So there she was sitting on the floor in the kitchen feeding the dog his dinner, out of her hand!
She did this quite a few times but now she cant handle it anymore.
She says she needs some help becuase it is giving her stress.

Will he ever overcome this problem? How long will it last?

I have give her all the advice me and my other friends can think of but none of these work.
I am sure she will be over the moon to find out why he isnt eating and how to help him.
Any Advice will be worth a try she is desperate.
Thanks Vicky

THIS QUESTION IS ON MY FRIENDS BEHALF.

xx

He is refusing to eat anything from his bowl.

So the dog is now telling the owner what it will and what it will not eat from?

She has tried everything including getting him a new bowl and feeding him outside and changing his diet.

I am sure the dog is looking forward every day to see what new lengths the owner is going to go to in order to entertain him.

He loves the uncooked cocktail sausages from the supermarket, but that is all that he will eat.

Well if they are not provided for him he will be FORCED to eat something else unless of course this is the first dog on the planet to have anorexia.........

He will eat out of her hand (hhmmmmm I think you will find actually HE has got HER eating out of HIS hand)

Eating problems are created by owners and the more stressed she is the more stressed the dog will be.

Reassure her that no dog has ever starved itself to death, if she is convinced that the dog food she is providing is a suitable one, provide a very small portion, put it down in a bowl and leave the room, if it is not finished in 10 minutes, remove the food and do not feed until the next meal time.  Normal healthy dogs can go without food for several days, a week or more, with no problems as long as they drink.

If a dog has only two choices, eat what is put in front of it or starve I can assure you it will pick the former, most owners however cannot be that firm. 

I have never had a fussy dog, cat or child because I do not pander to whims.

The problem will last as long as the owner behaves in the same manner.

Tohme, of course, is right :) I've never had a fussy eating dog so know if mine refuse to eat, including treats,  then they must be feeling ill. If the dog is accepting treats and eating from your friends hand then he is dictating what and how. Its hard but they must be firm with him :)

Dee

Totally agree. 

If this dog was a 3 yr old child, which spontaneously decided it didn't want to eat out of food bowls and wanted his mum to hand-feed him, what mother in her right mind would continue to do that?

Tell her to put the food bowl down for 10 mins, then take it away if the dog hasn't eaten anything.  As long as the dog continues to drink there are no probs, even if the dog doesn't eat anything for a week.

Do you not think we've tried this. The dog went for 3 days without eating. She cant leave it longer than that.

believe me, you can leave it a lot longer than that. she must have more will power than the dog. the dog will not starve itself to death.

If she cannot leave it longer than that then she will not solve her "problem" which is just that "HER" problem which she has created for herself.

Trust me, dogs can go far longer than 3 days without food.

I inherited a cat years ago and the previous owner told me it only ate fresh fish :rolleyes:

It got the cheapest insta cat food and for 3 days it looked at it and walked away,  on the fourth day it sighed, rolled its eyes and tucked in.  It ate instameal for the rest of its natural...............

Trust me, cats are a lot fussier than dogs, you are talking about dogs that lick their bottoms for heavens sake! :rolleyes:

Strikes me if she does not have the ability to do this then perhaps she is not terribly suited to owning an EBT :rolleyes:

Certainly she can. Try up to a week. As long as the dog's drinking and is otherwise healthy it won't come to any harm.

i agree with the above.  put his food down and leave it for 10 mins. if he doesnt eat it, lift it. he MUST NOT under any circumstances get any other food in the form of treats or anything else until he has learned to eat the food given to him. the dog will not starve itself. do not make a fuss of the dog about it getting its dinner. the dog should see it doesnt matter to the owner if it eats or not. at the moment the dog is getting all the attention for not eating from his bowl. it will also help at this stage if the dog can be fed at roughly the same time each day. if and when he does eat out the bowl give him a pat and praise.

the dog sounds like it is sitting taking the micky waiting to see what it will get next. why eat rubbish dog food when he can get sausages etc??? we have a dog that employs the same tactics. say for example if they all get sardines or something in their normal food. the next meal one of ours looks at us as if to say 'well, wheres the tasty stuff then?' needless to say, the dog goes hungry and eats his next meal with or without sardines in it.

it may be worth a trip to the vets to make sure there is no medical reason for him not eating but with him taking treats etc this is unlikely.

the other thing i would say is, what type of bowl is it?? i only say this because we had a dog that wouldnt eat from a stainless steel bowl cause he could see reflections in it and it freaked him out. thankfully, he is now over that.

meant to add, i see he is 15months old, have his eating habits always been like this or is this a recent thing?????? if it is recent, can you think of anything that could have upset the dog to trigger this???

A solidly built dog like a Bull Terrier can certainly go without food for a week at least, is the dog lean or well built?  If well built (can't feel the ribs without digging around ;) ) then it could be a sign that he is simply not hungry ;)  in this case he can go for longer than a week without eating ;)

In this case I would starve the dog for one day (no treats - nothing, nada ;) water should, of course, always be available) then offer a small meal the next day.  If this is refused I would remove after 10 minutes MAX!  Then try again the next day. Sooner or later the dog will give in and eat whats provided ;)  Just make sure no-one is feeding the dog 'extras' (ie. children feeding scraps etc.)  Increasing the number of walks/ amount of exercise will also help this dog find dog food attractive ;)

To put things in perspective, I have found that dogs will delight in eating rotten food/animals (made me feel sick) others dog's faeces, other animal's faeces, cat poo is a delicacy which my dogs sneakily try to pilfer from the litter tray before I can get to it :rolleyes: and as already mentioned they also lick their own and anyone elses bums.  Fussy? I think not! :D :D

Bull Terriers can be very stubborn dogs, if she gives in to this then she will have no hope of managing this dog as he gets older :(

When i first got my little shihtzu,a little over 6mths ago she was a terrible eater,and would NOT eat dog food of any sort :rolleyes: I adopted the eat it or starve method,for 5 long days i put her bowl down am and pm,she walked up,sniffed at it,made a grumph sound and walked off! On the 6th day i couldnt handle it anymore and added a bit of roast chicken in with her kibble which she promptly scoffed.
The point is this little dog managed to go 5 days without eating a crumb,she is still a bad eater however and i'm kicking myself that i caved in,i'm sure she would have eaten eventually,well i hope she would have. I believe there are anorexic dogs around,i'm pretty sure my girl is one of them,she eat's like a bird,wont touch any treats,is not food orientated in the least,it is very tiring and worrying!
I'm getting set to try the eat or starve thing again soon as she's driving me balmy 

I would be very interested to find out exactly what your friend has tried,how tough she has been etc. But i concur with the othesr,3 days is nothing,especially for a breed such as the ebt! Your friend either has to toughen up with this dog or be prepared to spend the rest of her life pandering to him,and i can tell you,it will only get worse.Soon he wont eat unless she places each morsel into his mouth one at a time :rolleyes:
Perhaps she hasnt reached breaking point yet,i must admit she is a much more patient woman then i could be ;) When she's truly had enough she WILL be prepared to let the dog starve until he get's the message....

Thanks for all your wonderfull advice. When my friend reads this she will be delighted.

The dog is well built, although the breeder has said that he is underweight and you can see???? deffinatley feel his ribs very easily. He is particularly thin around above his back legs and the stomach.

When he was a puppy he eat very well, this is quite recent.

Thanks for all your opinons,
xVickyx

To reassure your friend that her BT will NOT waste away to nothing on what Tohme and the others have suggested, here is what happened with my dog.

Day one, she arrived, 10 years old, underweight.

Refuses to eat either dry food or raw minced beef.

Day two, steals half a cheese and onion pie. Refuses raw meat (i feed that to all my dogs so thats what she gets).

Day three, refuses to eat raw meat, attempts to eat the cat, is prevented.

Day four, eats TINY mouthful of raw meat.

Day five. Cleans bowl out.

She didnt die. She was a very underweight OLD saluki x, i felt like i was being the cruelest person ever. She looked like Ally McBeal on a crash diet.
But, ally mcbeal alike or not, there is no way i will have ANY dog telling me what it will and will not eat, they eat what i have decided is best for them, or they go without.
And lo and behold, the stressy, skinny, tatty old sighthound, predominantly saluki, a breed reknowned for being aloof and fussy ..... now eats anythinga nd everything put before her, no messing! Even vegetables!

So if SHE survived, your friends Bull Terrier will. He is just taking the mick!

Em

At the risk of offending everyone on this board he sounds like he is a healthy weight. You should be able to feel the ribs easily but not see them, although you should just be able to see where the rib cage stops and if he bends perhaps faintly see a couple of ribs (most show people/breeders like their dogs somewhere between podgy and obese).

You've had great advice and remember that you are not starving the dog! If he's given opportunity to eat every day then it is his choice.

If the shockingly fat specimins I have seen at shows are anything to go by then many need a bit of stsarving.

The breed is meant to look like a Gladiator not a Sumo wrestler.

Why do some breeds want their show dogs so heavy?????

I wonder if this is a tendency more in the shorter coated breeds?  After all an overweight and heavy coated dog can look dumpy and stuffy, or is it just particular breeds.  Pugs also come to mind.

Dill we agree about something at last ....lol....lol

Simmy

Did you cross Lola with the Shih Tzu after?

ask her has she a spare room for me, the dog will eat just leave it there i have a nine year old english bull terrier and am in the bull terriers club, got to be firm or she is going to have real probs, its the bull dog in the breed and if it dont want to do it thay think thay dont have to, sam london

My dog regularly goes for days without eating. I used to panic too until I had lots of reassurance from this site about other dogs they have known or owned who do the same. The fact is that hes just not food orientated at all, no matter how tasty!

I even spoke to the vet and he was of the same opionion. I think as Brainless said some of these breeds are so Overweight people tend to judge their dog by what they see on the street. I have come to the conclusion that I would rather a lean dog than a fat one. EBTs and Staffies like mine are head strong and if they dont want to do something they wont. However, they do have a survival instinct and will therefore eat when hungry.

When I saw the vet about his eating or rather lack of it, he wasnt even that concerned that mine wasnt drinking a lot either, he just said to make sure he doesnt go too long without water (cause obviously that would be a prob) and to do the hydration test which is to pull up the skin on their back and make sure it snaps back.

Your friend will just have to be more headstrong than her bully!

Seems very strange that the dog will only eat cocktail sausages ? Is he able to determine size as well as what the food is ? :)