My terrier is 15 months old, and I have struggled to get a decent amount of food into her ever since she was a pup.  She has never eaten with any enthusiasm (unless its warm cooked chicken), and we have gone from trying every method under the sun to encourage her to eat - encouraging bad habits at the same time of course :( - to trying to undo our handywork by following the regime of putting down her food at certain times of day, for a specific period of time, and hoping that she will cave in and eat it within a three day period.  Before this weekend, we (well, my husband actually) always gave in before she did.

Currently she is on Trophy dry food (a good quality, premium high protein food) which is mixed with a little Pedigree tinned meat (not so great but she went mad for it the first time she smelt it by accident).  She does like it, but rarely eats more than about a quarter of her ideal daily intake.  She isn't dreadfully thin, but she is a bit ribby, and she has dropped more weight since the weather turned colder.

Although she has been on this food for a good 4 months, we have just had to undertake the "3 day starvation" exercise to wean her off the chicken she had following her spay op - by this evening she had gone 60 hrs without eating a THING.  She has consented to eating a few morsels this evening, which is a minor miracle, but it seems so little.  She is always on the borderline of being too thin - the vets comment, not mine - and we have just had to invest in a little terrier coat for work, to try and contain further weight loss in the cold wet weather when she goes back.

I have always suspected her of "trying it on" (our fault entirely), but her 60 hour hunger strike was quite stressful - she has now eaten about 3 teaspoons worth, which I guess is just enough to keep her functioning.

She shows no other symptoms - no excessive thirst or urination, no vomiting or diarrhoea, her stool is good, her muscle tone and general energy levels are fine.  My husband finds it all very difficult to cope with - he said today that he wishes we'd never got her, and wishes we had a "normal" dog who would scarf down everything in sight like other dogs do.

Could there be some kind of underlying hormonal disorder?  She is rather small for her breed, but still within the ideal weight range.  We are at the vets tomorrow to have her spay stitches removed, should i bring it up?

With any luck her appetite will improve because of the spaying and you'll probably find she'll put more weight on anyway because of the change in her hormones.

Hi Susie  Have you tried mixing in a little Butchers Tripe canned dog food with her dry food? The only reason is because all of mine go mad for the smell of it and always guzzle their food normally but even more so if this is added to their dry food.  If this fails try mixing tiny pieces of some meat you have around the house in her normal food.  Mix it in really well with her dry food.

It must be frustrating and upsetting to you when trying to encourage her to eat but I know that occassionally a dog can be 'lack lustre' about their food and just not seem that interested.  Some (although not many) humans are like this too!  I would stick to set meal times twice a day and leave her food down for 20 mins and remove if she hasn't eaten it.  Maybe you could make it sound an exciting thing to do? 

She sounds healthy and it may be that she can even pick up vibes that you are all getting upset that she is not eating enough etc..and then this turns into a ''viscious circle" and poss upsetting her???  it was just a thought.

I hope you have some luck with her eating better.

Hi Susie
Maybe try a little Nature Diet or Nature menu...mine love any of these mixed with their complete,or they can be fed alone.
Maybe add few vegetables.

I've got a dog like this. I've just changed her onto Naturediet, but she turns her nose up at that as well. She will just have to like it or lump it though as I'm not changing again. :) Do you only have one dog? If I only had the one, I'd feed raw meat -as she seems to like chicken, why not simply feed her raw chicken wings, meaty bones etc? I've yet to see a dog turn its nose up at this -I'd feed all mine that way of it was practical but alas I've got far too many for it to work. :)

Susie72

A dog not eating is a huge worry for the owners but rarely causes big issues for the dog unless there is an underlying medical cause which presumably your vet has ruled out.

We've had a very fussy dog (terrier type mongrel) and it can be so difficult not to give in!!  We now have a 2nd dog and competitive eating has completely turned him around but prior to that this is what worked for us:

*Accept that he will have days when he isn't hungry
*Don't stay and watch
*Remove all food after 10 minutes (mine self regulates a bit according to exercise so I may reoffer the remainder after walking IF he shows an interest)
*Mix good quality dry food with a tablespoon of very sloppy wet food (Tesco does one in Gravy) OR splash with a little water and microwave to warm the food and activate the smell - 'never fails' said my pet shop man!  This last option is less wasteful as you can reoffer the food if not eaten.

Another useful tip is one offered by a friend of mine who used to get so engrossed in other things she'd forget what time it was.  She used to set an alarm for mealtimes and use the snooze button to pick up the bowls.   When we were staying with her for the weekend I noticed that my fuss pot was being cued by the alarm along with her dog.  Has benefits for a fussy eater in that the cues are coming from something other than you and it's less tempting to give them another few minutes.

Finally, mine became noticably less fussy when I changed to Arden Grange Lamb and Rice and reduced the size of the potions.  Some dogs can get a bit outfaced by volume so if you are home, and it causes you no bother, you can feed 3 smaller meals instead of 2 bigger ones.   We just got used to the fact that ours liked to wait until he was really hungry and we learned to trust that he wouldn't let himself starve!  Good luck

Very good post Dogs a babe! :-)

My eldest, now 13 + years, used to refuse to eat when she was young. She's no great eater now either, but eons better than before. This used to drive us mad, in the end her eating or not eating, was all we could think of. She was always very thin, and we worried she'd starve herself to death. Because of her lack of apetite, I decided not to breed from her, since I think a normal apetite is as important as any other health issue.
I'm certain some dogs lack the "urge" to eat, just like some dogs have very little interest in retrieving, for instance. It's as if they don't get the right "impulse". You can tempt them with "extras", or try to increase the impulse to eat by for example scattering the food on the floor.  Just like you can tie a pigs ear to a dummie to increase the interest if you've got an unwilling retriever.

dogs a babe gave some very good advice in her post, can only add the scattering of food on the floor, as a way to get an unwilling dog to eat.

Some great advice in all those posts - and reassurance too, thank you!  At least I know I'm not alone.

I must say that we have pretty much tried and tested ALL the methods mentioned. :)  Scattering the food on the floor worked brilliantly for her as a puppy, but she soon stopped chasing that too.  It can sometimes work for her now - yesterday she ignored the food put down for her but went and munched on a couple of dry bsicuits that had fallen down beside her food bin!  But she still only ate about 5 dry biscuits and a teaspoon of Pedigree, big deal. :(

I think we have tried virtually every tinned or pouch wet food on the market (including the tripe varieties) - the only one she was really keen on (for about 4 days) was Pedigree, everything else she refuses.  And now she refuses Pedigree as well.  We have ground up her biscuits and mixed them in with real meat - she just drags the meat around the floor until the biscuit residue has gone!  if i mix it too well, she simply leaves the whole lot.  I've even given her biscuits soaked and mashed with rice pudding, which she ate once and then never again.  I mixed her biscuits with raw egg, but she licked the egg up around the biscuits.  We've soaked them, hidden them, ground them, mashed them - she's far too amused by our efforts to actually eat them!  You may not have heard of Trophy Pet Foods, but the dry food is of similar quality and analysis as Arden Grange (having had a very quick look at AG).  The supplier came and did a taste test with Nellie, and she scoffed three bowls of the stuff - she eats tons for other people, its just us!

I've given her about a tablespoon of dry biscuits with a bit of warm water this morning, and she's eaten about four of the small bite puppy biscuits (she is back on puppy food as it is more concentrated, so even a tiny amount should give her more of the energy she needs).

We are working harder on the timing of feeding - I particularly like the alarm clock idea, brilliant!  Unfortunately as she is with hubby at work 5 days a week, it all depends on when he takes his tea break as to when she is offered food.  She won't normally eat at work anyway, she's too busy rushing around - unless hubby pretends to call the names of the other 6 dogs on the estate, then she scoffs some!  You're right, there is a lot to be said for competitive eating. :)

Thank you for all the great ideas anyway, we will perservere - as somebody said at the beginning, now she has been spayed its possible she will retain more weight now anyway.  The vet said exactly the same thing!!!!

And thank you for your patience too, I notice with some embarrassment that I made this very same post back in May - it reappeared on the second page of this board!  Ooops!  I obviously failed to make any improvements in the last 6 months.......... :)

As you say, she is on the small side for her breed but still well within the weight range.  Have you considered that she just isn't hungry and doesn't want a great deal of food?    Most dog food companies give amounts bigger than many dogs need - it's why there are so many porky dogs about ;)  In comparison with many dogs yours may seem very slim but just as some humans are very slim, this may be normal for her ;)  and the ones you are comparing her with may actually be slightly overweight ;)   If she's got bags of energy and the vet has ruled out any problems I would try to relax, sometimes that's all that is needed ;)

By the way 60 hours is nothing!  I had a dog that went 3weeks (yes! 3 weeks!!!!) without food    The vet ruled out all possible problems and said no dog will actually starve itself to death and to not give in (he was holding out for cat food - whiskers! ) we knew there was nothing actually wrong with him as he'd happily eat any scrap he could get ;)  but eventually he realised he wasn't getting anywhere and caved in when we changed the cats food to dry IAMS LOL  

Remember most dogs will happily eat substances that will make us heave and gag, whatever dog food you're offering is probably better than some of the things she would scoff given half a chance ;)  (thinking here of the maggotty chicken I caught my one dog eating out of a bin - the smell was horrendous :( )

> Unfortunately as she is with hubby at work 5 days a week, it all depends on when he takes his tea break as to when she is offered food.  She won't normally eat at work anyway, she's too busy rushing around

This comment reminded me of one of our issues.  Our older dog has his holidays with my husbands parents and his mum is one of those 'busy' women that does everything at 90 miles an hour.  There was no way our fussy boy would contemplate eating in the mornings at her house because she'd put his food down then get her hat, coat, boots, clean the windows, hoover the carpet, scrub the loo etc  All the while he was waiting for her to leave and her frantic routine just told him that their exit was imminent.  We had to train her to feed him whilst she was still in her nightie AND tell her to sit and have a cup of tea whilst he ate.  It did the trick and whilst he still has one eye on the door he has learnt that she is not going out without him and that the walk will be an hour or so after his food.

If your girl is anticipating going to work with your husband she may just be too excited to eat so perhaps developing a routine that allows her a more relaxed (possibly smaller) breakfast before they leave and a larger meal at a fixed time when they get home will help. 

Once you've decided what you preferred tactic will be I would also suggest that you weigh her.  Don't make any changes to the routine you've decided upon for one month then weigh her again.   The temptation to chop and change is so great that perhaps you would find it more restful to have a fixed trial period and a more scientific approach - anything that takes the emotional element out (like the alarm clock) is a good idea for your peace of mind.  Thinking of you:)