Would be grateful for any help here. My 7 month old Goldie just is not interested in dog food - have tried dried complete, tinned, raw, mixing tinned pilchards in etc.  When I mix anything tasty in he will it out and leave the doog food.  Vet has checked him out and says no physical problems and he has lots of energy.  On the vets recommendation we have tried picking food up after 15 mins etc etc, but he just doesn't seem bothered.  Some days he will eat something but not with any enthusiasm and when I pick his bowl up to fill it he often runs in the opposite direction.  HOWEVER if he can get human food ( not that we encourage this) he loves apple, banana, orange and even grapefruit, also salad, vegetables and yoghurt!   He is gaining weight and is currently 32 kg, so no problems there, but I just don't know what to try next.  Otherwise he is a delight - intelligent, kindly and has not been destructive in the least.   HELP!

See the reply Here http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/board/topic_show.pl?tid=65168#fnp  He will come to no harm if he doesn't eat for several days.  he needs to actually be hungry and that food will not appear until the next meal, and nothing else in between.  No tempters or treats.

I'd echo what Brainless has suggested, although I tend not to leave food down at all if the dog doesnt eat it. (It would just get eaten by one of my other dogs anyway).

When I've had fussy eaters stay with me before, Ive only left the food down for as long as it took my dogs to eat (about one minute!), If they havent touched it by then, I would take it up until the next feed time. (I feed twice a say) they've all caught on pretty quickly so far.... ;-)

Hi, I used to breed Golden Retrievers they are wonderful, however never had feeding problems with them.
A Lab type rescue dog DID have this problem, after a while of trying everything I stopped putting feed down at all and fed the 2 cats in front of him, guess what? He tried to eat the cats'food! I made him stay away from it and gave him water....... Cruel me. After a few days he ate CAT food! Then I got another rescue dog and guess what?? my Lab eats everything put in front of him before the puppy can get at it!!

I'm not saying you have to get another dog, but maybe the fact that he likes human food means there is that competition thing but with YOU!! I don't know where you go from there, pretending to eat dog food from a dish on the floor doesn't seem like a good option!

Good Luck, try the starvation thing for a few days, never leave food out
                                                     Cheers   Mayodruid