We have a 14 month old female cocker, ( not spayed) we recently changed her from puppy to adult food over 3 weeks and we thought all had gone well.

A month later and after giving her the odd veg titbits with her tea, she has gragually showed less and less interest in her food to the extent that she has had very little for the last week. When we leave her she has a kong with cheese and chicken in it which is all gone when we come back. This is on average every other day.

We have gone with the theory that she will eat when hungry and she is still lively though not quite so happy looking!

Should we stick with it or try another food? if so which? she has beta at the moment

(no sign of teeth/mouth damage)

Any suggestions gratefully recieved

Lots of fussy dogs about right now, there's been a few similar posts. It must be the heat lol.

Was she on beta puppy food too?

Basically, because you started putting bits in with her food she's hoping by leaving her food, you'll give her something else, you need to teach her that if she doesn't eat her food, she gets nothing else. Novak did it when he was about 6 months old, this is what the vet told me to do, I've since seen a lot of posters here advice the same.

Basically you need to put her food down, leave it for 15 minutes, with a quick reminder for the dog half way through the 15 mins, if it's not gone, pick it up and give nothing at all until next meal time, then do the same. No treats, no kong, no scraps, nothing. Then next meal time do the same. I know it might be harsh, but a few days or doing your best to ignore those sad eyes really will pay off. I did this with Novak, he missed three meals in total and hasn't missed a meal since. Although it did kill me not to feed him lol.

Obviously if you're worried pop her the vets and make sure it's not medical.

While I'm not a fan of beta, I'd give the above a try before thinking about switching foods else you'll end up with a load of bags of dog foods your dog won't eat.

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Thanks, i will have to do this over a couple of days when she is not being left or else she will drive the neighbours mad without the kong routine.

We chushed a small puppy bonio and sprinkled it over this morning and she had a small amount, she has taken to taking the bigger bits away from her bowl to eat them!!!!

Hi, really sorry to hear you are having problems. It's a tricky one and I still dont know if my pup genuinely didnt like her puppyfood or if she was playing with me.

When we came to adult food I decided that rather than it be my choice of the best in my budget, I will let her choose. So I dwindled it down to 3, got samples and left it to her. She didnt choose the one I wanted, or the one I thought she would so it was probably a good idea. She has never refused her kibble since.

I came unstuck adding things to make it more tasty. In the end I was giving more "tasty" than kibble and still getting nowhere. Taking it away after 15mins she interpreted to me giving attention to her hunger strike and held out longer. In the end the only way I got her eating her puppy food was by putting down her daily quota in the morning and leaving it. We managed but I had to hold back treats and tasty morsels or she would be off again.

Hope you manage to get it sorted. (I think for the money you could get a better food than beta - but thats just my opinion)

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Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in your own”

Thanks both

It seams to be nothing to do with the taste, we have changed flavour.

We have reduced the amount and she now eats with some encouragement.

Vets nxt week for jabs so will get har checked over then.

Checked her weight and still gaining so not too worried.

I agree with Lyceum here.If you are concerned about her making a fuss when you are out,why not try your dog on a raw marrow bone from the butchers instead of the kong,it wont affect her food eating and will keep her busy for hours!!

Good plan.
Shes never had one, so it will be interesting, is there a size rule here?

Since refusing food she has chewed a raw hide chew, which she never wanted before!

Just pop into your butcher and ask for a marrow bone,she will love it.Most are fairly resonable size and great for any dog!! She may look at it and be wary for a few minutes,thats normal,but she will enjoy it once shes tried it.

For the past few weeks I have been concerned about my 4 month old pup not eating much. He had been eating kibble really well, and then just seemed to stop!

I tried all sorts of different things to tempt him, different flavours, different brands but nothing really did the trick. Trips to the vets drew a blank - he was a happy and healthy pup. The vet said that I should just accept that I had a dog that didn't eat some days, and unless there was obvious sign of illness to just not worry.

Needless to say, I did still worry, and wanted to see him tuck into his grub.

Eventually I tried him on some raw meat and he ate it like it was the best tasting thing in the world!

Today, I went and bought some Prize Choice raw meat and some NatureDiet meals, and he has eaten well, and cleaned his bowl.

Looks like kibble is now off the menu and raw meat is on!

Maybe your little girl would like something like that too?

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Personally, I wouldn't ever leave a dog unsupervised with a large bone, but then I am a worry wort.

Can you not use part of her food allowance as kong filler rather than chicken and cheese? Seems to me her fabbiest food is her kong filling, if you could soak her kibble, squish it in her kong and freeze it that would last quite a while. And if that's what she's used to, she hopefuly won't turn her nose up tot it at meal times expecting chicken and cheese.

I raw feed my dogs, always have done, my two girls have been raw fed since pups and I've also swapped a couple of oldies over onto it, so if anyone is considering doing the same (just going by other posts) then please pm me and I'll send you a diet sheet.