One of my fears about nurturing a child is getting them to eat when they blatantly refuse to. My mum told me stories of being a difficult baby as regards food and I was so tiny because I refused to eat. I had a small appetite so I was often forced to eat.
I don't buy the idea of forcefully feeding a child in the typical African mother style so it bothers me how I would carefully coerce a child that refuses to eat. I tried with my niece and coercion doesn't always work. At least I had the option of giving her back to her mother when she stressed me too much.
Well, Panda is starting to give me a taste of my fear I think. Panda loves food so much, both her dog food and even human food. There's no limit for her and she never seems to be full.
However, she refuses to eat sometimes. The first time that happened, I was scared and thought she must have been sick. We had the vet check her and he said she was alright.
Since then, there are times she doesn't eat and it has become frequent. I expected it because the vet mentioned a change in appetite was going to happen, but not so soon.
Whenever I serve her food and she doesn't eat, I nudge her towards the food and it works sometimes. Other times I've had to take out the food from the bowl and then put it back to make it seem like I put in new food. That works too.
There are a few times when she didn't eat at all and I've had to throw away the food. I then started feeding her like a human baby. I put the food in my hand and she eats from my hand. I do it once or twice and then she goes into the bowl herself to finish up the rest.
In recent times, like today for instance, when I stop giving her food from my hand she doesn't go into the bowl anymore. She waits for me to continue feeding her instead.
I felt good that she ate at least but I'm worried about what that means. Am I doing it wrong? Am I spoiling her? Or does she just like being babied and there's nothing more to it?
Does anyone else feed their dogs from their hands even when the dog is in a healthy state? How else can I get her to eat? So many questions!
I feed her canned dog food of either beef, sausage or chicken. Sometimes I give her a little human food mixed with dog food. I also give her bones and fish too. She's almost 6 months old now and I wonder if she's tired of these foods already.
Please indulge me, how do you deal with a puppy's appetite?
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I think you have accidentally allowed your fears to cause this situation. Here is how: dogs are relatively easy to train. When you were afraid that your dog would not eat, you fed her from your hand because you love her and you were worried. Well, she liked that. To her, that is a fun thing for you to do. And if you want to do it forever, that's okay. You have trained her to take her food that way.
She will probably wonder why you change things if you require her to eat normally again. So, she might resist at first. However, it is important that, while you show her affection, you NEVER relent and hand feed her unless you always want to. It is a basic fact of "operant conditioning," which is training.
I suspect that she is a smart dog and she picks up on the fact that she gets extra attention if she doesn't eat. If the vet says all is well and she is getting some food, I suggest maybe you "forget" to feed her. I don't mean altogether! I mean that you feed her maybe two hours late. Wait until she is very hungry and wondering what is wrong with you. I think if you do this, at first, she will try to keep getting sympathy and love, but then, after a week or two, she will just eat.
Dogs are funny creatures. I have seen them imitating many behaviors of their owners. I think your dog might even think this is what you expect?
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Oh she knows. She knows I have a soft spot for her. So I'm actually spoiling her 🥺
You see, I was doing this before. She would always go back to eat the food hours later but then she stopped doing that. That's why I got worried.
I'll stop the hand-feeding and ignore her a while, let's see what happens.
Thanks for your response ❤
I wouldn't worry, we went through the exact same thing with our puppy who is now 1.
All of a sudden it was like the food we were feeding him wasn't exciting anymore.
The vet always said 'don't leave food on offer all the time and take it away if he doesn't eat it'.
But just like you, we were scared he wasn't getting what he needed, so we were literally hand feeding him...
He was definitely taking advantage of us haha.
But yeah, we changed up the brand of dry food we were feeding him and started to hide treats/chicken/cheese/whatever fun little thing in amongst it.
Then gave him 'desert' (he knows the word now haha) of a treat only after he finished it all.
Seems to have worked, because he's back eating fine.
Just remember that he's a dog and will 100% eat the food on offer if it's all thats there and he is genuinely hungry.
Stay strong and good luck!
Give Panda a pat for me :D
I never take the food away. I need to start doing that.
Hehe...I'll try this.
Stay strong and good luck!
Give Panda a pat for me :D
Thank you! I sure will
Hello, and if you try taking her out to play or walk, so that she burns energy and then you feed her. It is possible that her appetite will be awakened. It should be like children, you wait until she really wants to eat before she eats everything.
She's very active. Now, she goes straight to her water bowl when she's back from playing and completely ignores the food bowl.
The good thing is that she is healthy, it will be just a matter of waiting for this stage to pass.
She did good today. Although, this evening she refused to eat until I added bones to her meal. In the morning she kept staring at me to come feed her but I ignored.
hahaha she is a spoiled brat. I have a kitten and he is also spoiled. Greetings to you.
So spoiled 😄 Greetings! Have a great week ahead.
This is exactly my concern with Onyx right now, as she eats so infrequently. To be honest, it makes me so emotional at times. Hopefully, all of the responses you've received will be beneficial to Onyx and me.
It's enough to be emotional, and Onyx has never liked food in the first place.
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