Is your dog a fussy eater or is there something else going on?

For the longest time we thought Roo was just a fussy little pup when it came to food. Since we have had her we have issues with her eating. She would go over to her food sniff it and walk away, sometimes she might eat some of it, other days none. If we changed her food, swapped it for a different flavour or brand, she would eat it for a day or so and then back to refusing.

We tried different bowls and feeding methods. Putting it down and picking it up after 5 minutes, leaving it down all day, scatter feeding, hand feeding, kongs, slow feeders, plates, raised bowls. Honestly you name it, we tried it. But nothing. Still the same refusal to eat. People would tell us we were making it worse by trying so many things, she would get worse if we kept changing her food or she is refusing because she wants something nicer to eat. This was not the cause, we could put down cooked chicken breast and she would still walk away. At her worst, Roo went two whole days without eating a thing.

We had spoken to trainers and vets about it and the answer would be she will eat if she is hungry. They were kind of right, because she would eat sometimes but hardly anything and definitely not enough for her to be thriving. On a good day, Roo would eat half of the recommended amount for her size.

Alongside this, Roo had very soft wet poos (sorry TMI) and was rather smelly.

Roo was also completely unmotived by food. Often not taking treats during training. A lot of trainers on Tiktok have been putting out content about how if you dog refuses treats when training or has issues with food then you have conditioned them to food wrong. If you hand feed your dog whilst training your issues will go away. Whilst this might be true, there are definitely some other things that could be going on which are well worth considering. Here are the main two we found with Roo.

One, intolerances. Does the food you feed your dog agree with your dog? In our case, it didn't. Roo has a high intolerance to turkey and we had her on turkey based wet food. You can read more about the intolerance testing we had done here. Once we made the switch to a food that was better suited for Roo, then her issues with poos and smells went away. Her food refusal did not unfortunately. It was better and it took her a lot longer than usual to start refusing but eventually she still did.

Two, anxiety. An overwhelmed and stressed dog will often not eat. Just like humans, if you have ever been in an anxious state you know that food is the last thing on your mind. A lot of times you will notice this when training a dog outside. Inside the dog will take treats during training but outside in certain environments it won't. The reason can be because the dog is overwhelmed and does not feel safe.

For Roo, her food refusal was 100% down to anxiety and well maybe a bit to do with the food that we were feeding her making her feel unwell but most likely her anxiety.

Once we started working with a behavourist to lower her anxiety levels and allow her to rest and recover, Roo's food refusal started to dissappear. She will still often refuse treats outside when training but that is fine, we know that is because she is still overwhelmed. For almost a year, her body has been in a high state of anxious arrosal with very little quality rest.

If you are having issues with your dogs eating habits, please contact a professional for help.