Picky German Shepherd

Question
I have a very picky 2 year old female German Shepherd.  I feed her Royal Canine German Shepherd dry dog food.  I mix in cooked chicken.  Most of the time, she eats the chicken and leaves the dry food.  At night, she sometimes eats a small amount of Natural Balance dry food.  What would be the best dog food for her?

Answer
Have you ever considered feeding her a homecooked or raw diet? It sounds to me like she enjoys eating actual meat, and you can formulate those to be completely nutritionally sound. Each of those diets takes a little bit of time, but they aren't terribly difficult to make. If you're interested, I'd recommend checking out the Dogster forums (http://www.dogster.com/forums/home.php), which has areas dedicated to each diet.

Or, if you want to keep feeding her dry, I'd try the tough love method. Put her food down, with no extras, for fifteen minutes. Pick up whatever is left after that time and repeat again once more that day. Most dogs will not starve themselves, so pretty soon she'll realize that she has to eat. If, however, she does hold out for more than a couple days, she'll need to eat something.

Also, have you looked into getting sample of different foods and letting her pick which one she wants to eat? If you e-mail the companies they will usually send you some. Some pet food stores carry them as well. Try finding Innova, EVO, Wellness, Nature's Variety, Canidae, Eagle Pack, Blue Buffalo, Fromms, Taste of the Wild, Evangers, Nature's Logic, and By Nature. All of those are fantastic foods and surely your dog will like at least one of them. I'd suggest especially looking into the grain free foods because they have more meat, and therefore smell more appealing to most dogs.

Good luck, I hope that helps!