Human Food

Question
My dog will not eat his own food and wants to eat ours.  I have tried not to feed him then he gets sick and starts spitting up frothy stuff like his stomach is empty. How can I encourage him to eat his food. Please help.

Answer
First of all, make sure you are feeding him a good-quality food, and not something crappy (like from the grocery store). There are as many good foods out there as there are bad ones. The first ingredient should be a meat protein (preferably a meat meal), there should be a minimum of grains, and there should be *NO* BY-PRODUCTS in the food. Also, make sure there is no Menadione (e.g. menadione sodium bisulfate, menadione sodium bisulfite or menadione dimethylpyrimidinol bisulfite) in the food.

The dog needs to learn that he either eats or he will lose it. Put the dish down, and if he walks away, then pick it up and do not offer it again until his next regular feeding. (And NO treats in between either!) Repeat until the dog starts eating. Most dogs will start eating after a couple days. The longest I had a dog go was four days. I had turned him into the world's pickiest eater as I was trying to keep weight on him while I was showing him. I was practically standing on my head and whistling Dixie for that dog... all to no avail. Once I decided that enough was enough and did the above, it was just a question of outwaiting the dog. On the fourth day, that dog dived into his food bowl and that was the last time he ever turned his nose up at anything offered to him; he became a wonderful eater after that... in fact, I had to watch that he didn't put on too much weight.

Some dogs will eat better if the food is dampened with a bit of warm water as it apparently smells more enticing to the dog, but I would only escalate to that as a last resort.

I did have one large male who seemed to feel that all he needed was about a 1/4 cup of food a day; he never wanted to eat more. In his case, I added a bit of canned food (Eagle canned chicken) to his kibble, and that got him to start eating better. As he got older, he did outgrow whatever was going on in his pea brain, and he eventually ate well with nothing in his food.

In your case, try removing the bowl first, but make sure that he gets NOTHING else. If he is pesky at people-feeding time, put him away in a crate or confine him in another room. Do NOT allow him to beg when people are eating.

Have patience! You will get him eating as he should if you follow this method.