Suddenly stopped eating dinner!

[OllieButton]

Hello Everyone,
Our lovey boy Ollie is now 10 months old and doing beautifully for the most part ( although whoever said Pugs are lazy has not met Oliver who needs at least two sessions of wild activity a day). We have got him on two meals a day and we decided that the best thing we could do for him was give him a combo of cooked meals and kibble. He has been on science diet puppy kibble since he started eating and the breeder who has show dogs recommended we continue that.
Currently his breakfast is chicken and rice with an occasional egg for protein. At night he was happily eating his kibble but all of a sudden has decided he doesn't want it. This is a HUGE shock to us as like most Puggies, Ollie is a champion eater of just about EVERYTHING.
He is also suddenly off multigrain bread which was a favourite treat before.

We have tried delaying dinner and sometimes he will eat the kibble later but not with any gusto and usually doesn't finish it. He is ALWAYS in our faces at dinner time though and anything from our food ( even veggies) is always welcome.

He is still eating his snacks, occasional apple etc, is very active, a healthy though not round weight and poop is fine. Does anyone have any idea why he's hating his kibble all of a sudden? We don't want him on just home cooked food as we don't think he gets all the nutritional needs met.

Ollie's worried Mum and Dad

[Angus2009]

Dont worry about there eating habits to much, my 9 month old pug refused to eat anything one day, he was rather greedy before and then just one day decided he didnt want to eat! He waqs just testing me hoping i would give him something more appealing!... He eventually started eating kinda normal again but not as well as before, then i got a puppy pug and now hes gone back to his old greedy ways as there is a bit of competition in the house!
If you put the food down and he doent eat it, remove it then give him his next meal at the same time the next day, if you give in and give him something more tasty hes winning the fight!

Good luck

x

[Snifter]

I agree it is probably just a teenage phase he is going through.

You could try making the kibble a bit more palatable by adding warm water to it. But don't give in and give something tastier. He won't starve himself.

[Pinkles]

I suspect he thinks "Why should I eat this when I can have chicken & egg?"

Squig went through a stage of not eating his "dog" food a couple of years ago, there was nothing wrong with him he just prefered sausages instead, so we stopped the human food for a while and he soon ate his dinner lol

[Otto's momma]

I suspect he thinks "Why should I eat this when I can have chicken & egg?"

Squig went through a stage of not eating his "dog" food a couple of years ago, there was nothing wrong with him he just prefered sausages instead, so we stopped the human food for a while and he soon ate his dinner lol

We had to do this with Otto too....back off on the human snacks and then he had to resort to his kibble *gasp* LOL

[Kat]

Eek science diet. If I were you I would really look into buying a better food. If you read the ingredient list its by-products and other bad ingredients. For the amount of money Science Diet charges, you could get a higher quality food for less, like Natural Balance, Innova, Merricks, Taste of the Wild, etc. that have MUCH better ingredients. Depending on your pugs tummy though you could be a bit restricted as some of the foods I listed are fairly rich, like for my pug I have to feed her Natural Balance fish and sweet potato because all the other foods I have tried have made her gassy and have stinky poops.

[OllieButton]

Thank you all so much for the advice, he seems to have recovered from that phase as suddenly as he went into it. I guess there is no danger they will starve so if they're being fussy it's good just to pick the food up.
Kat, thanks for your feedback but we have no choice, there is no dog food available in Pakistan except really bad quality, even the Science diet we bring back from Thailand when we travel. We're always begging family and friends who go out of country to get food for Ollie.
People are not huge on dogs here in general and if they have them, they tend to feed them rice meat diet only- personally I feel that's a bit low on overall balance which is why we try to give him both along with balanced snacks.
I know it's not ideal, but its the best we have available and thankfully he is very healthy and has not had any issues with it.

[Kat]

Oh I see, that's too bad. But atleast he's eating again!

[Stazz]

OllieButton, maybe you can try feeding him human foods like chicken, rice and veggies, and sausage and veggies etc. Im not sure of the exact meals you can make, but there are a few people on here who will make food in bulk, and freeze the rest and use when needed. That may actually be the best option for your puglet :)

[RyanL]

From my experience, it just seems to be something dogs to from time to time. My little one just recently went through the same thing as well, a change so quick and dramatic from her normal hungry lil self that we were almost considerign that she may have something wrong. My opinion was that her growth had just slowed, and my wife thought she was just bored of her food.

I tried to just leave it alone for a bit, I was of the opinion that she will eat when she is hungry, which for the most part she did. But then one day we decided to pick up a couple of cans of wet food (beef stew, yum) and mix that in with some of her kibble, and after doing that she was back to her normal hungry self.

My lab has done the same thing as well, at least at one point in her life. It's been a few years at least, but I remember her just stopping eating and we had to do a number of things to see if it would make a difference. We tried different brands of food as well as watering her food down a bit, and it seemed to work alright.

In the end though that phase passed and we still have 2 happy, healthy dogs, so I am sure it will work out for you as well.