Dog getting bored of her kibble?

[nky_84]

We have a 2 year old golden retriever with the typical insatiable appetite for food but every 6 months she seems to loose interest in having the same thing everyday and appears to get bored of whats put in front of her. This happened maybe 6 months or so ago, so we changed to Orijen 6 fish and she thought it was the best thing ever. Roll on 6 months and she can take it or leave it, even when she appears hungry and will quickly scoff ANYTHING else she is given. She generally goes back to it an hour later if its left out for her and finishes it in stages but it seems like she just eats it rather than enjoys it...

Is this kind of behaviour normal or does anyone have any suggestions what we should try? We are really impressed with Orijen (even though it has to come half way round the world) and are going to try her on the whole prey version to see if its just a taste issue. Im not overly keen on cans or raw food diet for different reasons but might have to try this route if the kibble isnt hitting the spot!

cheers,
Nick

[riosyd]

I sometimes boil chicken and put a little bit in my dogs dinner (along with the juice) just to make it a bit more interesting. Cans of Lily's Kitchen also go down well mixed in with the kibble. (I feed a mix of Orijen and Royal Canin Golden Retriever kibble to Enzo, Lusso is on Burns light (short term) to shed some excess pounds and Monza is on special food for allergies...).

[Jasandjules]

Can you blame her? Bland c**p day after day?!? Try raw feeding, you will soon see a change of attitude...

[frank hovis]

Brodie can be fussy with his kibble , we tend to keep him on the same brand due to some issues we encountered

We started putting a bit of hot water on the kibble to release the smell of the kibble and he snaps it up most of the time

[SteBrown91]

If its dry food try a bit of gravy to spice it up a bit (obviously make sure its cooled down enough before serving)

[bexVN]

Gravy will increase palatability but as it is high in salt not something to get in the habit of doing.

There is a semi dry food called Ziwi Peak, very expensive but very low feeding amounts. My parents ultra fussy poodle loved it.

[Frenchda]

Jasandjules said:

Can you blame her? Bland c**p day after day?!? Try raw feeding, you will soon see a change of attitude...

This - Fish (whole) whole chicken (bones and all), beef/lamb mince etc etc, or whatever the butchers has going (whole Guinea Fowl the other night!) - My pair love it and their coats are amazing. Also poo's are smaller and harder (seems like less waste is coming through), they fart less and are generally in superb condition (other than the baby ones kidney disease, which since we changed to raw has slowed down).

Gratuitous picture

[Never you mind]

Jasandjules said:

Can you blame her? Bland c**p day after day?!? Try raw feeding, you will soon see a change of attitude...

+1

OP. How would you feel eating dry shredded wheat all day every day?

[Catz]

Our retriever turns her nose up at dry kibble too. We either add some meat to it, scrambled egg, rice (which she loves!) or tinned mackerel/sardines just to jazz things up a bit.

We sometimes even add leftover "human food" depending what it is. ( Don't tell the raw diet dog owners! )

[bakerstreet]

We feed our Greyhound special pet greyhound kibble everyday, but he always has something with it. However, we always add water to it with every meal. Dry kibble would be horrible! In the mornings, he has a splash of milk and water with his kibble and wheetabix

We do this for several reasons. It slows him down a bit so hopefully he won't choke. It garantees water intake and apparently it can help to prevent bloat, which is a risk for any deep chested dog.

[nky_84]

Well the new kibble arrived and it was scoffed very quickly so it seems like its more of boredom issue in the end.

We do put quite a bit of warm water in with it so its not given dry. At £70+ a bag, and given the list of ingedients on the back, i think she is doing quite well and probably eats better than i do!

Raw food brigade can go back to trying to justify their decision to someone else :-)

Thanks All

[Dolf Stoppard]

Similar story here with our Cockapoo - scoffs one type of food down for a few months then goes off it - and this included leaving us with a freezer full of raw food she suddenly refused to eat. Plenty of decent brands out there to rotate through though. What seems to be working for us at the moment is a decent dry food livened up by various 'wet' foods to keep things interesting.

[CAPP0]

What is the new stuff you have changed her to OP? Our GSD seems to show the same behaviour sometimes, he's on James Wellbeloved with half a tin of meat with every meal, just coming up to a year old but he's usually not particularly interested in his breakfast, eats better in the evening after hefty exercise. I confess I understood from years back that dogs were OK with eating the same meal routinely but perhaps that was not correct information.

He's on Junior at present, will probably move to adult soon, but he's staying fairly lean on it (in a good way).

Happy to change him over and/or vary it, some pointers as to what else to feed would be handy?

[Sargeant Orange]

nky_84 said:

even when she appears hungry and will quickly scoff ANYTHING else she is given

This may be half the problem. She will have learned very quickly that if she turns her nose up at her "boring" food something more tasty will come her way. Take the food up after 15 minutes if she hasn't eaten it & give nothing else until next meal time. She'll soon start eating it straight away.

[FiF]

With our Golden he doesn't just get fed his kibble in his bowl but a few times a week he gets his evening feed in a different way. Sometimes he gets a Kong made up packed with kibble and a few treats, with a bit of Primula cheese to hold it in.

Another favourite is his kibble is spread out into a 12 hole muffin baking tin. On top of each space we place a ball or suitable toy. He loves nosing the balls off the space and discovering his food underneath.

Try putting his kibble into a small box, empty cereal packet so he has to win his food.

Agree with the comments above that to some extent they get into a mindset that if they refuse to eat something better will come along. That's difficult to beat except by breaking them, food goes down, comes up half an hour later.

We do keep different flavours of kibble to ring some changes there and add in wet toppers from time to time, reducingthe amount of kibble. But tbh rather glad that he ddoesn't particularly go mad for his kibble as it perhaps helps to contain his weight to a gnat's over 30kg. If he was fed stuff he turns backward somersaults for, eg chicken, veg and rice, or fish he'd gannet everything in sight and put on weight if our portion control was astray.

[nky_84]

Changed to this : http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/dogs/dry_dog_food/or...

Was previouslyon this : http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/dogs/dry_dog_food/or...

I'm guessing that by the time she has got through 4 x 13KGs of the whole food bags, she will have forgotten what 6 fish tastes like and will think its new and amazing all over again :-).

We moved Willow onto adult food after she was 14 months or so and her "bodily systems" seem to really agree with Orijen, regardless of taste interest.

There may be something in the treat mentality but she doesnt get them very often and it doesnt seem she is in that mindset at meal times.

Dont have any issues with her weight at present thankfully, around 32KGs at last vet visit.

[Disastrous]

Sargeant Orange said:

nky_84 said:

even when she appears hungry and will quickly scoff ANYTHING else she is given

This may be half the problem. She will have learned very quickly that if she turns her nose up at her "boring" food something more tasty will come her way. Take the food up after 15 minutes if she hasn't eaten it & give nothing else until next meal time. She'll soon start eating it straight away.

This. Our pup wasn't that interested in food after she got home from the rescue centre but after three days of turning her nose up and it being taken away, she quickly learned to eat it!

[hotchy]

Sargeant Orange said:

This may be half the problem. She will have learned very quickly that if she turns her nose up at her "boring" food something more tasty will come her way. Take the food up after 15 minutes if she hasn't eaten it & give nothing else until next meal time. She'll soon start eating it straight away.

I think my dog would starve itself to deathh first. Never have i met a more stuburn dog.

[Disastrous]

hotchy said:

Sargeant Orange said:

This may be half the problem. She will have learned very quickly that if she turns her nose up at her "boring" food something more tasty will come her way. Take the food up after 15 minutes if she hasn't eaten it & give nothing else until next meal time. She'll soon start eating it straight away.

I think my dog would starve itself to deathh first. Never have i met a more stuburn dog.

It's a battle of wills! It knows you won't let it do that so is calling your bluff. Suggest you threaten to kill the postman in front of the dog and then actually follow through with it so it learns you aren't pissing about.