Not Eating

The following is totally my fault.

Ella has started to become a fussy eater and i think i need to get back to basics. She usually gets fed twice a day, half a tray of wainrights in the morning and half a tray in the evening, she also has a bowl down with a few biscuits in but hardly touches those. She also gets a Denta or veggi stick in the evenings and around a dozen mini bone biscuits in her Kong.
More often than not now she will leave one of her meals and sometimes both.
The root of the problem is that she has us well trained and is an expert at getting table scraps, snacks and titbits off us, with her sad eyes and her vocal begging. Obviously this is having an impact on her regular feeding patterns.
I know we need to get her into a proper regime the question is what is the best way to start all over again???

Tough love is the best way.

You decide what she's going to eat, and it gets put down for 10 minutes. If she doesn't eat it you pick it up & she gets nothing else until next meal time.

I'd also cut down on the treats for a while as well (and cut out the table scraps!).

Just stop the treats, all of them

Agree with leaving the food out for a set time and than removing it.

janey wrote:
Just stop the treats, all of them

Your dead right its just those damm "i'm so hard done too and never get anything" eyes. Thats it then new start tomoro morning, food down for ten min then gone!

Tony n Jane wrote:

janey wrote:
Just stop the treats, all of them

Your dead right its just those damm "i'm so hard done too and never get anything" eyes. Thats it then new start tomoro morning, food down for ten min then gone!

don't get sucked in by it!!! Xx

i had the same problem with my Bruno i tell you what i did for one day he had only water in his bowl,it was so hard in the evening when he showed me that his hungry but i didnt break somehow next day in the morning i put the bowl with food for 15 min and after that i took it away, same in the evening. He was so hungry in the morning that he ate everything. in the evening most of the food. i Have to say that now after few weeks doing that i see that its better for him when he gets his bowl with food once a day full dose, but i guess it depand on a dog and his needs. It works very good and now he looks even much better sometimes i put him something to dry food like yoghurt or few plasters of ham just for a change

hi, we had the same with tyke wich has resulted in him been overweight. So we have become very strict and we have set the amount of food he has a day and split in two. we have got use to it and our son who was the main culprit who thought he was a bin in learning!

Fiver has been trained to go to his box or lie on his mat facing away from us when we are eating. There is no way I would allow him to watch us eat or beg for food from the table.

As others have said dogs need routine and order in their meal patterns, (I swear he knows exactly when it's five to five and his tea time LOL ) so feeding them scraps through the day instead of regimented meal times is bound to upset his eating pattern as he will not be hungry at the right times.

Agree with those above, you have to use tough love here. Try to cut out the treats maybe do this gradually so it's not really noticed.

All great advice. Treats and scraps have stopped, she is fed after walkies in the morning and at half 6 in the evening, Bowl is taken up after 30 min. We allow her half a veggie stick in the evening and so far she seems to be settling into the routine.
Thanx everyone

Great news

Thats great and long may it continue, thanks for the up date

great news........its hard at first getting your self out of the routine but its worth it in the end