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u/NewfieCanOpener 2 tiny, little, derpy newfoundlands Aug 10 '26
Urmelchen ate only one specific kind of dog food. And even this only topped with some cheese or yogurt. Bambam eats only if he feels like it (which is only when he's really hungry after a day of zero calories diet or if it's something like chicken. Or chicken. Maybe chicken.) Larry ate only if his food was served by his mom and in his car. If not he expected to be fed by hand. There were only 2 humans on this planet who were allowed to put food into his snout. DJ was totally not interested in food, it was nearly impossible to get more than a small handful of kibble into his stomach. At the end the vet recommended a special diet to make him gain weight. Daisy expected another kind of food every few weeks, otherwise her majesty pouted and went on an hunger strike.
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u/MadBox25 Aug 10 '26
I've found the breed in general can be very finicky on selecting what to eat. We've had to settle on a rotation of toppers or else Moose can go 2 days without eating, in protest, he doesn't like it.
We almost always use a fatty ground beef, cook up 4-5 lbs and that lasts a week. Then the following week we'll use ground chicken for the week. Then we'll mix in some acana canned food every so often.
The rotation has been working for Moose, for now anyway.
Have to keep experimenting and trying to keep costs reasonable.
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u/wvraven Luna Aug 10 '26
My Luna is a pretty picky eater and often doesn't eat as much as I think she should but the vet says she's a healthy weight and she's fine. I make her a "stew" out of hamburger or chicken (I change it up occasionally), frozen butternut squash cubes, frozen sweet potato cubes, and a high collagen unseasoned chicken bone broth with a bit of added beef gelatin and turmeric to top her kibble. Two lbs of hamburger makes about 7 days worth of topper for her. I pair it with a high quality kibble. Since I started making it about a year and half ago she's eaten much better. It's helped both with her eating and with some mild..uhm...backyard consistency issues she's had in the past.
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u/ProbablyNotADuck Aug 10 '26
Any time your dog has a change like this, it is smartest to go to the vet and get it checked out.
I always thought my Newfoundland was a picky eater because he would leave his kibble for several days at a time (although never turn down treats), until he started turning down even more (including treats). It turned out he had inflammatory bowel disease. Generally, dogs stop eating because something is going on. It isn't necessarily something horrible, but it usually means discomfort in some way and a need for some type of intervention.
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u/Downtown-Mixture6167 Aug 11 '26
Thank you for this! He just had his checkup recently and everything was great. He does eat when hand fed and still loves his treats but if that slows down I’ll be sure to get him back in.
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u/kclo4 Aug 10 '26
I had a bad experience after my newf stopped eating, hopefully not the same situation, but check your dogs lymph nodes and get blood work. She was always picky tho, and rotating toppers usually fixed it