Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

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rufnedge-2
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Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by rufnedge-2 »

I've searched these message boards for answers and have done all the tricks, at this point it's back and forth to the store searching for a food she'll be happy with. As far as dry kibble she used to eat it but now the last 3 months, she'll roll the kibble around in her mouth like she can't chew it - check up with doctor says she's fine. Lately have mixed in 90 percent wet food, nope will not eat. I guess she's going to be a wet food eater, because she will timidly eat just the wet food. She chews on bones, sometimes crunchy dog snacks. She practically runs from food. I don't understand her at all. All her bloodwork / fecal exam is fine. Got her xrays, all good. I've withheld food by picking up after 20 minutes. Switched foods (gradually) she did get mucous with tinge of blood in her stool but resolved it by feeding bland diet for 2 days. I just don't get it and I have the worst fear for her life ever. Any replies thank you in advance.

She has an 8 month old sibbling, who finishes eating before her, he used to try to get near her when he was done. This used to distract her then she seemed fine. At times she would growl at him as if to say go away. Then eventually, she would glance up and look at him before he finished eating as to "guage and monitor" what he was doing. At about this point in time, she would stop eating. It's became a gradual habbit for her to "look over at him", could she actually be anticipating him finishing his food and then anticipating the interruption of him coming over to her, in her mind just completely distracting her??

I'm at my wits end- can a dog only live on a wet food only diet??? Because she generally will eat that without a problem. She is a slow eater too.......

I really do need help, and it's about dinner time for me right now, any help would be much appreciated. Much love, rufnedge
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by Auddymay »

What does she do if there is kibble available 24/7? Mine are bigtime browsers. A nibble here, then they transport half a dozen nuggets to the living room for a snacky there... By the time the second feeding rolls around, the previous feeding was just finished. I put out 2-3 cups a feeding for 2 Chows. One is slim and chews her food meticulously, the other is chubby and a gulpper. The gulpper is also older, and very ergonomic. My rug...The amounts I feed are less than recommended, but neither girl is hungry or unhealthy.
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by jacqui »

from what you said,I'm thinking that her little brother may be part of her problem.chows are very funny eaters,especailly the girls.
I had a female chow, Jade,that I got from a breeder at 8 months old and she ate dry food with the breeder.once we got her home she would not eat the kibble.after one week we started her on canned and she liked it but would go a day or two without eating anything.
Chyna will not eat when her little brother Kai is in the room.I have to put Kai out or hold him in another room while Chyna eats :?
in my experiance,most chows will eat when they are hungry .at least you had the vet check her and that puts your mind at ease somewhat.
keep us posted
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And when my time comes I will not go alone for my Chows will be there to say "Welcome Home".
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by Larry Harris »

They can be picky, sprinkle a little cheese on the kibble. We also find canned mixed in with the kibble works very well. Put her in a room by herself to eat and close the door. We had one I had to sit on the floor next to her to get her to eat.

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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by Tai's Mom »

I agree. She needs to be able to eat in a peaceful environment. It sounds like maybe she's too worried about what her brother is up to, to eat. I would definitely separate the two of them at meal time and see if that doesn't help. If not, I'd just do what Auddymay suggested, just leave kibble down. If she gets hungry she will eat. She won't allow herself to starve to death. Chows are not dumb. Also once they get to eat canned food instead of kibble for awhile, they usually prefer the canned. But hopefully if you mix the 2 and feed separately, she will eat both. She does need crunchy stuff to help keep her teeth clean. My Tai is funny. One day he'll eat like pig, the next day he will hardly touch his food. I leave food down 24/7 and figure if he gets hungry, he will eat, if not, he won't. At 75lbs., I know he sure isn't starving.
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by Judy Fox »

Milly and Mabel prefer to eat their tinned meat at tea-time and they have bowls of kibble down all day and self feed. They usually have some in the morning and then throughout the day we find them having a snack. So maybe that , as the others say, is the answer.
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by kiwani »

rufnedge-2 wrote:... but now the last 3 months, she'll roll the kibble around in her mouth like she can't chew it...she will timidly eat just the wet food. She chews on bones, sometimes crunchy dog snacks. She practically runs from food....She is a slow eater too...
If she was seven months of age when this problem began, that is also the age when the large molars erupt at the back of the mouth. Those teeth are used for grinding. Has the doctor checked the development/condition of the large molars? It's also possible for the specific chewing muscles to become
inflamed and to have nerve pain in those muscles, due to a variety of causes including over-extending the jaw while chewing bones. That might happen if she was food-guarding the bone, from the other dog and tensing-up. The bone shards might also be larger in her stool. There are specific tests forthe chewing muscles. If the doctor has thoroughly examined the mouth and teeth, I would consider asking about the possibility of chewing muscle
inflammation/nerve pain. You might do a search on masticatory myopathy, and that will bring up related conditions/possibilities. There is a related 'chewing weakness' case in the archives, but overall symptoms differed (you would use keywords masticatory myositis to find that one).
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by rufnedge-2 »

Bless you everyone,,bless your hearts.

I started crying after seeing all the generous replies. The reply that astonished me was the last one by kiwani. Okay, Venus, in case i didn't mention her name, I had her brother (same mom & dad- born 1 year apart) whom i lost at the age of 15 months just last October (heat stroke NOT out of neglect, long story). He had something wrong with his mouth, and I just knew it, I used to play bones with him and help him chew, HE NEVER had a strong bite, he only knew his sister Venus for one month before his passing, and he would play with her and bite her neck (playing) and i would get all nervous he was hurting her i'd put my hand near his mouth to remove him and without effort he was off, he'd take my hand in his mouth as if to say "mom i'm not hurting her" and he'd show me his strength by applying a gentle pressure then he'd wiggle his tongue on my hand (boy did that tickle). I never knew that there was a condition like kiwani mentioned. In fact he refused water, drank very very little, the same way that Venus is refusing food, they are doing this at the same age. (But Venus drinks water freely thank goodness). This is very ironic. I've long suspected this weird mouth/tongue/tooth thing (and now i know about a muscle issue, that i never heard of). -- I'll call my regular doctor first before we go to a specialist - but i think this is the route i will find my answer. I'll be back........ thank you all so much.........
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by Judy Fox »

I did not know about the muscle thing in the mouth either.
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by daddysgirl1977d »

Hi i have an 11 yr old chow male an a female 1 yr old and my female will not eat if my other chow is in the room .. heck sometimes she wont eat if we are in the room .. maybe you could set her some food in another room where only she could go to eat it and the other dog wont .. i no my female will only nibble through the day .. so we have a feeder so she can .. but my dogs have access to food 24/7 .. my male is a big eater and it shows and my female is a lot more slim due to her being a nibbler and not a stick your head in an go crazy kinda eater ..
i think it must be a female thing .. perhaps try putting her food and another room that way she feels safe and unwatched while eating .. i may be way off due to only knowing what my two chows do .. good luck and i hope it gets better

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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by rufnedge-2 »

UPdate: I seperated them and that worked alot better, I put the fast eater in the exercise pen and kept her out, she kept eating then peering over her shoulder to see him, she would walk out to him stand next to the cage and stare, then she walked back out to her bowl and nibbled some more, she repeated this behavior twice. She ate 3/4 or little more can of the EVO, amazing that stuff smells good. She had soft stool though at 2 a.m. - doesnt surpise me. Then I tried to give the little bit left for breakfast next day and she didn't want anything. I bought a variety of the raw food chicken, and she didn't want that either. --- I have had a bowl of dry food laying out all weekend, she sniffed it and laid near it but has not touched it. -- I hope wet food alone is okay for her health. I'll keep everyone updated. Thanks all.
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by jacqui »

I thought that she was nervous with her little brother there :lol: little boys are so pesty.I'm sure she'll be fine with just wet food.I mentioned I had a girl eat just canned her whole life.she also liked oatmeal and cottage cheese.she did eat crunchy treats.
do you still think she has trouble chewing ? I'm happy to hear shes eating something :D
Kito Feb 4, 2006 - July 1,2007
Kai Mar.15 2007 - Aug. 26,2010
And when my time comes I will not go alone for my Chows will be there to say "Welcome Home".
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by rufnedge-2 »

hi jacqui, i'm glad to hear that they can live on wet food, you are proof because of your girl. my girl sorta likes cottage cheese too. i let her sniff some oatmeal earlier today but didnt really dive into it. actually i had a test tasting seminar earlier. i grabbed some ingredients from some doggie cookbook recipees and tried each one out. my boy loves black strap molasses, she then sniffed it curiously, then i planted some on her tongue. we tried cheese, yes she liked all the cheese. we tried lettuce, she chewed on some like she thought it was grass (she eats grass) and but didn't eat alot though. we know she likes hot dogs. hmm what else, oh didn't like sweet pototoe or canned pumpkin. - i don't think our boy likes being in the exercise pen while we eat, i'll try sitting near him tonight. -- i've been researching online to about "dog anorexia" it's possible - but i would imagine that is just for animals that wont eat anything at all. i've been reading about addisons disease, she has some of the symptoms but i can justify the symptoms.

one other thing.....me my husband are wondering....we think she has associated the bouts of diarrhea with her food (the food that she was eating before all this) ....we actually are wondering if this is possible. there were 2 days where we came home from work and she pooped in her pen and couldn't sit down, could this have traumatized her? also the terrible seperation anxiety of when her brother was in the hospital, and the end of a 12 day seperation of a diet of canned wet food and some chicken and rice, she had the most god aweful runny diarrhea. all of these bouts of has occured over the last month and a 1/2...and she's a smart girl...catches on really quick to stuff....... could she be really that smart to associate the old smell of the food and remember the diarrhea and know how aweful it had made her feel????????
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by rufnedge-2 »

Update! My girl is eating again with a vengeance. I'm lucky I didn't play tough guy with her as my instinct told me not to, I figured the vet said to not let her lose anymore weight. So I introduced an array of food to regain her interest. I found the foods she responded to and REALLY took an interest to. She was never excited about her food and that bothered me. I found what made her excited and repeated this daily. Then brought her old food back into the picture, she ate it like nothing ever happened. I think by stimulating her appetite again it kicked up her hunger as each day she wanted more and more. --- this may be just a coincidence, because a vet tech actually told me not to long ago she could have been going through a growth spurt and it's common for them to not eat. --- It could have been a tooth thing, one night i concentrated my time in holding the bone for her so she could teeth really well......well that night she WAS focusing her chewing on her back teeth, i heard a pop sound and after that night is when her appetite kicked into high gear, eating all the crunchy cookies faster than what she had been.........so i think this combination of factors were the problem.......very compounded problems....i really thought she wasnt going to make it as she didnt want to eat really for like 2 months or so.....

In the meantime, she blew out her fur ( i think ) nutrionally wise like a nursing mother can do?, that and its shedding season. How difficult phew..... i have the nutri cal stuff gel in a tube i'm giving her, that and the regular nutrition the dog food has that she is eating.

Thanks everyone for the advise it's invaluable!
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by jacqui »

thanks for the update.I'm happy to hear your girl is back to normal again :D
Kito Feb 4, 2006 - July 1,2007
Kai Mar.15 2007 - Aug. 26,2010
And when my time comes I will not go alone for my Chows will be there to say "Welcome Home".
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by kiwani »

rufnedge-2 wrote:--- It could have been a tooth thing, one night i concentrated my time in holding the bone for her so she could teeth really well......well that night she WAS focusing her chewing on her back teeth, i heard a pop sound and after that night is when her appetite kicked into high gear, eating all the crunchy cookies faster than what she had been....
It seems that her jaw *popped* back into alignment. In the earlier post, I mentioned that over-extending the jaw by chewing on bones can cause nerve pain/inflammation in the chewing muscles; the alignment might have also shifted. I'm very happy to hear that she's feeling well and has regained her appetite.
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by rufnedge-2 »

She's at it again she is now 15 months is going through a don't want to eat phase again. Seems to be a pattern. She had her first menses at 8 months her appetite was fine, then for two months after she didn't want her regular food except for the extra special food I was giving her to keep her weight on (I wasn't giving her boiled chicken at all until after she stopped eating, not before she stopped eating). Her second menses came along at 13 months of age where she ate VERY well gobbled up everything, when she's eating her food really well we restrain from table food except for eggs on the weekends. Then a month later she doesn't want her food but will eat the extra special foods like eggs, chicken, pupperoni's. She's putting her nose up at her regular food, it starts out with not finishing her dry/can mix, then i cut back the dry and increased the can, then she'd finish her food, it dwindled down to eating only half of that then i tried only can, then she didn't want any of it, this took about a week. ***So it seems like a pattern to me, period (eats well before and during), when period is completely done appetite tapers off.*** Doesn't this sound like some sort of postpartum depression??? Then I inspect her mouth and her teeth are okay, some yellow, no cuts. She doesn't want to really eat hard kibble, or hard snacks, maybe a couple then stops. The vet said her teeth look fine. When she goes to eat a hard morsel she'll try to put it in her mouth, she'll wriggle her tongue like OUCH that hurts or maybe she's saying YUK, not sure, then will spit it out. -- MY other chow eats without a problem. She's got a very sensitive tummy, if i switch to new food, she has lots of mucous in her stool and will get diarrhea. I've still got her on puppy food large breed pro plan, i'm afraid to switch to adult. Maybe this is all just completely normal.
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by summer_rose03 »

Try feeding her in a different room from her brother, with the door closed. This way there is no distractions. Maybe separate them before he gets fed and feed her first. Maybe try feeding her at different times of the day to see if there is a certain time of day that she wants to eat.

Only wet food isn't good for their teeth, not to mention it gets expensive. Are you feeding table scraps? If you are, that could be a problem. She knows that if she won't eat the dry food, you give her the good stuff. Chows are smart, she might be playing you. Try just offering the dry food only for a few days. If she's hungry enough, she will eat. If she's not sick, she won't starve herself.

As far as switching foods, you need to do it slowly. Add a little of the new food every few days, and subtract the old food. If she is really sensitive, you might need to do this over 2 weeks or so instead of a week.
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by rufnedge-2 »

Argh! She's not eating again. She'll eat cheese and eggs. But walks away from her dinner. Making me so mad #-o
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by jacqui »

I think some Chows are very fussy eaters to begin with or just my experiances?
my two now Chyna and Kai will go a day or 2 without eating at all.
when Chyna was young(shes 7 years old now) she would go many days without eating and didn't want treats either.
maybe it is just her pattern like you said.
try not to stress out and just offer her a small portion of canned if she likes that best.
sometimes if mine won't eat I'll break up a treat and put it on top of their food.
good luck !
Kito Feb 4, 2006 - July 1,2007
Kai Mar.15 2007 - Aug. 26,2010
And when my time comes I will not go alone for my Chows will be there to say "Welcome Home".
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by kiwani »

rufnedge-2 wrote:...***So it seems like a pattern to me, period (eats well before and during), when period is completely done appetite tapers off.*** Doesn't this sound like some sort of postpartum depression???
What you are describing now is the normal peak of two different hormones at different stages of her heat cycle, estrogen and progesterone. It's normal for appetite to taper off at the end of the cycle. If she were pregnant, appetite would increase.
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by rufnedge-2 »

Her last period was 12-28-08. I'm afraid to get her fixed because if it's the hormones that give her an appetite then wouldn't getting her fixed stop the hormones? If she's about midway through her heat cycle right now she should be low on hormones right? Her furs beginning to fall out around her stomach again like last year. I brushed her teeth last night she made me feel so bad she layed on her side frozen still her eyes blinking and looking all over the place like she was scared :roll: , that was very hard to do. Gonna try gauze later on. == My boy is the complete opposite he's a human garbage disposal.
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Re: Healthy 10 month old refusing to eat kibble

Post by dkas2929 »

rufnedge-2,
She sounds like a handful, I agree these cycles are puzzling. My Chow is male and have never had a problem
with his appetite, is she getting enough to drink? That would worry me more than being a finicky eater on
occasion. My guess would be that this is something she will grow out of. Good Luck :)
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