# finicky eaters



## jcris (Feb 19, 2015)

My 2 spoo's are rather finicky eaters. They regularly turn their noses up at kibble. I used to feed them a raw diet but the expense and inconvenience of doing so has brought me back to kibble and canned food. I feed them Blue Buffalo canned and Diamond Natural kibble. To make it somewhat more appealing I sometimes use broth (chicken or vegetable) to make a gravy. This helps a little but not much. All that aside I've noticed that since the change from raw their poop has become very soft. Almost diarrhea like. I guess this means what I'm feeding them is not being digested very well and causing some tummy upset. I'm so frustrated by this. I tried the raw to give them the best and it's wonderful but now that I've backed off to feeding a more conventional diet that isn't working so well either. I'm desperately searching for a happy medium and am willing to listen to other ideas. I use to feed them a fair amount of table scrapes but no longer. I do supplement there diet with some raw meaty bones and also baked bones I buy at the local pet supply. Please help.
Jcris


----------



## oshagcj914 (Jun 12, 2016)

I personally wouldn't consider either blue buffalo or diamond to be good quality foods. Have you thought about switching to a higher quality kibble? I feed raw also, but my ex now has our younger Dane and switched him back to kibble. He's also dealing with the lousier poop. He feeds Earthborn, and found that just cutting the portion back half a cup helped with soft poop. It's no where as nice as raw poop, but at least it can be picked up. I'd also ditch the baked bones. Cooked bones can splinter, plus I've found that a lot of those treats are smoked, cooked, or have all kinds of additives and crap, and I've had issues with loose stools from stuff like that. If getting rid of the store bought bones and cutting portions by a small amount doesn't help, I'd think about a higher quality food.


----------



## jcris (Feb 19, 2015)

Very interesting and thanks for the reply. 
I was under the impression that Blue Buffalo was a decent food. The Diamond Naturals was more of a guess on my part. I'll have to take a closer look
Jcris


----------



## Mfmst (Jun 18, 2014)

I feed AM kibble and an evening meal of a raw chicken necks. I keep whatever pieces of cooked meat are leftover from our evening meal and add to the kibble as a topper. Not too much, just something to keep the kibble interesting and a little different most days. This was my breeder's diet and it's worked out well. I feel guilty that I haven't gone all raw, but this is a cost effective compromise.


----------



## poodlecrazy#1 (Jul 2, 2013)

I had extremely picky eaters too. They would never eat kibble the way they should have. I tried freeze dried raw and regular raw but just couldn't stick with it. Finally I tried the Ziwipeak and it was a miracle! They would actually look forward to feeding time instead of ignoring it. It is quite expensive but totally worth it to me. I don't notice any issues with poops, they stay nice and firm not runny. They are slightly larger than when they did the raw of course but not overly large or smelly. It is a very high fat high protein food, so I recommend adding it in slowly if you do decide to use it. I started feeding it as treats only then added more. I also had good results with the wysong quail diet as well. It's very hard to find though and horrendously high in protein so I stopped feeding it.


----------



## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

poodlecrazy#1 said:


> I had extremely picky eaters too. They would never eat kibble the way they should have. I tried freeze dried raw and regular raw but just couldn't stick with it. Finally I tried the Ziwipeak and it was a miracle! They would actually look forward to feeding time instead of ignoring it. It is quite expensive but totally worth it to me. I don't notice any issues with poops, they stay nice and firm not runny. They are slightly larger than when they did the raw of course but not overly large or smelly. It is a very high fat high protein food, so I recommend adding it in slowly if you do decide to use it. I started feeding it as treats only then added more. I also had good results with the wysong quail diet as well. It's very hard to find though and horrendously high in protein so I stopped feeding it.



I always struggle with this because Ziwi is Teaka's favorite food, but it it makes her poops large and soft - no diarrhea, but stick to their butt soft, and Teaka does not like poop on her butt, and will use my rugs to clean it if I don't get to her first!
But her poops are perfect when she eats the freeze dried raw.


----------



## oshagcj914 (Jun 12, 2016)

jcris said:


> Very interesting and thanks for the reply.
> I was under the impression that Blue Buffalo was a decent food. The Diamond Naturals was more of a guess on my part. I'll have to take a closer look
> Jcris


I just think Blue is overrated for the price...not to mention that if a company has a lot of advertising, you can bet that that's where there money is going. My problem with Diamond is their poor quality control. There are lot of good quality foods out there that are comparable in price, or even if they cost more, you may not really be paying more to feed your dog because you can feed less of them. Fromm, Orijen, Acana, Earthborn, Evo, Canidae, Evanger's, Wyson, Victor, Zignature are all pretty good brands. Freeze dried raw is good too, but not very cost effective for a bigger dog. I used to order from chewy.com when I fed kibble because I couldn't always find good brands locally. Also I've found that a little bone broth poured over food would always do the trick when I had a pet that was sick or wouldn't eat.


----------



## FireStorm (Nov 9, 2013)

I feed half raw and half kibble. My go to brands for kibble are Wysong (Nurture with Quail, Optimal Preformance, or Epigen - the nurture and optimal Preformance have freeze dried raw mixed in), Natures Logic, and Ziwipeak. I usually order from chewy.com because I can't find them locally. Those are the brands that Hans likes enough to eat them without a topper or anything mixed in, so that's what I stick with...I rotate through those for variety.

I was feeding only Ziwipeak for a while, but I can do raw cheaper than Ziwipeak, so that's why I started the half and half.

Also, I would suggest cutting out the pet store bones and see if that helps...Hans tends to get an upset tummy from those.

Are you using homemade broth or canned/packaged broth? Sometimes I make broth for Hans, but I use just bones and nothing else (no salt, onions, etc). I would think some premade broths might have a lot of salt, which could be an issue if they're getting them on a daily basis.


----------



## kontiki (Apr 6, 2013)

FireStorm said:


> Are you using homemade broth or canned/packaged broth? Sometimes I make broth for Hans, but I use just bones and nothing else (no salt, onions, etc). I would think some premade broths might have a lot of salt, which could be an issue if they're getting them on a daily basis.


I have found that my spoo won't touch canned/packaged meat broth. They sometimes have other additives than salt too. But he loves the simple kind I make without additives, and the same with bone broth.


----------



## jcris (Feb 19, 2015)

I was just re-reading these posts and would have to agree I need to look at another brand of kibble. Like some I'm not in an area that has a lot of great choices so I'll take a look at chewy.com
Thanks for the help everyone,
Jcris


----------



## Liz (Oct 2, 2010)

We've found decent pricing online at petfooddirect, amazon, and ... somewhere else. Worth googling, especially if froogle.google still works.


----------

