# Picky Eater



## PeggyTheParti (Sep 5, 2019)

Welcome! Glad you’ve joined the conversation. 

I think natural regulation of food intake is often perceived as pickiness in the poodle world. And while this is not always the case, frantically inhaling meals can mean the meals themselves are not adequately nutritious. (Think about how much juice calories you can consume vs. the equivalent fruit.)

Have you considered simplifying things a little? Scrap the toppers, stop offering so much variety, and see what happens?

I share Peggy’s meal plan here often, not because it’s a one-size-fits-all solution, but because it’s something that people often haven’t tried:

She gets a spoonful of Weruva Paw Lickin’ Chicken for breakfast and dinner. This is a highly palatable, nutritionally balanced food (unlike plain chicken) to ensure she gets _something_ in her stomach. On the rare occasion she doesn’t eat it, it goes in the fridge after 20 minutes and is taken out for the next meal. If she doesn’t eat it a second time, we toss it.

In a separate dish she gets a high-quality kibble (Farmina Ancestral Grains). She can have as much of this kibble as she wants. As she finishes it, we top it up. Anything left at the end of the day gets tossed, but we top it up in such small increments, there’s rarely much there.

We also feed her a second kibble: Honest Kitchen Whole Food Clusters. This kibble, however, we feed by hand. She gets a piece here and there as random rewards. She gets a bunch during indoor training sessions. And she gets a quarter cup once she’s quietly waiting in her crate at bedtime. She _loves_ this food because she has to work for it.


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## HFL Poodle Mom (11 mo ago)

PeggyTheParti said:


> Welcome! Glad you’ve joined the conversation.
> 
> I think natural regulation of food intake is often perceived as pickiness in the poodle world. And while this is not always the case, frantically inhaling meals can mean the meals themselves are not adequately nutritious. (Think about how much juice calories you can consume vs. the equivalent fruit.)
> 
> ...


Thank you for the suggestions! I will research your suggestions ASAP. I was always of the mind set that dogs will eat when they get hungry and not to worry. The vomiting yellow stomach bile changed my thought process a bit. Thank you again.


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## PeggyTheParti (Sep 5, 2019)

Is the bile happening in the morning? And has your poodle been checked out recently by a vet?

My last dog had bilious vomiting syndrome, which was largely solved with a handful of something healthy and digestible at bedtime, 24/7 access to water, and minimal activity in the morning until she’d eaten something. This is where a highly palatable food can be especially helpful, as hunger leads to nausea which suppresses appetite. Sometimes getting a little something tasty in the belly is all it takes to promote a healthy appetite for the rest of the day.


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## LittleCloud (Apr 21, 2021)

I’m sorry to hear about your dog passing. It could be that he’s grieving, but it could also be that he feels he has less competition for food. We had two cats who ate everything in their bowls but only when they were living together.

If he is a good weight and seems otherwise healthy and happy I wouldn’t worry. I have a picky eater too and have just learned to accept it.

I had the same issue with vomiting bile from an empty stomach. I do a little trick training in the morning and give him something high value (duck jerky made for dogs). He likes working for it and is more willing to eat it. It’s not a big piece but it’s enough to prevent the upset stomach.

I just feed mine Farmina Ancestral Grains kibble soaked in bit of water, he prefers it that way. Occasionally I add some wet food.


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## Yellow (Sep 24, 2018)

I would try adding a good probiotic...I'm a fan of raw and switch up the proteins every couple of days.. Also a good book that is full of info that came out late last year is" The Forever Dog" you might be surprised at what you read about kibble food. Some natural food stores have samples that you could try. probiotic/ enzymes would be a good start check out Carna4 supplement.


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## Starla (Nov 5, 2020)

Phoebe has “treat food” that she gets during training and in her puzzle feeders. I make sure she gets a good amount in the morning through training so that she doesn’t feel queasy and not want to eat, which leads to the bile vomiting for her.

I am having to opposite issue with my cat, and I’m positive it is due to his mourning our other dog’s death last month. He is constantly asking to be fed, which is an issue we haven’t dealt with in some time due to him being fed by an auto feeder. He has had blood work done and there is nothing wrong to cause him to be so hungry. I reprogrammed the feeder to give him 1 extra portion per day, but also broke it up more so he is being fed 5 times per day instead of 3. So I completely believe that the reverting to pickiness could be due to being in mourning. Here’s to hoping yours and mine both can move on and get back to their former routines.


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## 94Magna_Tom (Feb 23, 2021)

How long does he go without eating? How many meals/day is (or was) normal? 
I no longer try to see that Elroy eats every meal when I give it to him. He seems to eat when he wants. He's just about 1 year old now and eats most of his meals before bedtime. I rotate meals with different kibbles (no food switching issues for him) although he prefers one type in a given sitting. Usually he eats once at 6pm(ish) and again at 11pm(ish), and leaves some each time. No breakfast, no lunch. Fresh water constantly.


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## Dechi (Aug 22, 2015)

I think your dog is grieving and I would just keep the food he was eating and loved. He won’t eat as much for a while but it will eventually come back. Switching foods every time he stops eating is just feeding the same vicious circle over and over again and you’ll never see the end of it.

Some dogs just aren’t crazy eaters. Many poodles are this way, including one of mine. Not eating for 2 even three days happens with him, especially if he has more anxiety. I let him be and eventually he will eat.


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## Basil_the_Spoo (Sep 1, 2020)

Re: empty stomach pukes.

Basil (1-3/4 y/o Spoo) would do the same. I give her the cooked meat, skinless and boneless from 2 or 3 chicken legs or 2 thighs every morning for breakfast. Cooked in the instant pot, no extra seasonings. She gobbles down, and looks forward to breakfast every morning. It's part of our routine.

I buy 5 pounds of chicken legs at a time and it's $0.99/lb at my local "super saver foods". I buy 4-5 trays at a time in my freezer. Each tray takes about 48 hours to defrost at room temp. A 5 pound tray will all fit in the 6qt instantpot pot, bairly.

Plus, I always have chicken stock on hand now, so that's nice to cook rice in or make soup... It's a nice quality of life bonus.

Then, she free feeds on kibble the rest of the day.


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## Miki (Dec 25, 2021)

Basil_the_Spoo said:


> I buy 5 pounds of chicken legs at a time and it's $0.99/lb at my local "super saver foods". I buy 4-5 trays at a time in my freezer. Each tray takes about 48 hours to defrost at room temp. A 5 pound tray will all fit in the 6qt instantpot pot, bairly.


No need to thaw before cooking in the IP - just add a few more minutes, and make sure to do a natural release. I cook boneless, skinless chicken breasts from frozen every week. (If the legs are frozen when you purchase them, that's a different story unless you can separate them to fit them all in the pot.)

Love, love, love IP chicken stock.


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## Phaz23 (May 31, 2020)

A lot of folks are saying what I'm thinking too. I have a "picky eater" as well and I switched to all sorts of foods and blew a lot of money trying to find out what he wanted to eat, and it turned out that some good ol pro plan mixed with a little bit of higher protein kibble (orijen) has him eating more than he's ever eaten before. I honestly think I was just hurting his tummy with the complication and now that he's on some simple ingredient food he's able to eat more. He also does not do well on raw, my older dog does very well on raw. Tekno can't tolerate it and gets sick often on various raw diets. He does not eat every day, he has more like a 3 day cycle where he eats like a pig on the 3rd day, and very little the days in between. I've learned that that's just his cycle and I put food down in a couple times a day and pick it up after 10 minutes (when I free feed, he eats even less). I also do a lot of hand feeding while training, and like mentioned above, I use probiotics for his sensitive stomach.


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## Tinker427 (6 mo ago)

Hi everyone! I am also brand new to this forum, I have a 3 year old, female mini poodle, she is a super active, "picky eater". Sometimes she wants to eat in the morning, sometimes in the evening, sometimes she does not do either. She will never go 24 hours without eating though. She is highly allergic to chicken. I see a lot of treats and dog food have chicken as their main ingredient, so it is hard for me to find food that she likes or can tolerate. I do offer her Greek Yogurt for Probiotic health, and sometimes she wants it, others time she doesn't, it's frustrating. I have been feeding her the same dry kibble since her birth and she seems to tolerate that well. I also feed her salmon and some other "people" food that the vet says is allowed like beef pieces as long as they are in small cut up pieces. She does love turkey, rice and sweet potatoes but only when she is in the mood. Is anyone else going through with their poodle being a "moody eater" or do you see it with their activity level and if they had treats or other foods first?


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