[alecat9117]

I've got a lovely dog who is about 3 years old... he loves to eat EVERYTHING EXCEPT his dog food. Up until about 6 months ago he had secretly been eating a lot of my cats food (which he loves)but would often break out in a rash. After going to the vet we realised that he has food allergies, mostly to commercial pet food because it's low quality. So we buy him very good, low allergen dog food from the vet which, when he eats it, really does have an amazing affect on his skin. However I just can't seem to get him to regularly eat it. He's never been the sort of dog that has meals cooked for him, usually just his dry dog food and some scraps from dinner, but over the last 12 months he is just not interested in it at all. I've tried everything. I put hot water on the dog food (which apparently people do when puppies won't eat dog food) and he loved that for about 2 days, then I think he realised it was dog food and lost all interest in it. So I've been mixing various things in with his dog food to convince him to eat it. I try not to give him any human food so he gets hungry enough to eat it but I don't him to starve so I give in.
Anyone got any suggestions on what I can do?

[shazamataz]

No healthy dog will starve themselves.

I had a dog here who flat out refused to eat, I would buy all these expensive foods to mix in, I tried the home cooked meals, the raw diets, nothing worked.
He looked like a bag of bones, I was embarrassed to take him out in public.
Eventually I got sick of buying all the fancy foods and just put down his regular dog food.
I'd leave it down for 10 minutes and anything that wasn't eaten got put back in the fridge.

It took nearly a week of him just having a few pieces and walking away before he finally realized that was all he was going to get and he sat there and ate the whole bowl.

Have you considered trying a raw diet for his allergies? Raw diets are just as they sound, all raw meats and vegetables. It's great for allergies and you can easily change the diet so they don't get tired of it by just adding new vegetables or meats each week.

[alecat9117]

I've tried the raw diets but he won't eat the vegetables... he'll eat mash potato or something if there's lots of butter and milk in it but otherwise he doesn't really veggies... So I worry that he wouldn't be getting a balanced diet if he just ate all the meat. I also image that would be very, very expensive?

That's a good suggestion with leaving the bowl down though, I think I might try that... I don't think I'm that firm with him because I feel sorry for him after he hasn't eaten for awhile. Probably making it worse, but I will definitely try that and let you know how it goes! Thanks

[shazamataz]

They soon learn that if they don't eat it, it gets taken away.
I felt horrible doing it to mine as well, but in the long run it certainly saves a few headaches!

There are a few things you can buy to add to the meat to make it balanced. I have used used Dr Bruce Symes complete mix, my dogs loved it. The mix is basically a dry mix of assorted grains and vegetables (some powdered) that you actually soak and let ferment for 24 hours. You then mash it up into the meat, the dogs barely even know it is there.

I will post this article for you, it all about dog nutrition but towards the bottom explains about the 'complete mix'
http://www.vetsallnatural.com.au/Nut...for%20Dogs.pdf

Feeding raw doesn't have to be expensive, if you can find a good butcher you can get large quantities of meat (my mother gets whole sheep carcasses for $25) and cut them up yourself and freeze.

[alecat9117]

Oh yay! Thank you. I'll read that
So impressed I got answers this quickly!
I'm going to start taking his food away tomorrow morning :(