Hi, I have 2 purebred siberian huskies. My youngest is 18mo and my oldest will be 2 on June 16th. Since day one, my youngest (both males) has had a ferocious appetite. He will eat anything you give him and would probably eat a 50lb bag of food in one sitting if you let him. My other husky, however, is the complete opposite. We give them both 3 cups of food a day "Fromm; large breed adult" but my good eater gets his portion split into breakfast lunch and dinner so he doesn't finish all his food in the morning and go the rest of the day being hungry. I've tried that with my bad eater and it didn't work. He just lets his food sit there. Sooo, here's my struggle, I fill up his bowl every morning with 3 cups of food alongside a full water bowl and he will let it sit there all day without touching it most of the time. Some days he will pick at it, push his nose into the bowl and throw it out all over the floor, eat a few pieces and then forget about it. So there will be days wehere he won't eat hardly at all. Some days though I will fill it up and he will eat all 3 cups in a few minutes and because he didn't eat the day before I will keep giving him another cup until he stops eating. But I don't like this habit of his. I wish he would eat 3 cups each day consistently. He's not skinny. Last time we went to the vet he weighed 53lbs but my younger boy is already at 60lbs. Any tips on how to get him to eat better? Thanks!

Hello. I also have 2 huskies. I feed them once a day in the evening. My male, Rusty, eats his entire bowl of foods in minutes and would probably eat his weight in food if I let him. My female, Raven, is what I call a grazer. She eats throughout the day, a few bites here and there, or sometimes not at all.

I feed them each 2 1/2 cups of taste of the wild and that's all they get. If she still has food left in her bowl by dinner time the next day, depending on how much it is I may pitch it or add to it so its 2 1/2 cups again. If she eats all of it at one time after skipping a day or two I don't give any extra.

I have noticed that she is more prone to skip meals in the summer when its hotter outside. But she rarely eats all her food at one time.

Thanks! Well, that makes me feel a lot better. I guess my Atticus isn't the only stubborn eater! Crazy how they can be so different

It may be that 3 cups daily is too much for the 53#dog - have you tried reducing the food to 2.5-2.75, feeding for limited time and taking the food away after, say 30 minutes?

Or, maybe...he's just beatin' to his own drum  

Well I've just figured that it isn't too much food because if he doesn't want to eat every last piece he doesn't have to. I just put it in his bowl to see if it happens to be a day wehere he's hungry. Take today for example. He still has half his bowl leftover from yesterday...

Free feeding can often create this type of finicky eater in Siberians. We found that even with our picky eaters putting them on a schedule worked wonders. If they don't finish in 15-20 minutes the bowl goes away and nothing offered until the next day. Though the problem of picky eaters is becoming more and more prevalent within the breed, originally this was not the case. A dog that was a poor eater on a working team was dropped from that team and often the breeding program.

3 cups may be a bit too much quantity for him as well- though looking at the Large Breed formula (which Siberians are not Large breeds) it's only a 23/12 food (protein/fat) which will drive the quantity up depending on his caloric demand. What type of physical activity is he getting daily? That too can make a difference in how much they will want to eat.

Both have great suggestions, but figured I'd let you know my experience. My dog is pretty active. This morning we took a 2.5 mile walk at a good pace in under 40 min and will do that again this evening, and then he played with a doggie buddy in the park for a while. He also does doggie daycare a couple days a week, and we hike and do other activities like that during the weekend. When I feed raw, he gets 1.25 lbs a day, when I feed dry he gets 1-1.25 cups. I recently had to switch him back to dry because I was having a hard time with getting the raw, and started him at 2 cups. He got chunky pretty quickly, so I cut him down to 1 cup, I add no salt green beans to help fill up his tummy a bit. I also do a fair amount of training so he gets treats throughout the day as well. I haven't weighed him in a few months, but I would guess he's around 50-52 lbs.

Hmmm…thanks for all the input, guys! Maybe I am feeding him too much. Although he plays and wrestles with his brother a lot, he doesn't get an extensive amount of exercise outside of that except for a 40min walk each night. I guess i shouldn't stress about him not eating all his food when i give him 3 cups. I suppose, if he's hungry- he will eat

thank you- you all made me feel a lot better about this!

Atticus:







Kronos:

Hi All    I am fairly new to this site and will start off with apologizing if I am posting in the wrong area, or if someone has already touched this subject. I have an 8 month old husky boy, who is super energetic, loveable and very stubborn/opinionated at times.
I’ve recently noticed in the last couple months that his eating habits have been kind of off.

As a little back story on our Gambit, when we 1st rescued him he was being fed puppy chow(which our vet agreed was the best food for him) though I disagreed and thought he should be eating something a little more natural. I immediately changed his food, which must of upset his tummy because his poop was more like diarrhea, so I slowly transitioned him back to puppy chow until he hit 6 months.

**SIDE NOTE**,  he had a bit of food aggression, he’d inhale his food like it was his last meal, growl and get very stiff when you got close to his bowl. Unfortunately that led to him biting me around age of 3 months. I immediately enrolled him in obedience class, to learn how to better interact with my PUP, as this was my 1st dog ever.  6 weeks of classes, lots of patience and reading we nipped that it the butt and luckily we thus far have not had an issue.

I slowly reintroduced the better quality food (NUTRO Natural Lamb and rice formula) into his diet and he was fine. About 1 month ago it I restocked his food SAME BRAND, however I did CHICKEN instead of LAMB. He must of not been a fan because it took him FOREVER to finish his “meals” or sometimes he wouldn’t eat at all. Finally about 3 ½ weeks ago I restocked again, and decided to stick with the ORIGINAL ingredients. He’s up to 6 cups a day which we now give to him at one sitting. WE noticed he’s still weird about his food. He’ll take a couple bites here and there, but never finish it entirely within one said day.

Occasionally we do give him treats, whether its doggie treats or HUMAN FOOD; I.E. Cheese, peanut butter, apples, carrots, bananas and he swallows it down like a champ.

Is there something I am doing wrong/am missing as a new parent?

6 cups of food a day is a lot of food. My adult eats 2 cups. About half of what you are feeding should be plenty for an 8 month old. Huskies often eat less than the recommended amount that is listed on the back of bags so if you are going off the bag, I wouldn't. The higher quality of food you feed the less food they actually need also. I would dial back to 3 cups and split it in two meals. many huskies are good at self regulating their food and if you are giving him 6 cups I wouldn't worry at all that he isn't eating it all.

I have to comment here ... like Ms Spencer (??) I also have two dogs, neither of whom are particularly active.

Avalanche is an Alaskan Husky who gets to run a couple of times a week (er, I live in the desert in south Texas so he can run without getting into trouble) Avalanche is free fed and nibbles his way through his food. While he's a decent 60lbs, he looks skinny but nothing I've been able to do puts any weight on him ... but he is healthy.

My other is a Siberian, gets fed 1.5-2.0 cups a day and cannot lose weight from a 65-70lbs (she's a good hand shorter than Avalanche and much stockier).

Since they're both healthy in my opinion (and my vets) we've never been overly concerned about how much they eat (or don't eat). Sasha will tell me when it's supper time but isn't worried about breakfast - if she gets it fine, if not - oh well. I was out of the house all day yesterday and Avalanche never did get his bowl put out (he gets fed on the porch since Sasha would eat his if she got the chance) and even when I put it out with him this morning he wasn't too enthused about eating.

I think the point to this - to both posters - is that these dogs are different from other dogs and can be very different from each other. I now don't worry about how much they eat and wouldn't unless it became obvious that they were severely over or under weight. I think you could drive yourself nuts trying to figure out the "right" amount - they'd do something different for a day or two, just to throw a monkey wrench in the works!

I definitely agree with Jenn, 6 cups of food for a Husky is a lot of food!!!!

Thank you for both for your feedback! I feel much better with the advise given by you both. I figured 6 cups was a lot for Gambit, but then again i was "following" the instructions on the back of bag as I didn't want him to go hungry or not get enough of his serving. Moving forward I will dial it back to 2-3 cups and split that amount.

THANKS GUYS!!
XOXOXO

Val, just an off the wall comment. My Sasha had a bad case of possessiveness over her food, I have a set of scars on my arm to prove that (took 4 stitches). I could go back and look but this was two - three years ago<??> After I made up my mind that I wasn't going to put her down, the question became one of how to prevent any recurrence.

I started off by ensuring that she was in a solid set/stay while I got her food and then hand feeding her - this is *my* food and I'll share it with you if you're nice. This went surprisingly well since I was more than a bit apprehensive. We moved on to me holding her food bowl while she ate, maybe adding a little more kibble. In general moving around her and her bowl while she was eating. Okay, a lot of time and effort in making sure that she understood that her food came from me and if she didn't behave she'd be apt to go hungry - and there were a few times she did.

Even now, two - three years later, we still "play" over her food; she has to set, and then I may stand there and toss her a dozen kibble - one at a time; or I may put only a small portion of her food in her bowl and have her go back to set stay when I add some more or I may add some while she's eating. Food aggression / possession is not something to be taken lightly, if allowed to continue it can develop into a very threatening situation for both the human and the dog.
That said only because I'm glad you recognized the problem and took steps to correct it early ... good show!!!

Sky started off being so malnourished that she would try to catch her food before it made it from the scoopy-cup to her bowl.

Since then, she's stopped eating a few times altogether, and is now on something like a normal, calm eating routine.

She went into heat as soon as she got regular food, so in addition to all the other stressors, I'm sure that was part of what was throwing her off.

In the coming weeks I need to get her to a point where she's not being just-rescued-indulged but neither being underfed.