So I have a bit of an issue. I have the worlds pickiest eater. And I don't say that lightly. Missy has lymes and is being treated for it with some antibiotics which as we know will make one pukey pup if she dosn't get a nice full or coated belly to go down with it. Taking the pill isn't the issue, pill pockets are just fine and she gulps it down and even drinks some water right after. It's the eating part! For now I'm doing my best with some boiled chicken breast and rice but I have almost a month of pills for her to take and I know that's not a balanced diet.

The kicker also is her new brother (who eats like a dump truck) gave her giardia, so she has two meds she needs to take, a slightly upset tummy as is, and is picky on top of it all! I mix the powder meds Panicure in with some goats milk and she gobbles it up so taking it is again not a big deal but that too needs to have something on top of it or she's going to start feeling even worse!

So is there any food you might be able to throw at me that she might like. She can settle with both wet and dry which she was on before hand. She would bird eat throughout the day or eat what she wanted during meals and save the rest for later, she's a nice healthy weight for her size and I would like to keep it that way through this. Anything your picky eaters for sure gobbled up? Or maybe a supplement I can give to her on top of the chicken and rice to make sure she's getting everything she needs? I'm trying my best with a daily dog vitamin but that will only go so far.

Any help would be great thanks guys!

Rooen, I would be starting an argument by saying, no my girl is the pickiest out there, haha. anyways, my go to is turkey burger boiled in water then mix water and the cooked turkey burger in with kibble. I use 1 cup of kibble, about 1/2 a cup of water and 4-6 ounces of the turkey burger. When cooking mix the burger enough to form tiny pieces which will coat the kibble (leave a little of the turkey in bite size pieces), along with the water being a tasty type gravy and gets the kibble kinda soggy. The turkey is a real lean protein, but also a bland protein, which helps tummies. Let it cool, but feed when still warm. This should solve the problem while she is taking the meds, and the kibble will give her a balanced diet. Once she is done with the meds, you should be able to stop feeding it that way. Good luck and let me know if it worked.

Dr. Harvey's Miracle Foodis a godsend. When we got Anya, she was skinny (just 22 lbs , had worms and no nutrients, with a ragged short coat and she wouldn't eat. Her medications made it even worse and she just got skinnier. A breeder friend of ours who shows recommended Dr. Harvey's to get her to eat, get some much-needed nutrients in the system and get her weight to a good place.

With Dr. Harvey's, you cook up your choice of protein (we would alternate between chicken and eggs) and oil (We used a tablespoon of olive oil), then cook up the mash, which is full of very nutritious add-ons to fill out the diet. We served it to her still warm (one batch gave us several meals we put in Tupperwares; we'd heat it up on the stove top for each meal).

She GOBBLED it and begged for more. It was the first time she actually ate everything in her bowl. All of a sudden, we had a ravenous dog. She got Dr. Harvey's 4 days a week at first and her kibble the other days until her weight reached a good point, her coat grew in and her medical issues cleared up. Then we slowly scaled back Dr. Harvey's; now, she gets it as a very special meal every 2 weeks or so.

But she learned to love her food and devours it now

MiyasMomma wrote:

Rooen, I would be starting an argument by saying, no my girl is the pickiest out there, haha. anyways, my go to is turkey burger boiled in water then mix water and the cooked turkey burger in with kibble. I use 1 cup of kibble, about 1/2 a cup of water and 4-6 ounces of the turkey burger. When cooking mix the burger enough to form tiny pieces which will coat the kibble (leave a little of the turkey in bite size pieces), along with the water being a tasty type gravy and gets the kibble kinda soggy. The turkey is a real lean protein, but also a bland protein, which helps tummies. Let it cool, but feed when still warm. This should solve the problem while she is taking the meds, and the kibble will give her a balanced diet. Once she is done with the meds, you should be able to stop feeding it that way. Good luck and let me know if it worked.

I'll be trying this tomorrow! Normally this feeding thing isn't a issue. We think she's both picky and a bird eater which is making this a double challenge. She's 'full' after a few bites. Though tonight we managed to get her to eat some wet food with cooked rice and pieces of chicken topped with meat drippings....it's like hiding veggies in mashed potatos with kids.

I'm hoping the turkey burger trick will work as she's known to pick up any coated kibble and swish it around in her mouth getting the topping off, then spiting the kibble back into her bowel.  She does this with cheese or even chicken broth.

We also wondered if it was the hard crunch of the kibbles as she normally never chews but slowly fills up her mouth and then picks her head up to swallow the whole mouthful but slowly. You can hear the bits going down her throat and it sounds pretty painful, if this turkey thing works it might be her all around full time diet, I've been playing chef for this girl for 6+ years now!

I was wondering if anyone has tried the paste like nutrition supplements that they sell at pet stores. They often come in tubes for cats and dogs and people often buy them for older or sick animals who have a hard time eating at all. Is that a possible option for at least the time being to get her what she needs? She has about 9 more days on the antibiotic and 3 more on the panicure so it might be something to look at in the future more than this round.

Rooen, never used the paste, so can't help you there. Miya goes back and forth on her diet, she is quite lean, and will like yours eat like a bird. I had a almost 15 year old Siamese about 4 pounds and most of her teeth were gone, and some days she ate more than Miya, and oddly enough she would eat Miya's kibble, and she totally could chew it up, too big for her to swallow, lol. Anyways, back to Miya, yes she will lick off the good stuff and leave kibble behind, so that is why I did the turkey burger in water, and then made like a soup, the kibble gets all soggy, and most of the burger is too small for her to pick off so she is forced to eat kibble along with the meat. I have not found any other meat, not even hamburger that can get teeny tiny pieces of meat and stick to the kibble and she then eats it all. Let me know how it goes....One thing I do like about the turkey is it comes frozen in a 12 ounce roll, about $1.79 when not on sale, so inexpensive enough you could use everyday, so a 12 ounce package = 3 meals or 4 meals to maintain weight, and 2 meals to add, is how I usually do it.

ETA:also Miya is a weirdo and some days she prefers soggy kibble and other days she prefers crunchy, nearly impossible to guess with her, but in your case, because she is older, she may chew her food betters soggy and benefit more with the nutrients vs eating whole.

Rooen wrote:

We also wondered if it was the hard crunch of the kibbles as she normally never chews but slowly fills up her mouth and then picks her head up to swallow the whole mouthful but slowly. You can hear the bits going down her throat and it sounds pretty painful, if this turkey thing works it might be her all around full time diet, I've been playing chef for this girl for 6+ years now!

Does she have an unrecognized tooth problem? Or jaw issue?

I used the nutrition pastes over 40 years ago with a very sick puppy...I had to finger feed it to her. She minorly perked up when I put it near her mouth but her illness was too advanced to do much more.

amymeme wrote:

Rooen wrote:

We also wondered if it was the hard crunch of the kibbles as she normally never chews but slowly fills up her mouth and then picks her head up to swallow the whole mouthful but slowly. You can hear the bits going down her throat and it sounds pretty painful, if this turkey thing works it might be her all around full time diet, I've been playing chef for this girl for 6+ years now!

Does she have an unrecognized tooth problem?  Or jaw issue?

I used the nutrition pastes over 40 years ago with a very sick puppy...I had to finger feed it to her.  She minorly perked up when I put it near her mouth but her illness was too advanced to do much more.

No teeth problems that were noticed by my vet, she will chew things like treats and any human food we give her including frozen marrow bones and hard dry chicken jerky treats too. She has no issue tugging on toys or trying to shove her baby brothers whole head in her mouth or grabbing his scruff to drag him around the yard. I'll have the vet check the next time we go in just in case.

The paste was just a possibility given that it's a struggle to get her to eat even a little bit of dog food. She managed last night with a LOT of additions like beef broth and rice but it was something. Once the pills are done she can go back to bird eating all she wants, she has never been under weight for as little as she tends to eat so I'm not worried about that down the line. Just that she needs a full tummy so we are filling her up on chicken and rice making her too full to eat any bit of dog food.

Rooen wrote:

amymeme wrote:

Rooen wrote:

We also wondered if it was the hard crunch of the kibbles as she normally never chews but slowly fills up her mouth and then picks her head up to swallow the whole mouthful but slowly. You can hear the bits going down her throat and it sounds pretty painful, if this turkey thing works it might be her all around full time diet, I've been playing chef for this girl for 6+ years now!

Does she have an unrecognized tooth problem?  Or jaw issue?

I used the nutrition pastes over 40 years ago with a very sick puppy...I had to finger feed it to her.  She minorly perked up when I put it near her mouth but her illness was too advanced to do much more.

No teeth problems that were noticed by my vet, she will chew things like treats and any human food we give her including frozen marrow bones and hard dry chicken jerky treats too. She has no issue tugging on toys or trying to shove her baby brothers whole head in her mouth or grabbing his scruff to drag him around the yard. I'll have the vet check the next time we go in just in case.

The paste was just a possibility given that it's a struggle to get her to eat even a little bit of dog food. She managed last night with a LOT of additions like beef broth and rice but it was something. Once the pills are done she can go back to bird eating all she wants, she has never been under weight for as little as she tends to eat so I'm not worried about that down the line. Just that she needs a full tummy so we are filling her up on chicken and rice making her too full to eat any bit of dog food.

Oh...ok.  Probably no teeth problems and you've answered my second thought which is...maybe she's eating enough.  If your only concern at the moment is food in her belly to buffer the meds, then the chicken and rice only short term is probably not a problem.  If she's on antibiotics, maybe add some yogurt with live cultures to either her chicken and rice or her kibble to keep her gut colonized with good bacteria.  I recycle qt yogurt containers as homemade kongs by smearing greek yogurt all over the inside (not filling it, just "painting the sides and bottom".  A favorite treat for the dogs!

amymeme wrote:

Rooen wrote:

amymeme wrote:

Rooen wrote:

We also wondered if it was the hard crunch of the kibbles as she normally never chews but slowly fills up her mouth and then picks her head up to swallow the whole mouthful but slowly. You can hear the bits going down her throat and it sounds pretty painful, if this turkey thing works it might be her all around full time diet, I've been playing chef for this girl for 6+ years now!

Does she have an unrecognized tooth problem?  Or jaw issue?

I used the nutrition pastes over 40 years ago with a very sick puppy...I had to finger feed it to her.  She minorly perked up when I put it near her mouth but her illness was too advanced to do much more.

No teeth problems that were noticed by my vet, she will chew things like treats and any human food we give her including frozen marrow bones and hard dry chicken jerky treats too. She has no issue tugging on toys or trying to shove her baby brothers whole head in her mouth or grabbing his scruff to drag him around the yard. I'll have the vet check the next time we go in just in case.

The paste was just a possibility given that it's a struggle to get her to eat even a little bit of dog food. She managed last night with a LOT of additions like beef broth and rice but it was something. Once the pills are done she can go back to bird eating all she wants, she has never been under weight for as little as she tends to eat so I'm not worried about that down the line. Just that she needs a full tummy so we are filling her up on chicken and rice making her too full to eat any bit of dog food.

Oh...ok.  Probably no teeth problems and you've answered my second thought which is...maybe she's eating enough.  If your only concern at the moment is food in her belly to buffer the meds, then the chicken and rice only short term is probably not a problem.  If she's on antibiotics, maybe add some yogurt with live cultures to either her chicken and rice or her kibble to keep her gut colonized with good bacteria.  I recycle qt yogurt containers as homemade kongs by smearing greek yogurt all over the inside (not filling it, just "painting the sides and bottom".  A favorite treat for the dogs!

I'll be adding a bit of the yogurt to both my pups diet soon just to help with their tummies! I just had a poop sample done for Missy and the giardia was the only thing they found but due to the chicken and rich, the meds and eating more than she normally would she's not feeling super great and I want her gut back up to 100% as soon as possible and that seems like a good start.

She always ate like a bird and kept a good weight. At this point it seemed to upset her tummy more that were are trying to force more food in that she normally takes. We are settling for a half a bowl in the morning when she is ready and at least a cup a day, the turkey burger thing seems to be working out well so if she's being fussy we just mix that and call one pill a day a victory.

Once this is all over she can go back to bird eating and being a fussy fuzzball....little bugger.

Thanks for all the help guys! Lots of great tips for now and even later!