Hello, hello!

My one-year-old baby, Athena, is so picky and now is at a point where she won't eat her food, but will lick it. Its greatly concerning me so I'm asking for some advice from my fellow husky parents.

When I first got her, her previous owners had her on Royal Canin but she got diarrhea twice so per vet instructions, we put her on a raw diet for two weeks. Boiled chicken and rice, which she loved. We added some soft dog food, Alpo, which she'd eat all fine and dandy. Now we tried to slowly add some hard food into her meals and all she does is lick the food! She won't eat it or anything. Just a quick sniff, maybe a few licks, and then she walks off.

Have you had this happen before? If so, any ideas and/or advice to help.

You can try changing her kibble. When We ran out of Parker's TOTW pacific stream, we had to get a cheaper kibble which he just picked at, then when we ordered a new bag of TOTW pacific stream he was so happy and it ate all of what we fed him. It might just be the kibble. TOTW is good and it's not too bad in price and it's pretty good quality so you can try that. I hope this helps.

A healthy dog will not starve itself and many of us have at one time or another dealt with a picky eater. I would suggest not coddling her and showing her some tough love, she gets what you feed her and that's that. Picky eaters are created, they aren't born that way. If she knows you'll offer something better if she refuses to eat then of course she's going to hold out for what she prefers more...which will never change unless you are firm with her up front. And yes, we have multiple existing threads on this very subject. Dogs are like children and they learn very early on how to manipulate their parents to get what they want.

To follow up from what Val said, Link was very addicted to his original food (Pedigree). I was slowly mixing in TOTW and got up to 50/50, but he was still picking out only the Pedigree and not eating the TOTW. From there I did a full switch to TOTW, and he refused to eat for five days. On the 6th date he ate, and now he's ate readily every day. Sometimes its just that the other food, while it may be crap, tastes better. Don't give in, she'll eat what you want.

Thank you for all the advice. So far she's just looking at it but hopefully here will be a change soon