I have a recently rehomed 1 year old female Husky that I have to beg and very nearly force feed. I got her from a couple that adopted her from PAWS, but the wife didn't get along with her and the husband was tired of hearing it. Basically, the wife never set any boundaries with the dog so of course she chewed on everything of the wife's, bolted out the door, not just pulled but drug her on walks, etc,. So here I am with her now dealing with all of their leftover mistakes. She was very thin when they got her so their way of trying to put weight on her was a leave a bowl of food down for her at all times and feed her as many table scraps as she would eat. So of course for the first 2 weeks that I had her she wouldn't touch her food because she was holding out for filet mignon. She finally realized she wasn't getting any and was hungry enough to eat the blue buffalo I gave her. Still though it's a chore to get her to eat every day, I have to sit there and practically force her to eat. She will only eat 3 bites and walk away and never will eat on her own. I have to take her to her bowl and make her eat. Normally I wouldn't worry about it, but she is definitely in the "emaciated" weight bracket and it really hurts my feelings every time I pet her and feel how skinny she is. Her ribs stick out way more than they should, hip bones and spine protrude so badly, it's just awful. She acts normally, drinks plenty of water, plays fine, chews on her bone, has no signs of medical issues at all. I really don't know what to do to get her to eat? I have noticed she eats much better at night, more likely to make a "happy bowl" as I call it. I don't really care when or how she eats as long as she does and she's getting enough. I know the stress of a new home, new owner and all that but I feel like she's pretty much adjusted. We've had her for 3 weeks now and my friend who knew her with her previous owners said she looks much better with us, that she looks happier now. Has anyone else ever had this problem? Anything I can do? I've pretty much tried it all and I'm scared to give her anything too yummy because then she'll go on a hunger strike again holding out. Any info or suggestions will be much appreciated, I'm stabbing in the dark at this point.

You could try mixing in some warm water with her kibble. it worked with my pup when he wouldn't eat much. He'll gobble down his whole bowl now. Good luck! I know how stressful it can be when your pup won't eat. Drives me insane!

You know that's actually the one thing I haven't tried, at this point I hate to waste any more food. I've probably thrown away $60 worth of food where I mixed it with something and she won't eat or she just flat out refused to eat the Blue Buffalo Wilderness Puppy so I threw the whole bag away. I have even actually put the kibble in the blender and ground it up and mixed it with a can of food to try and get her to eat and she won't. Picky!! It really bothers me since she's already so skinny I'll try the warm water tonight and let you know if it works! Thank you!!

Have you consider satin balls? I don't use a traditional recipe but you can try mine I use raw hamburger or turkey burger and coconut oil (extra virgin, cold pressed, organic) and form balls and then you can bake or leave raw and feed. It's minimal ingredient and tasty!

Humm, no I haven't tried those. I will though! She's even finicky about treats? It's so weird I've never seen a dog so picky. She doesn't even know how to sit yet, lol bless her heart but yesterday when I was working with her I got her to eat pepperoni. I tore it up into little pieces and that was her treats. She wouldn't eat any of the 4 kinds of actual dog treats I have. Picky, picky!!!

She's probably just stressed. My female didn't eat anything but cheez its for about a week after rescuing her (I gave her plenty too, because that is the only thing she would eat).

You could try Rescue Remedy to help calm her nerves

I will have to look into it, I'm sure that's something I'll have to order. I live in the boonies. I'm hoping she'll settle, I can already see a difference in her from when we got her.

Unrelated but would the rescue remedy help with separation anxiety? Sh: not attached to me, she doesn't like to be alone. Do you think that would help her out? I literally can't even go to the store right now unless my husband is home to stay with her.

Keyda81 wrote:

You could try mixing in some warm water with her kibble.

Sad to say this didn't work I tried it twice today and she just looked at it and then looked at me. Tried to make her try it and she wouldn't. I'm just so nervous to do anything else because I don't want it to be something I can't do for the rest of forever. I can't afford to feed her 3 cans of food a day at $3 a piece. Anything I do that's too tasty will cause another hunger strike when I go to change it and I'll have to start all over. I'm scared to even give her canned food because I feel like that is only prolonging and even provoking the problem. But at the same time I know she needs to eat something, anything. She's probably eaten only 1/4 cup of food all day today. Although I will say she weighs 39 lbs, which is 10 more than I thought she weighed. Hmm, I think I'm the one that's stressed!

Suggestion on things that you might be able to get her to eat for treats are baby carrots, fresh green beans, I make chicken jerky in a dehydrador or oven for treats. It is cheaper than store purchased dog jerky and I know what is in it. I also give mine string cheese for treat a little bit at a time.

Also if you find food she doesn't like instead of throwing it away you donated the opened bag to a rescue or shelter just a suggestion for the future.

Have you hand fed her get her to sit and feed her a few pieces at a time probably won't work if she isn't eating for you now. If you can get this to work it will have with her get closer to you also.

I put wild salmon oil in my dogs food one of them really loves it in his food.

These are all suggestions I am no expert on this matters I just want give you some ideas.

Does she like Peanut Butter or honey?
We have to do the warm water trick with Nova - he's loosing his puppy teeth and refused to eat the kibble unless it was soft; but we had a twist to the water:
We had 1/4 warm water with either a 1/2 tablespoon of Peanut Butter or honey mixed into it. (I just tried honey today and he went nuts for it. Sitting near the counter where the honey is.)

I would also +1 hand-feeding - it will also help with bonding.

I tried a bite of cheese yesterday when she was outside on our patio and I told her to come, she came all the way to me in the kitchen like a good girl and she got a bite of cheese and then "go lay down"ed. So now I know she does like cheese. I have tried green beans and she wouldn't eat them. Haven't tried carrots but I definitely will. I trained with her once with some peanut butter and it seemed like she got bored with it. She licked it off the spoon as her treat but after a few times she wouldn't. I can definitely try the honey. Wild salmon oil I have never heard of and will see if I can find that here. Although I did give her salmon canned food and she didn't touch it so she may be like her mom and not like fish!

She just ate half of her breakfast! Which is more than she normally eats in the morning. I had her eating the blue buffalo but we had gotten a sample of a food, NutriSource Puppy that she just inhaled both times I gave it to her in the first 2 weeks we had her and she wouldn't eat. And of course since we live in the armpit of Georgia the closest place we could buy it is 2-3 hours away. So I ordered it off Amazon desperate for her to eat. Well before it got here she finally gave in and ate the blue buffalo, so in hopes of not making her poo all runny again like it was for days I tried mixing them. When I thought about it she did eat better on just the blue buffalo so this morning I separated them back out and just gave her the nutrisource and she gobbled half of it. Normally I have to give her a bite or two out of my hand to convince her to eat, and then I let her eat out of her bowl once she's convinced. No convincing needed for this food, so I may just bite the bullet and keep ordering it for a while until she has good eating habits and I feel like she can handle being switched back to the blue. I may also give her this for breakfast and the blue for dinner? But I think after getting a taste of the puppy food she'll snub the blue. Gonna have to gradually change her over I think.

Also, let me rephrase. The bag of food that got thrown away was from all the times I mixed it with everything under the sun and she wouldn't eat it, so I had to throw what I mixed away. The entire bag got wasted that way, but no one can say I didn't try! I always try and find someone or some place to donate unused food and toys

I buy my salmon oil from amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=wild+salmon+oil+for+dogs

I usually get the grizzly oil.

There are several recipes for dog treats that us peanut butter you can try one.

Here are just a few.

https://www.itsahuskything.com/t8542-homemade-treats?highlight=homemade+treats

Have you tried apples, cauliflower, snow peas and most vegies dogs can eat if they like them. The big no nos are grapes, raisins, onions.

Thanks for the links! I haven't tried very many people foods because her previous owners fed her so much that she was very spoiled on it. The guy even told me that she didn't eat her food when I put an egg in it because I didn't cook it, that she only eats people food if you cook it for her So yeah she was a bit cracked out on chicken cordon bleu, cheese stuffed grilled hot dogs and all the steak she kept stealing off their counter. I did take into account the stress of so many sudden changes but I do believe her finicky eating habits are because of whatever he fed her. However I also believe that she's doing really well here and learning the boundaries and the general routine and it might be safe to start trying to feed her some fruits and veggies and find what she likes.

Oh! She likes cookies My friend's 15 month old son is in the "sharing everything" stage, so anything he has in his hand he gives to whoever is closest to him. The other day he shared his cookie with her and it was absolutely the most adorable thing I've ever seen. She's very good with him, super gentle (which I love about her). He held it out for her and she took a very careful bite and then he took a bite and then clapped hahaha.

Just an UPDATE- Took Mila to the vet today, deciding to rule out anything medical before I continue to believe her eating habits were strictly behavioral, and found out she had worms. I had ruled out worms thinking I would be able to see them in her poop if she had them, I should have known better! Wish I had taken her sooner, but glad I did. She has been treated and sent home with a year's supply of Heartguard, and hopefully will be feeling better and start eating soon! She weighs 36.2 lbs so she definitely has a good 20 to go.

Thanks everyone so much for the help!

Glad to hear things are working out for her. I little girl we adopted her they guess she was 2 years at the time weight about 36-38 lbs at the time. almost a year later she now weights about 46 lbs which I think she is a bit heavy for her size.

I'm not sure on my girl's height, I want to say it was 24"? 25? I forget, but she is nothing but skin and bones. And everyone has said that she seems to have gotten bigger since we got her ? Idk, it's one of those things that if they aren't 6 weeks old when you get them and hitting a huge growth spurt all the time you don't notice as much if you see them every day but EVERYONE has said that. So she's growing and is I guess normal/average size. Either way she needs to weigh atleast a good 50 lbs, and she's at 36. We have a ways to go. But, we can only go up from here!

From the picture she looks bigger than my little girl. I am glad she is gaining and that you have her and are taking care of her.