we have a 2 yr old female husky x malamute who's 19.8kg and a 2yr old male American Bulldog x Bull Arab who's 50kg and still growing.

How do we tell if she's not eating due to lack of exercise, pain or just doesn't like te food? She went 2 weeks without eating so giving her the same food over and over isn't an option. She's fed dry food and raw bones, chicken necks, raw meat.

Recently we have birds that swoop her and she's scared of them, plus she's now letting Rock steal her food if she takes 1 bone and 1 is left in her bowl etc. This might be due to her ongoing back issues and she doesn't want to fight him (rare anyway) due to her back.

Handing feeding her or making a game out of catching food seems to be the only way we can get her to eat. Any ideas?

That isn't a bad weight for a husky. Can you see her ribs? her spine? From the picture she looks to be a decent weight to me. Huskies tend to be about 15kg-22kg so the malamute part of her aside, she could have just taken more of the husky-weight from the parents. As for letting the bulldog steal her food, I would start feeding them at certain times and separately so neither has the chance to take the others food. What kind of food are you feeding? My foster failure wouldn't eat a few days at a time because he was being picky about the food. If he didn't start eating within 15minutes, I picked up the bowl and gave it to him again at dinner time, if he didnt eat it again I just tried again the next day. Now he's eating his food without a problem. Hope this helps a bit?

Mobezilla wrote:

Can you see her ribs? her spine?
As for letting the bulldog steal her food, I would start feeding them at certain times and separately so neither has the chance to take the others food. What kind of food are you feeding?
I picked up the bowl and gave it to him again at dinner time, if he didnt eat it again I just tried again the next day.

Can't see her ribs through the fur but her spine is fairly obvious.

He never used to steal her food as she wouldn't let him, now she just seems to let him take whatever our of her bowl and she just keeps the 1 bone she might have. Rock (the bulldog) gets 2 cups of Black Hawk (similar to Artemis) per meal, plus a piece of whatever raw she gets i.e. some chicken necks or lamb off cuts. Storm just gets necks, lamb bits, pork brisket etc. Night times she will rarely eat. Mornings she'll ignore the bits in her bowl but take a bone from me to eat.

That said, if we hand feed her she'll eat plenty.

We've tried the removing the bowl and giving it back to her for each meal.... she didn't eat for 2 weeks.

Hmm seeing the spine doesn't always necessarily mean they're under-weight (dunno why I put it in there though haha) but she could probably stand to gain a few pounds. She may also be moderating. I don't like creating picky eaters, but you could try just adding water to it.

I responded to your other post too, but have you tried elevating the bowls? So she doesn't have to put her head down to eat it?

GingerDog wrote:

I responded to your other post too, but have you tried elevating the bowls? So she doesn't have to put her head down to eat it?

Hey/.. yeah they both have stands that their bowls are on to keep toads etc out

I had this with Arya, I was feeding Orijen or Eden (uk orijen equivalent). She just started to skip meals/eating one mouthful and didnt care if Logan tried to eat it. I just switched her to raw as I was planning on doing so anyway and she has finished every meal I have put down, it seems she became bored of kibble.

Sometimes mixing tuna into the kibble will help and phase it out over time, however it could make her more of a picky eater.

madisonmenece wrote:

Sometimes mixing tuna into the kibble will help and phase it out over time, however it could make her more of a picky eater.

She's always been picky so this isn't new! She'll like raw for maybe 2 meals, then she'll ignore her food, then she'll like something else...

We're putting her back on pain pills tomorrow and seeing if that increases her appetite a bit. If so then at least we know a lot of the problems are caused by her back. Fingers crossed