Fussy Dog

I've never known a dog who eats like this before, or rather, often doesn't eat. We're still trying to figure out her cues.

When I got her I was determined not to  make some of the mistakes - in hindsight - that we made with previous dogs. Self-feeders with a huge load of food in them worked well... for my busy schedule. Not necessarily for their waistlines. Cheap worked with the budget. I didn't go with just any old food, but couldn't afford those specialty foods. Purina worked well enough, and every so often I switched flavors. It seemed to work.

Then we started to hear about corn and gluten in foods, how bad they were for dogs, never a part of their natural diet. Makes sense, then, that they aren't very digestible. Or something. However, dogs scrounge garbage and chew poopy diapers! Table food is "bad" but it's what they steal while you aren't looking. What do you do?

We're trying to do our best. Before selecting our "rescuehuahua", I hit the grocery store and studied labels. I wound up paying for a 10 lb. bag what I used to pay for a 20 lb. one. She eats so little I'm still paying about what I used to per day. But no grains, no gluten, not much in the way of animal by-products - though wild dogs eat everything they can toss down their gullets and don't care if it's been dead a week.  I picked up dental chews for both teeth and breath. (Note to self: schedule her teeth cleaning! Yikes!)

Obviously, I'm trying to do everything right. What's the hitch? The dog. 

As a stray, who can tell what she ate? Was it snatch-what-you-can? Was she fussy then? We presume it was whatever, whenever to survive on her own. Her recent vet exam showed her gaining over 2 pounds, putting her in healthy range now. But we have no idea how long she was at large. For that matter, we don't know her starting weight either. All we have is now.

It didn't take long to disabuse her of the notion that anything she could reach was fair game - at least when she was first adopted, not quite used to how we would treat her. Now she's more secure, she's going for whatever has been abandoned on a plate - so there's some people-training going on. (Yeah, wish us luck with that!) Wastebaskets which collect food scraps are either behind doors or have their own lids, so they aren't a problem once the food gets there. 

Training began when I instantly, instinctively, developed a kind of loud grunt "eh" sound that stops her in her tracks, literally. It popped out when she first moved past the corner of the house and out of my sight toward the backyard gate which I wasn't positive had been closed. Immediate return! It's used now to communicate any kind of a scold or stop. This includes her attempts to pull a treat out of her bowl and take it up onto the couch and under the blanket there. I'm not sure if she's trying to eat it immediately without being hassled by remembered competing dogs, or store it, though we've never seen any kind of a cache of food.

What I'm still trying to figure out is how to encourage her to eat on command. It's not that I need her to do that now, but it will come in handy when we're traveling and need to pack up and be on the road within a very short time, whether it's to our next destination or just for early morning photography. Either way, uneaten food won't get a second chance. She obviously understands "go pee" when she's outside, and instantly heads out into the yard to seek the spot de jour, no matter what newly fascinating thing she was exploring on the patio. So why not food?

I put a fistful in her bowl early in the morning, as soon as we both come back in, and another around suppertime. Sometimes she scarfs it right up. Many times she waits until I take a nap in my recliner. WTF? Does she think she has to sneak her own food? Other times she's into it within seconds of it hitting the bowl. Am I missing the proper command? I've heard of dogs not allowed to eat anything their master hasn't given them. Was that how she was trained originally, and perhaps thinks she has to wait now until I can't see her because I'm missing the right command? I do praise her when she starts, and once started, the bowl is empty within a minute. It always starts with her taking the first tiny piece in her mouth out onto the rug, then crunching. At this point, she may take one more out or not, but after that she sticks with her bowl until it's empty. Her doggy brain baffles me.

I have started one thing new, and she seems to respond to it. This started after I noticed her recently trimmed toenails were cracking and splitting. A little internet research indicated she may very well be lacking enough of certain things in her diet. Her nail trimmer agreed. (I am willing to pay rather than try to fight with her over them.) Mindful of the upcoming trip, I researched treats to see which contained at least some of those foods. Every return to the kenned is rewarded with a small treat when traveling, and we already trained her to go to her kennel after getting half a "dental chew". (Full sized small ones are still too big.) She adores those. Now I have a variety of treats which contain either liver or sweet potatoes and carrots. Once the evening supper is poured into her bowl, one or the other is set on top.

First, the liver: her reactions were hilarious. First, there was the distrustful sniff. Then she'd go away for a while, but not far. Upon returning, she'd take the treat in her mouth and try to carry it to the couch. Problem is, it propped her little mouth open which she never does on her own, so I knew what was up right away. Nix! Still with it in her mouth, she'd slink to her kennel, where she got a "Good Girl!" for eating it. About a minute later, her appetite apparently stimulated, she'd return to her bowl for a rapid cleanup. The treat with the sweet potatoes in the mix gets a much more enthusiastic welcome than the liver one. With that one, she tends to run into her kennel the moment the package starts to rustle, and waits for me to bring the treat. Once finished, it's still over to the bowl for dinner, though the first couple of times, she'd slink out of the kennel, keeping one eye on me the whole time to make sure what she was doing was OK. Too often going in to the kennel means staying in the kennel.

It's going to be an interesting trip with her.