I have a 3 year old Maltese (Chloe). She is the love of my life. When she was just about a year old she became very ill for almost 2 months. No vet was able to explain why she was bleeding from her rectum and why she trembled every day expressing to us that she was in pain. The mystery was solved when one day when her small 8 pound body pooped it out a wooden toothpick. During her time of illness, the vet suggested I make her boiled chicken and rice and I would always add a little kibble to the bowl. This is what she has been used to eating all her life. About a month ago I was house sitting for a good friend of mine. When ever we go away, we watch each others dog. Buffy was with us for 4 days and the day she left my dog, Chloe started to have a real bad problem with her stomach. She had a real bad case of diherra for 3 days. I took a sample of her stool to the vet and everything looked ok. They put her on some medicine and they also ran a blood test. Everything looks good. Ever since Buffy left she has shown no interest in food. The only thing I can get her to eat occasionally is Natural Balance Roll and she will never turn down a doggie treat. I have tried probably 15 different brands of food. Wet and Dry! I have no problem cooking her meals and I will spend any amount of money just to get her to enjoy her food. I feel like I am going out of my mind. I have tried everything. Don’t get me wrong, she is happy, healthy and she is not under nourished by any means. I feel like I am confusing her with all these different foods. How do I fix this problem? How do I get her to eat a normal diet every day? Do I need to get another dog for her to play with? Please help me…
Hmmm, this sounds like a case of Dog Trains Owner. 
If she is healthy, she’s messing with your head and probably enjoying the coaxing and wheedling and 15 different kinds of food plus treats. Don’t feed her for 24 hours. (Give her free access to water, however.) After 24 hours, put down food dish. If she doesn’t eat it in, say, 15 minutes, up it goes until the next meal time. Rinse and repeat until she decides to eat. She will.
I had a feeling this is what I would be told. Thanks for responding.
I once had a six-year-old foster French bulldog who had always been fed the exact same type of canned food. From a spoon. Her entire life. And, she was obese with horrid teeth, so clearly this regimen wasn’t working well for her.
After flailing around for a while trying to persuade her to eat, I decided on the tough love approach. IIRC, she went about three days before deciding to eat from a bowl, on the floor. From then on, she ate everything she was served because she knew I was onto her and also knew if she didn’t eat it, she’d just go hungry for about 12 more hours.
It’s not like I feed nasty generic food, either…I do think if a dog legitimately and honestly hates a certain type of food, it’s kind to find a type of (healthful) food the dog enjoys eating. But when a dog is refusing all kinds of food randomly, it’s clearly some sort of mind game. Maltese are very smart little dogs; Chloe is just having fun with ya!
All of the above pre-supposes she is actually healthy with no more undiscovered toothpicks or health/dental problems. Did the vet check her teeth? Hopefully she doesn’t have a dental issue that makes eating painful.
I had a similiar problem with a Bassett Hound. She wasn’t eating, but she would drink. To train her to go pee outside I would reward her with her favorite treat. I suddenly realized that although she wasn’t eating she was asking to go outside about every 10 minutes, even bringing me her leash. Seems that she was forgoing food, and only pretending to pee in order to get the treat. Funny thing, she would squat and put on a great acting job of urinating, but not one drop would come out. Turn around and waited for the treat.
Bolding mine.
Oh, she’s eating, all right.
My dog did the same exact thing. He was smart enough to only try this in the dark. I noticed that he would squat (neutered) but I wouldn’t hear the tell-tale sound of the pee. One day I took him out and brought a flashlight with me. He squatted, I turned on the light, and the jig was up. His next master plan was to just squirt a little bit, get his treat, then beg to go out again 10 to 15 minutes later and repeat. This was solved by only giving a treat when he took a good, long leak. No treats for a half-second tinkle.
He also played the game where he didn’t want to eat. That is until I got my dinner out. Then he was front and center. He was cut off from table scraps, but this, by itself, did not work. He would also be sneaky and eat his food hours later when nobody was watching. I switched from Purina to Iams to some high-priced food before I wised up to his game. I switched back to Iams after two vets confirmed that the high-priced stuff isn’t really necessary. There are apparently cases where it can be beneficial for certain dogs, depending on what food we are talking about, but these exceptions did not pertain to my dog.
It was time to launch my own strategy. I instituted the same policy as mentioned by chiroptera. The dish and food go down for about 10 to 15 minutes; if he didn’t eat it, back into the bag it went and I would try again at the next scheduled meal time. He always had fresh water, however. For one or two days, he didn’t eat at all. Then, for the next few days he would eat one of his two meals. After that, all was well.
I brought back his table scrap privileges (after he ate his own food, of course) and the games with the food returned. It was back off of table scraps for another week. The policy of “eat the food within 10-15 minutes or back in the bag it goes” was continued. This time, he stopped with the games within a day or two. Table scraps were returned (once again, only after he eats his own) and he hasn’t tried the hunger strike strategy since.
As long as the dog is not sick or something, and as long as you are consistent, the dog will figure out that its games will not work.
If, “she will never turn down a doggie treat”, I suspect there is a ritual associated with presenting her with the treat, possibly going to where the treats are normally stored, the crinkle sound of opening the bag or maybe you’re saying something like, “Do you want a treat?” This psychs her to something akin to Pavlov’s dog hearing the sound of the bell.
Try substituting her regular dry food in place of the treat but maintain the ritual and see if she eats it. If successful, she’s probably manipulating you so try some of the previous advice on limiting when her food is available.
What chiroptera said. I fostered a dog with atopic allergies and chemical sensitivities. I was advised to feed him fish-based kibble, but he gagged and retched when he smelled fish. In all my years of fostering dogs, I had never seen a dog grossed out at the thought of eating a specific food. Sure, I’ve seen dogs take something and then spit it out, but actually start to hurl just from smelling something? Weird…
Moved from General Questions to IMHO.
samclem, MOderator
You are so kind! Actually she has great teeth. She loves chewing on large rawhide bones. I purposely get the large ones for her to chew on so nothing will break off and cause her to choke. She went all day without eating yesterday and I was going to wait for this morning to give her her food again but I decided to try putting her bowl down at about 8:00pm yesterday and she actually ate. I gave her the bowl of food this morning and she didn’t eat it so when I came home at 12:00 for lunch I put the bowl out and she still didn’t eat. I will try again tonight and see what happens. Maybe I will need to feed her only once a day and maybe it will be in the evening. I will let you know how it goes. Thanks again.
How funny! So what finally happened?
Still making progress?
Feeding twice a day has become common over the last 20-30 years, but prior to that, once-daily feeding was the norm. Absent small-dog blood sugar issues, I assume once-daily feeding would be just fine.
Does Buffy by any chance Buffy eats a different sort of food than Chloe? If Miss Thang was getting into food she’s not used to, that would explain the diarrhea without changes in blood work or parasites in the stool.
The fussiness is just a mind game, though. Taking a tough line is your best bet there.
For what it’s worth, my friend is a veterinarian and she only feeds her dogs once a day. Also, I used to volunteer for Guide Dogs for the Blind, and if I recall correctly they feed their adult dogs once a day. (Puppies are fed twice or thrice depending on their age.)
My poodle-mix Bump is a finicky eater.
He’ll eat his food just fine for months and months. Then he decides he doesn’t want it anymore. He’ll go on three-day hunger strikes (about how long it takes for him to get hungry enough to eat.) We’ll switch brands and he’ll be fine for another couple months.
He’s just a pain in the ass, there’s nothing wrong with him.