Most of the other posters have covered the really good ideas, but I have a couple of quick things:
Try getting puppy bisquits, like training treats. These are (apparently) extremely yummy. You might be able to introduce Spirit to dry food by hand feeding her these. Switch to hand feeding her kibbles after she’s gotten use to these. Obviously, only do this if you are extremely familiar with training dogs; hand feeding a dog is an interesting experiance.
Does she like bones? Rawhides and stuff? While it is not a substitute for a vet visit, if she likes bones, her teeth are probably in good shape.
When she does eat, praise her a lot. I’ve got a dog who gets distracted when he eats…he’ll eat one mouthful of food, then he’ll see something (invisible russian paratroopers, apparently ) that he has to go attack before he can eat the next mouthful. While he’s gone, his packmates eat his food. I spend a lot of time petting him while he is eating. Once again, only do this if you are familiar with dogs - some get jumpy when touched while eating.
Start training her, too. The best way that I know of to mess up a perfectly good dog is not to beat them every day, but rather to apply inconsistant discipline. The faster it becomes apparent to her that being good makes good things happen, and being bad makes bad things happen, the faster she’ll return to normal and healthy, in all possible ways.
It sounds like you’ve got a good, resiliant, intelligent dog. Shepards are, for the most part, good puppies. I hope she recovers completely.
Please let us know if and how you got her to eat dog food. I, for one, am extremely curious how all this turns out.
The only things I can think of to add are, first, to make sure her food is put down in a private place, and don’t stand there and stare at her while she’s eating. She may have had to battle for her food, wherever she was before, and from the look of her, she probably lost frequently. She may not want to eat because you’re standing there watching her. Give her a private corner and then go away.
The second thing is connected to this. Make sure she doesn’t think she has to battle the kids for her food. They may just be standing there cooing over her while she eats, but she may not be sure of her social standing yet, and they may be very threatening to her.
Here at God’s Little 1/16 Acre, Daisy the Beagle is the second-lowest on the totem pole, being above only La Principessa, who is 10, but who was only 5 when Daisy came to live with us. Daisy established dominance over Madame within the first 5 minutes, although Madame of course only saw “cute doggie!” and didn’t realize what was going on. Thus, to this day, Daisy will growl at Madame if she comes too close to the food bowl at suppertime. She doesn’t growl at anybody else, at any other time.
And make sure she has her own dog dish, and don’t scrub it out and boil it between uses–let it smell like her, so she knows it’s “her” dish and “her” food. Dogs are very territorial when it comes to beds and food dishes–but you knew that.
And make sure the other dog isn’t threatening her (somebody did say you had another dog?). Dogs can accomplish an amazing amount of intimidation with just a raised eyebrow or a significant glance. Put Dog #1 in another room while Spirit eats, or put up a baby gate between them or something, to keep Dog #1 from trotting over and investigating Spirit’s dish. Even if Dog #1 doesn’t actually consume any of it, just the act of the dominant dog coming over to check out her dish may be putting Spirit off her feed. And like I said, it may be counter-productive for you to hover protectively.
Spirit ate an entire bowl of food last night! When I fed her in the a.m. I gave her 15 mins to eat what she wanted. Then (and this was hard for me) I didn’t give her any treats all day and when I set her bowl down she ate it all!! I gave her hard food mixed with canned. Each piece of hard food was coated with the canned food. At first, she was attempting to lick it all off,(rather a funny site to see) but apparently this was more effort than just eating the whole thing
She is so friendly and loveable. Spirit and Bailey (my golden retriever/labrador retriever cross) get along so well they are already best buds.
Spirit pees at night on the carpet but not on the lino, so I have to put up a barricade to keep her in the kitchen. Any ideas how I can train her NOT to pee on the carpet? I would like for her to find her “spot” to sleep at night so she doesn’t have to feel seperated from the “pack” when we all go to bed.
Clean the spot on the carpet with Nature’s Miracle or another enzyme-based cleaner. You might also want to try feeding her in the same spot, since dogs typically won’t pee where they eat.
My dog used to pee on the carpet only on the days when the cleaning people were there. It took me forever to make the connection, though. He was kept in his crate while they were cleaning, then the dog-walker gave him the run of the place after he got his walk and after the cleaning people left. Since he was stressed from strange people being there, vacuuming, and leaving things smelling different (i.e. like cleaner), and since the alpha (me) wasn’t there, he figured he had to mark his territory. However, he has never peed in the bedroom (i.e the den), so now I just have the dog walker gate him in the bedroom on cleaning day, and he’s been fine. The other days he gets the run of the place and he hasn’t peed anywhere but outside in months.
