Our 12 month old GSD won’t eat! We’ve tried all sorts of things (fresh meat, home made stew, BBQ chicken, Sardines, eggs, 100% natural canned food, dry food, etc) and just can not get him to eat correctly. Can you give us some ideas?

We have a great section on feeding dogs on the website.

Have you tried a raw diet for this dog? Do you give him time to eat and then pick up the food? Many owners actually create their own problems by giving the dog too many choices and making feeding time an issue. Find something you know he will eat, offer it to him on a set schedule, give him 15 minutes to eat. If he doesn’t eat, pick it up and offer food the next day. Don’t try new things all the time to tempt him, you will actually be training him to be picky. I suspect from your email that this may be the problem.

If you read some of the Q&As on our site, you’ll find out that a picky dog is usually a people problem (as long as the dog has been deemed healthy by a vet). A healthy dog will eat, he won’t starve himself to death.

For future questions, you might benefit from learning to use our SEARCH function, which is located in the top left corner of every page of the website. If you type in your key words or question it will find you articles, Q&As, free streaming video and links to threads on our discussion forum. Our website has over 16,000 pages and it’s very likely you’ll find the information you are looking for. I hope this helps.

Cindy Rhodes