Hello all. It is very nice to be part of such a large and idea exchangeing group.

I have a one year old GSD, Blitz, that my wife and I rescued from a shelter. He is housetrained, is socilaized for people and children, knows basic commands--we are still working on come though--, lets us know when he needs to go out, and is basically a great dog.

The problem is that he is underweight and in trying to get him back to a normal weight, Blitz will not eat the food that he is given. I guess that he is an unmotivated eater. He has regular feeding times, but he will only eat maybe a cup at a time and leave about another cup and 1/4 in the bowl. He will not eat the rest, even at his next scheduled feeding time. If I go into the room where his bowl is kept, then I can get him to eat, but otherwise, he seems not to want to be away from the action of the household.

Any ideas on getting him to eat all that he is served to get him back to weight?

Oh, we are using an all natural dry food.

Stay in the room with him when he eats, my boy will follow me around and ignore all his food unless he's super duper hungry. Try mixing a canned food with the dry food. Try feeding smaller portions, if I give my dog 2+ cups of dog food he'll eat less than if I give him a cup of dog food, wait for him to finish, then give him another cup.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of people who disagree - but everyone's different. I also think that some people just haven't had a dog who can't be "tricked" into craving more food.... I hear it every time I ask for advice... "don't feed your dog until he'll eat what you give him"... after day #3 of my dog not eating I couldn't take his whining and nudging at his food bowl (with food in it that he wouldn't eat) n just gave him the dang food he likes. I'm sorry, I don't have the heart to starve my dog longer than 3 days in order to get him to eat something he doesn't like, I didn't give him dinner last night because he's had diarhea n didn't want him waking me up at 4am again, it was hard for me not to put food in his bowl when he was clearly hungry - but this morning I gave him his food and he barely ate anything even though he was starving last night and hasn't eaten since. I've learnt my dogs eating habbits and timing, the key now is to find a food he likes that is also good for him, he's on Pedigree canned food (no gravy) and Nutro Large Breed Adult kibble right now.

How long have you had Blitz? May just need time to adjust to you. My doberman (Female) went 4 days without eating when we went to a training exercise for three weeks. She eventualy got back on schedule. She still to this day sometimes doesn't eat. I just tell her your saving me money and pick up the bowl after 20 min. She is lean but I like my dogs lean as it is less stress on the body if they are hard working dogs.

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I just tell her your saving me money and pick up the bowl after 20 min. She is lean but I like my dogs lean as it is less stress on the body if they are hard working dogs.

That's basically how I see it - my dog is lean, but he isn't unhealthy, he eats enough to keep himself alive and healthy, but he doesn't eat as much as "people" think he should be eating.

Hey Mike, I ma wanting to go to raw but is not convienant with my wife right now. I also feed Nutra large breed with an egg every third day. I am writing now and maybe you said in your post but how much are you feeding? Bliskan is getting two and three quarter cups twice a day with vit. E and missing link, and one brown cage free egg and shell on the third day. He is almost 11 months now and weigh 72# he acts like he is starving all the time. He still looks very lean and people tell me I need to feed him more. Uneducated people.I like the nutra food . What do you think?

Hi Mike,

I have the same problems as you and Mike Schoonbrood and I have been battling it since August. We have made progress and then had set backs. I had her almost up to 4 cans a day. She won’t touch dry. If I even try to mix dry it with her canned food… I just wasted a can of dog food because she won't touch it.

Over the last couple weeks she has had some setbacks. Yesterday... I barley got a can out of her, but then she is under the weather right now.

I have to baby her. She won’t eat if there is a lot of commotion or noise in the house. She will eat more if I say in the kitchen with her. She has a hard time taking her eyes of me for more then a minute or two.

You just have to learn what your dog likes and try to work with them. Good Luck, I know how frustrating it can be.

I like the Nutro large breed kibble, but the cans are too much gravy and not enough actual food so I started experimenting with other canned foods just to see what the heck my dog would eat. I came home one day with a whole variety of flavors from all kinds of different brands, the 2 my dog was eating best was the Purina Alpo and the Pedigree cans - my old dog when I was a kid lived on Pedigree so I figured I'd give that a shot for a while.

I take him out to poop in the morning then feed him 1/2 a cup of kibble with 1/4-1/3 can (the large cans not the small cans) of Pedigree chunky beef (no gravy) or chicken beef & liver (also no gravy) for breakfast. Sometimes he'll eat it sometimes he won't, depends on how hard I ran him when we were outside. Then in the late afternoon/evening after he's pooped I'll give him 1 cup of nutro kibble and 1/2-3/4 can of Pedigree canned food, then at 11pm or so I'll give him another cup of kibble with 1/2-3/4 can of canned food. Usually I have to throw food away because he rarely eats it all, when he's really hungry he'll eat his late afternoon meal and I'll give him a 2nd bowl, he'll usually eat about 1/2 of his 2nd bowl. It all depends on his exercise that day, and wether he's in the mood for it or not. Sometimes I'll put his food down and he will just totally ignore it, he doesn't care if I take it away or leave it there, he won't touch it.

I want to try the Honest Kitchen dehydrated food one of these days, but it seems that food he gets excited for he tends to get bored of within a week, so even if he loves that Honest Kitchen stuff - 7 days later he'll be as disinterested in it as he is in everything else.

In my experience this is not uncommon for a 1 year old GSD. He'll pick up the pace eventually and fill out. Remember that he will not be fully grown until around 3 years old.

You may want to try switching his food to a different quality brand. Other than that, I would not worry about it.

Thank you everyone for all of the helpful information.

We have had him now for 4 weeks now and at first he had no problem eating the 2 and 1/2 cups per eating time. Now, like I said, he is only doing about 1 cup per eating time. I know that he is lean, but I think that he is only about 60-65 lbs and I think he needs a few more a you can see his ribs and backbone.

We feed him Nutro Max Dry Brand food. I hope that this is a good quality food.

We do not feed canned as we aere told if we started, he would never go back to dry.

Thanks for all of the reply's, we feel much better now as w just want to have a quality of life for this good dog.

Brands like Innova, Timberwolf Organics, Eaglepack, etc. etc.--I think Ed has a list in the site somewhere. I wouldn't mind if a dog won't eat a 'lot', but first I gotta make sure what I'm feeding him is good stuff. If he wants crap, then sorry buddy, I'm just not doing it. It's like a kid wanting pizza and not his veggies. Some of them are more stubborn than others but you just gotta show them you're not giving in. (And of course make the veggies appetizing, but other than that don't give in).

My cats used to be like this too, they would go crazy over that Friskies brand of cat food (I think, I really think, that the cheap kibbles and canned food has some addictive substance in it. Nothing like the smell of BHT in the morning! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />...while totally ignore meats like chicken or even quality dry food. I left them alone, if they wouldn't eat I took the food away, I've forgotten how long this took as it went on in stages (first they would accept beef, but not ground beef, etc.) then recently I found out they've been stealing the chicken I set out in the counter for the dogs. I feel that when an animal is on quality food for a while their appetite is stimulated and they start being less picky. Even if it takes forever to get them on it I think it's less trouble in the end. One of my dogs took a year to get to liking raw chicken...first I had to cook the outside, then I had to soak it in gravy, I couldn't feed it plain or frozen, and he wouldn't touch liver. Now he likes anything I throw at him, unflavoured, unchopped, and straight out of the freezer.