# Extremely fussy eater



## WinCockapoo6 (Aug 19, 2021)

My cockapoo has just turned 1 and is a very fussy eater. An extremely long story short, she ate kibble fine for the first few months and then started to go off it. We tried every trick in the book including adding different things to it to entice her, warming it, adding water, etc. We changed brands and then when that didn’t work after a few weeks, began to introduce more wet food which seemed to work for a while. That is until she decided she wasn’t interested in that anymore either. We spoke to a nutritionist who advised us that it was absolutely fine to put her on an all wet food diet and advised forthglade wet food as apparently it is very high in nutritional value. As you can guess my dog loved this at first, especially with the different flavour options for variety, and ate her meals no problem to begin with, however like with everything else she began to go off it. When we put it down she gets excited by the idea of something to eat but then sniffs it and walks away. We have tried taking it up after 15 mins with no snacks inbetween then re offering later, but she is stubborn and will just starve herself. I know it is the wrong thing to do, but we started to hand feed her the food as it was the only way we could get her to eat a meal. It takes an awful lot of time and encouragement and sometimes going back and trying again and again but this is the only way we’ve managed to get her to eat which is not ideal, just wish she’d eat a meal herself and be excited by it like a normal dog! She is more than happy to eat treats or chicken, so it’s not like she refuses food altogether, but can’t be changing food brands every few months and definitely don’t have the time to hand feed her. I feel like we’ve tried everything, any tips at all?


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## Lee (Aug 28, 2021)

Our Cockapoo Coco was a very fussy eater, tried raw, dried, cooked and she would would be the same as in fine for a day or two and then turned up her nose and wouldn’t eat anything unless it was a roast dinner (that’s her favourite)!
A friend of ours said to try Butternut Box, they do a two week trial of their food and I had their referral code so it was 50% off, we gave it a shot as the trial is very cheap, don’t get me wrong Coco didn’t like the fish so we have removed that off our order but she really likes it and 4/5 months down the line she still likes it, we do rotate the beef, chicken, turkey etc every day to give some variety and it worked for Coco.

if you want to give it a try there is 50% off the first order and I think 25% of the second order if you use a referral code from an existing customer mine is below if you want it. 
Referral code Lee349
or use link www.butternutbox.com/Lee349


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## WinCockapoo6 (Aug 19, 2021)

Lee said:


> Our Cockapoo Coco was a very fussy eater, tried raw, dried, cooked and she would would be the same as in fine for a day or two and then turned up her nose and wouldn’t eat anything unless it was a roast dinner (that’s her favourite)!
> A friend of ours said to try Butternut Box, they do a two week trial of their food and I had their referral code so it was 50% off, we gave it a shot as the trial is very cheap, don’t get me wrong Coco didn’t like the fish so we have removed that off our order but she really likes it and 4/5 months down the line she still likes it, we do rotate the beef, chicken, turkey etc every day to give some variety and it worked for Coco.
> 
> if you want to give it a try there is 50% off the first order and I think 25% of the second order if you use a referral code from an existing customer mine is below if you want it.
> ...


Thank you so much for the reply and referral code, that’s fantastic and something I will look into trying! A bit of gravy has helped lately but like you say it’s on and off! Thanks again


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## Lee (Aug 28, 2021)

We tried gravy as well and it did work for a few days. The key seems to be variety for our Coco as long as we rotate the food so it’s different each day there isn’t an issue. There is 7 different choices available at butternut and you can select how many of each type you want in the order but since she didn’t like the fish we just increased the other packs and make sure we rotate the 6 dishes 1 per day and it works a treat! 
But we do give some dry food at lunch time.
If you do decide to try butternutbox check the size of the packets and order 6 weekly orders as the larger the packet and order the more cost effective it is especially if you have freezer space available.


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## Cherelle85 (Oct 5, 2021)

Im facing the same problem with my almost 1 yr old cockapoo! She started on kibbles just fine, then I mixed it up with some cooked food to keep her interested but definitely still need some coaxing still. Recently, she went for her spay operation and after that, her appetite really reduced and now she barely touch 1/3 of her food. Still eating treats, but selectively. I was worried it could be intestinal parasite again (she got it as a pup) but vet ruled that out after placing her on the anti worm pills. 

Seems like handfeeding, treats are the only way to get her eating 😭


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## 2ndhandgal (Aug 29, 2011)

I would choose a decent quality wet food and put down the portions twice a day lifting them after half an hour if not eaten.

If we constantly switch food and increase our efforts to get dogs to eat they learn that not eating will get them something better so they stop and see what we are going to do next - and the more we do in that way the further we get from a well balanced diet. As long as the vet confirms she is fit and well I would choose a good quality wet food and put down meals twice a day for around half an hour, no hand feeding, no coaxing and no adding extras and treats to fill her up between meals.


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## Cherelle85 (Oct 5, 2021)

Thanks! Takes a lot of will power 😅 but ill try that!


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