Worried your dog doesn't eat enough, or doesn't like healthy food?

Does your dog turn their nose up at dog food?

Do you throw away more food than your dog actually eats?

Will your dog only eat when you sauce up their food?

Perhaps they prefer to be hand fed?

If you are in one of these situations, you are not alone. In fact you are part of the majority of dog lovers but I want to help your dog live a long, healthy life.

Dogs are, by nature, scavengers, and will eat almost anything. When they see food, they eat it because they are opportunistic feeders and are hard wired to scavenge every morsel. When dog's turn their nose up to perfectly good food, something is wrong.

Medical issues can cause a wide variety of issues, so please discuss your dogs diet and behavior with your veterinarian. Once you have ruled out a possible medical cause, then you can build a new behavior.

Problems arise when we do our very best to provide them with all kinds of tasty morsels and brands of food. All our dogs need to do is look at their food and walk away and we feel like we offered them something awful.

It's our fault

Humans celebrate every holiday and social gathering with food, and naturally we want our dogs to be happy, so we temp them with every kind of cookies, chews and bones under the sun. We may even offer to share our foods with them. Often we will throw the dog a bone or something more to eat when we want them to leave us alone or quit wrecking the house and yard. Some trainers motivate behaviors with treats, but food is not very motivating if it's so readily available.

Calorie requirements for scavengers are not high, and they are designed to be able to miss a meal or two. Cats are another story, they can go into liver failure if they go off their food for a very short time. Dogs may vomit yellow bile on your clean carpet (never on the kitchen tile) if they have an empty stomach. They can self medicate with some types of grass if they feel they want to rid their stomach of its contents. Lots of dogs eat sweet grasses because they like it or may be getting nutrients from it.

Walk your dog before they eat, take them for their morning walk, even if it is just around the block. Once you arrive home, your dog will have eliminated, and hungry for food and water. Their basic needs are met, you can now leave them at home all day while you go off to work, so you can pay for them.

Time for Training

In the very least, we must spend time engaging our dogs with activities to strengthen the mind and establishing ourselves as leader. Here are a few things you can do to get your dog feeling better and you'll have time to do it before you leave for the day.

• Walk them first thing before they are offered any food.
• Practice a couple obedience commands while on your walk.
• Remember you are taking them for a walk, they should not be leading you or marking everything.
• They should heel with you for at least the first half of the walk, then you can decide when to let them sniff and eliminate.
• Return home and wipe their feet and check for injuries.
• Give them a quick exam in their ears, eyes and mouth.
• Check their fur for things they collected during the walk or skin issues.
• Try brushing part of them or trim a couple nails. You don't have to do the whole dog, just do small parts successfully.
• Handling them routinely helps them feel secure.
• Command them to sit or down while you prepare their food.
• Offer them food when calm and well mannered.
• Remove any leftovers after 10-20 minutes.

Repeat this at every meal time and do not give any additional calories through treats or chews while you are training them to accept dog food. Dogs can stay on a hunger strike for weeks, talk to your veterinarian if they go more than two days without eating.