The fleeting taste of food she scarfed down too quickly

This was quite some time back when the dog was really finicky with her food.

For the first 4-6 weeks when we brought her home, she literally picked at her food. Treats she took with gusto but her regular meals she ate with great reluctance. And this behaviour was for canned food that she apparently love at the shelter! But no, not here at home and on top of nibbling reluctantly, she was picking out all the kibble mixed in there and throwing them on the floor outside the bowl. It was frustrating and worrying in equal parts for first time dog owners like us. We took the dog from the shelter and obviously it was not so that she could starve herself!

To some extent her picky-ness worked to her favour, the shelter gave us a can of Addiction wet food to test out on her and she gobbled it up. Addiction was more expensive, but we were fine to add it to the menu since it was one of the well rated brands and she liked it. The subsequent pack of Solid Gold chicken kibble fared just as badly against her original complimentary Pro Plan salmon kibble.

But we did want to keep to a certain monthly food budget, since we were on one person’s income and finances is always a big concern for me. So no, she’s just got to make do with a rotation of different variety of foods at different price points. We rotated the Addiction wet food with another cheaper supermarket brand Nature’s Gift. On label, the Nature’s Gift ingredients list looked OK, but the AAFCO standards were not applied to it. That said, Donna has been eating it her whole life at the shelter, so it is food that her body is used to. So we kept to it, rather than change her diet cold turkey. Meanwhile, we continue to buy different kibble brands to find something that she will actually like. Plain Canidae, Wellness and TOTW kibble did not fare well with her either.

Somewhere along the line, we instituted the timing rule. It went something like we will remove the food in half hour even if she did not finish it. Not much observable effect there.

She was, as the vet pointed out, overweight anyway, so we decided not to over-worry if she missed a meal or two when she refused to eat. Yes, we determined that she could not just erm… *cough* blackmail *cough* us into giving her expensive food all the time by refusing to eat what we felt was affordable for us.

But yes, eventually she grew hungry enough that she decided the canned food and kibble was not beneath her. She started to eat more of her food. However, her annoying habit of running in and out of the kitchen during mealtimes did not change. She just wasn’t interested in the food and quite frankly preferred the fun of running in and out to take a bite here and there when she pleased. And so of course, she didn’t finish the food as you can see in this video, where there is a fleeting glance of her.

I was waiting to catch her on video running in and out, planned to send it to Florence at the shelter, ho-ho-ho. But as you can see, she decided she didn’t want any more food.

What changed things was really the installation of the child gate at the entrance of the kitchen. Suddenly it clicked in the dog’s mind that once the child gate closes behind her, the food will be gone! Oh the horror. The effect was pretty instantaneous after the light bulb went off. Now Donna refuses to leave the kitchen until she has licked clean every scrap of food, and then she continues to clean the already empty bowl.

But she still refused plain kibble unless it was flavoured with canned food topping.

However, towards the end of May, she actually accepted a Fromm dog pork kibble that I offered to her. Usually I opened a new pack of some kibble and offer a piece to her to see if she liked it. The usual reaction will be sniff, snort and point her high and mighty nose in the air in refusal. I was pleasantly surprised. The only difference in the way I offered the Fromm kibble is that I had mixed the kibble with her canned food for several meals already before I offered the plain piece of kibble to her. Either that made a difference or the Fromm kibble was too yummy.

We bought a new pack of kibble yesterday, this time it is Acana chicken with burbank potato. By now, the dog has somehow conditioned me to think that perhaps she just has a cautiousness to anything new that I offer to her. (After all I am the person who inflict new torments on her every other day like nail cutting and soon teeth brushing! Hahaha!) Anyway, I thought I should mix it in for her breakfast before attempting to offer her a plain piece of kibble to see her reaction. She took that kibble as well.

I have to say “HALLELUIAH” at this point because finally I can give her kibble instead of treats as training reward! Can you believe her weight kept climbing through the months despite us feeding less than the recommended portions on the food packages??? Mr P accuses me of giving her too many treats. But how else do you positively reinforce a dog?

Ending this post with a picture of the dog thinking about food in front of the kitchen. She does that a lot. Make us look like villains who don’t feed her enough.

“Please, sir, I want some more.”