Boredom with Food

[Ann O'Connor]

Hi, my Australian labradoodle Bella seems to be bored with the food I am feeding her.  She does not want to eat it.  Is this common?  I am feeding her Origen puppy food and the raw chicken which I mix with the dry.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Yes, it's very common. We have tons and tons of discussions here in the Food Group about picky doodles becoming bored with their food, ranging from frustrated to funny. Some of our members have gone to extremes to try to interest or tempt their doodles into eating, but eventually they just turn up their noses again.
For some of us, it helps to use a food that comes in several formulas that can be rotated, or even to just rotate between two or three brands with each new bag. Once your pup is old enough for adult food, rotating between the three adult formulas of Orijen may help. For others, adding fresh foods helps.
But if your puppy's weight is fine and she is energetic and healthy, I wouldn't worry; she's eating enough. Lots of these dogs are just not food motivated.

[Ann O'Connor]

Thanks. Sometimes I will put some extra treats in her food and then she eats it. I am going to rotate the orijen food when she is old enough. I had heard this was a good idea. She is eight months old now, do you switch then when the are a year old?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It depends on their expected size when they're full grown. Standards usually don't reach full skeletal growth until they're between 10-14 months old. Smaller dogs reach their full bone growth much earlier...some as young as 6 months. I would go with your vet's recommendation on when to switch to an adult formula. That said, many dogs eat ALS (all life stages) formulas from puppyhood on, so it probably doesn't make that much difference.

[Leslie J]

This doesn't relate to food bordom, but I remember reading somewhere that one shouldn't mix raw food and processed food. I think the explanation was that the raw food was digested very quickly, thus avoiding time for unhealthy bacteria to multiply. Kibble is digested slowly, and if consumed with raw food can slow down its digestion and increase the risk of illness.

The recommendation was to either go with cooked food or raw food, but not both. You might want to check with some of the raw food experts and find out if this recommendation has any basis.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It doesn't have any basis; raw food takes much longer to digest than any kind of processed food. This is actually just common sense. Food that's processed is partially broken down already. There are human food "experts" who will tell you that you shouldn't eat meat at the same time as fruit, too, because of digestion rates, fermentation, and lots of other false beliefs...the whole "Fit for Life" diet program was based on that kind of junk science. Of course, that's been proven to be untrue as well.
That kind of thing is so common on the raw feeding forums, and it's one of the reasons it's so hard for us to get any factual information about feeding raw. I know that on some of the most "militant" forums, feeding anything other than raw food ever is strongly discouraged. Yet many people do feed their dogs a combination of several types of foods...processed commercial foods, cooked human food, and/or raw, and the dogs do just fine.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Ned loves treats but he is not into food. I feed him good quality kibble and let it go at that. He eats several meals in a row then may not eat for a day and a half. He prefers to eat at night in the dark and we were leaving his kibble down, but now that we have a new dog, we can't do that. If Ned doesn't come to eat within a few minutes, I pick it up and he has to wait until the next meal. He is healthy and happy. He is a small doodle and quit growing at about 8 months. At 2 1/2 he still weighs the same.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

My chihuahua has a "boring" one flavor diet and he gets bored. To entice him, I will add a few cooked carrots or green beans (NO salt added). Give that a try while you are still feeding puppy. Then rotate between flavors as Karen suggested. I rotate between 2-3 flavors each time I switch a bag for Peri. She stays interested!

[Ann O'Connor]

thanks

[Sue, Murphy and Bella ()*o*()]

Murphy seems bored with his food all of a sudden, however, I have had to not homecook so much over the last 2 months due to a new job and maybe he is just sick of dog food? He is very food driven, would eat anything anytime and usually can hardly contain himself while I make him wait while I put his bowl down and then say "OK". The last 3 days when I say OK, he looks at me and walks away or goes to sniff it and then walks away.he eventually eats, within the next 10-20 minutes, so I haven't thought about taking his bowl up yet like Nancy has said.
I have been adding some real food or at least non-fat yogurt or cottage cheese in it. Nothing really new has changed. So, maybe he's bored? I am cooking a chicken tonight in the crockpot and making his usual "stew" tomorrow. So I will have to see if he acts the same with being back on some good old home cooking. Somehow I doubt it tho.
What's interesting too is that he has just gained the most weight in a 2 month period than he has since he was a puppy. (18 months old today) Nothing has changed but giving him dog food, and the recommended amt's. He is VERY active and he has always gotten about 6 cups of real food a day and gained nice and slow and always looked perfect. Been getting 3-4 cups a day of Orijen or Taste of the Wild and he's plumped up. Another reason I'm going back to more homecooking.

[Ann O'Connor]

Let me know who it goes for you. It seems like they get bored in general with the food.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Wow, six cups of "real" food seems like a lot. How much does Murphy weigh? When my Murphy is full grown (assuming about 12 mos) I will move him to home cooking like Guinness. Guinness gets about three cups of home cooked food a day, and I have been thinking about what would be the right amount for Murph when I move him. Murphy is now on Acana (just switched from Orijen) and he's also eating 3-4 cups per day.

[Lynda Kamrath]

I agree that 6 cups of food a day seems like a lot. My goldendoodle eats only about 3 cups a day and my labradoodle eats about 4 cups. They both are around 100 pounds. They definitely would be bored with dry food and need to have something interesting to get them started eating. I've tried raw and they just don't like that. They are, however, spoiled with home cooking.