Appetite Stimulants for my GSD - Page 1

Hello GSD Friends,

I would like to solicit for your opinions on how to increase the appetite of my 1 year old healthy female dog.  She just arrived to my kennel yesterday and I have noticed that she has very poor appetite.  You have to put the food on your palm before she will eat.  This morning, she did not bother to eat again.  We did not do what we did last night thinking she might become "spoiled" in feeding her by the palm.  We just pulled out her food after 15 minutes.

What can I do to increase her appetite?  Should I give her some appetite stimulant like "mosegor vita"?  Can this medicine help?  What should I do?  Thank you and I hope to hear from you soon.

She may just be adjusting to a different kennel and different food.  Give her a time to settle in.

Wok,

I would continue to only leave the food for the 15 min, but you can try using a product called Vertex.  I have used it for picky dogs. 

www.naturmix.com

Good luck and keep us posted.

KIM

satin balls,, have not had a dog ignore them yet,,they also work for adding weight QUICKLY,,so be careful

http://www.njboxers.com/satin-balls-recipe.htm

john

Give the poor dog some time. DO NOT start experimenting with stimulants for god sake. First of all start building up a relationship with her so that she feels a certain degree of confidense in you . Then once she feels a little more comfortable with her new environment she will start eating normally.Adoptation in dog-world needs love and time . I would leave the food with her for the whole day.

Thank you for all your comments but ATARTHS, you recommended to leave her food the whole day?  That food should be the dried kibble or some others will get spoiled?

Use dry premium complete dog food. I dont know where you live so use common sense as far as temperatures and exposure of the food to the elements. All i am saying is do not rush her with her food. I cant see anything wrong with leaving the food available for some extra time . Since she needs some adjusting to her new home having food available to her in my opinion will give her one less thing to worry about.

Thank you again for your inputs.  I give her Pro Plan Performance with a little water in it to make it soft a bit.  As per your suggestion, I therefore must give her dry food later.  I just hope this would work on her considering she is a wonderful female dog from Germany who just won SG1 on last Sunday's Landesgruppen show in Manila.  Thanks again, ATARTHS.

I agree that she needs some time to settle in and I totally disagree on leaving food available all the time, she needs to figure out you are her source for everything good.. therefore I would definitely feed her out of my hand and I'd use some really hgh power food items... steak, hot dogs and yes, some food too ... no, you will not spoil her. I would feed the biggest portion of her food out of my hand and just a teeny bit inthe bowl. 

Don't know what your plans are for this bitch, sounds like show lines but its the same when building a relationship with any dog... she needs to think everything good comes from you....

She will eat when she is hungry enough.. do not make a big deal of this.. so she doesn't eat formher bowl today, she will really appreciate what she gets out of your hand later and tomorrow

Good luck

No healthy GSD ever staged a hunger strike, but they can become stressed when moved to a new home or when their present home changes significantly. Baring any medical complications; when the dog is hungry, the dog will eat. The food may not be its food of choice, and I am sure that certain dogs have different tastes and prefer different foods. But, they will eat when they become hungry.

All that said, I have a five-year-old bitch who started ignoring her food a bit this year. She eats the same kibble that she has eaten since she was fourteen (14) months old. Her weight was good, her stools were good, and her activiity and disposition were normal; so what was going on? I will never know, but after several weeks of some indifference towards her food she again eats it with much attention. There was no heat cycle during this time period, so her hormone level was normal. It did not bother me because she was healthy, but I did wonder about it and kept my hands on her looking for anything unusual. It could have been a slight hormone shift due to her approaching middle age, and it has now passed.

I would not use any supplements to encourage your dog to eat. If she is healthy she will eat when she is really hungry.

Good luck,

Bob-O