We just brought a dog (Daisy, a 13# Chihuahua/Terrier[?] mix) home and she and our two cats are adjusting… so far, pretty good.

Some background:
Daisy was found on the side of a busy road. All efforts were made to find her family (my aunt’s friend, who found her, contacted the PD, all local animal shelters, and all local vet offices), but to no avail. Daisy was fostered at a local doggy daycare until she found a forever home. Two weeks passed as I convinced my boyfriend to add her to our family, and now she’s with us. We adore her and want to give her the best life and as much love possible.

Daisy was in good weight, but was not spayed and has HORRIBLE breath and teeth. We deduced that she’s pretty much been on a crappy all soft-food diet (the doggy daycare gave me lots of canned Kibbles and Bits, which believe-you-me, I transitioned her off ASAP and then donated the rest to a local shelter). She seems (seemED) to prefer soft food to kibble. I currently have her on Kirkland canned in the AM and PM. She is the sweetest thing and wolfs down her food (also leading me to believe she’s not had regular access to food AND needs more dry kibble during the day).

She’s now been spayed and has an appointment to have her teeth cleaned. My very reputable vet thinks that she will need some extractions as well due to extreme tartar and decay, especially to her back molars.

The night we brought her home, the feed store was closed, so I was forced to get her the "best" of the "worst" kibble at PetSmart, and we ended up with a 20+# bag of Blue Buffalo. She doesn’t seem to like it. So, I brought home some of my mom’s Canidae that she feeds her Mastiffs to see if she would eat it. Same thing: she doesn’t really like it.

By contrast, Daisy REALLY LOVES the cat’s Felidae. We free-feed the cats and Daisy, so in the middle of the night, Daisy will sometimes eat ALL of the cat’s Felidae.

That’s encouraging to me, though, that she will eat dry food willingly. Usually I mix in dry food with her wet food in the morning and evening to get her to eat it. There have been a few times when she’s eaten the dry Blue Buffalo, but not often.

Anyway, I want to transition Daisy to dry food, but I don’t want to have to go through a million kinds of high-end dry food to find something she will eat.

What successes have people had with picky canine eaters? I really want to find something that she’ll eat that is also very high nutrition-wise.

Daisy has been eating the cat’s food (Felidae, made by Candiae).
Unfortunately, I have an elderly cat, so if I put the dry food up high, she won’t be able to access it.

As far as asking my vet, although I LOVE my vets and trust them as much as I possibly could, when we have asked for dietary recommendations before, they have suggested some familiar names, but not the best-quality foods (Iams). I believe they did this because they receive funding from the aforementioned brands, as many vets do.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 26th, 2009 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Dog Care Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.