Hi all, I am hoping that someone can ease my worries. We have a 2 year old PB black lab named Max. Since he turned a year old, we have always fed him a cup of food in the morning, and 2 cups at night mixed with either wet food or veggies.

He sometimes eats really good in the morning, and will devour his food, and other times he doesn't eat his morning meal at all. Then at night when we feed both our dogs, the other one is 12, our 2 year old will not go near his bowl until the older dog is done, and then when he does go to his bowl, he nibbles at his meal. I know you are supposed to take it up after 20 minutes, but if he doesn't eat in the morning, I feel bad, and leave it down until he finishes, which could be 2 hours later. I feel like such a bad mommy. Does anybody have any idea why he won't eat, or does anyone else have a lab who doesn't inhale their food?

Need help.

Max's Mom.

If this is not normal behavior for him I would be getting him checked out at a vet just in case.

Actually, this is his normal behavior. Since we got him, he was not an eater, and I always heard that labs were gobblers. I just don't get it.

Depends on what you are feeding him I bet. My Jake was never a good eater. Always picked around at his kibble. Now we are feeding raw and he just cannot get enough. He loves the stuff. One book I read described kibble as the equivalent of a human eating the same cereal every day of their life. Boring, huh? Maybe that is the problem.

As i have mentioned before, Shelby would eat with the house burning down around her and then look for more! Hanford on the other hand won't eat if no one is home, won't eat if he is locked in his cage (we feed in their cages) and won't eat if there are people in the house other than myself or my husband. Sometimes i have to hand feed him the first several bites and then he digs in. Try hand feeding him at the beginning of his meals. I have also heard (haven't tried it) that if you leave their food down for about 15 minutes and then take it away til next feeding time, they will get on a schedule and eat when you feed them. I have also heard that the dog may miss a couple of meals til he gets the hang of it.

Thank you all for the suggestions. He is just a strange boy when it comes to eating.

I would keep an eye on it, Trakker was never a big eater, but I found out too late that it was because of a birth defect with her liver, she never felt like eating. She was never into food, quite the change from Hunter who would eat anything.

Then again, it could be other numerous factors such as not liking the food. Do you feed on a schedule? If not that could be another problem, if he thinks the food will ALWAYS be there, he might not think that there is a hurry to eat it. Try a scheduled feeding like Hanford&Shelby suggested, he might decide to eat once he learns that its not always available to him.

They're all individuals, the breed doesn't guarantee that they will all be gobblers. Even though many are, I'm sure there are just as many who aren't.

Don't hand feed him or change foods, you'll just make it worse. If he is healthy, he's just being a brat. My chocolate boy was like that for a while and it drove me nuts. My other dogs are hoovers and he would wait until they all finished before he would even start...and then it would be kibble by kibble while the others swarmed around him for dropped kibbles. Eventually I got annoyed by having to sit and stare at them for twenty minutes while the Prince ate so I gave a little tough love. I put their food down, if Darwin didn't start eating pretty much as soon as I set it down, I picked it up and poured it back in the bag. I did this for one breakfast and dinner and now he digs right in. I know people (and I will even recommend) leaving food down for 15-20 minutes, but if you have multiple dogs, that means your sitting on patrol in the kitchen for 20 min...something I don't feel like doing.

My boy is really picky. We did find a food he really likes, Nutro Natural Choice Lamb and Rice. It's the ONLY kibble he'll eat plain. So under normal circumstances, you probably shouldn't change around too much, but sometimes finding the right food CAN help.

My husband also adds something to Hudler's bowl each meal. Maybe half a hot dog, maybe some meat from our dinner. We don't mind doing it. If we didn't he could go days without eating. It's just not worth it to us to fight that battle with him.

Our girls are true labs, although Maddy is so neurotic, she won't eat in the kitchen if someone is in there. We had some things fall out of the fridge a couple times when she was eating, and now she won't eat until we leave the room. I caught her JUMP when the ice maker dropped some ice the other day. It was sadly funny. We were feeding her in the dining room for a while when we got the new puppy, and she wasn't like that at all. It really is the whole fridge/kitchen issue.

Grace could eat during an earthquake...food is that important to her.

Max's Mom - hello. I can relate!!!!! I always thought something was wrong with Sierra - she never ate like other dogs. She eats til full and stops. Our vet said she is a rare exception to the breed but, then again so is her size. He says she eats to live - no lives to eat. She is small for a lab - very muscular - solid as a rock. She's 2 1/2 yrs old and weighs a whopping 43lbs!

She too will sometimes leave bkfst til 12, 1, 10, 9, all different times. Dinner she sometimes does same - usually eats that one right away.

We made MANY mistakes. Always doctoring her food to get her to eat. It became a game - she would go a day or day and a half without eating to see what she would get next. Once we switched to NB Duck & Potato - I stopped doctoring it! She gets the same thing everyday except her once a week salmon & mackerel. When I want to give her something special - chicken, steak, etc. I give it in place of - not mixed in with her food.

Good luck.