I have a 5 1/2month old male, and since we've had him, he's never eaten when the food is available right away. He's getting about a cup and a half twice a day now, and its usually about 45min before he sits down to eat, and thats only if my wife or I dont move or pay any attention to him or our cat doesnt saunter by. This is my first puppy and labrador, but Ive never seen any dog not want his food right away

Welcome IndianaWrestler, What are you feeding him? Have you tried adding a little water to his kibble?

Try adding a second dog ;)

Hudson was always like that as a young dog. Now that we have a 2nd dog he eats right away :)

Welcome IndianaWrestler, What are you feeding him? Have you tried adding a little water to his kibble?

Its not the dryness of the kibble, he in fact hates that. We're feeding him blue buffalo large puppy kibble, but switched to science diet large puppy kibble to see if it was just the way it tasted to him, but are having the same results

could it have been possibly that he was free-fed for the first couple weeks he could eat kibble? I never have free fed, but the breeder did.

HA HA Don't be discouraged, even with 5 I find that my Jed is not wanting to eat lately. We're having some food issues, and in the middle of switching. He's not on the new yet, I am waiting until we have less of the old. But oddly enough, this started happening around the time I opened the last bag of Kirkland (which I decided gave Maddy terrible gas) and he gets some EVO in it as well. We feed wet too, he doesn't care. I removed the coat supplement, he doesn't care. I added warm water, he doesn't care. If I add cottage cheese, that seems to help. Any more problems, and he's going to the Eat in 15 Minutes plan or else you don't eat. The bad thing about that is that it's hard to keep him at a good weight. He misses a meal and I swear he looks thinner immediately.

we had to start feeding him more, vet informed us he was about 5lbs lighter than what he should have been when he was 4mo old. He looks great, but this morning it took him 1 1/2hrs before he sat down and ate his food

we had to start feeding him more, vet informed us he was about 5lbs lighter than what he should have been when he was 4mo old. He looks great, but this morning it took him 1 1/2hrs before he sat down and ate his food


My 5 month old has been a slow/picky eater ever since I started weaning the litter.....he was the only one whose intake I really had to watch out for.

He started to refuse food the week after the last of the other pups left the house. Spoon feeding or hand feeding would help a little, but not enough. I switched food twice.

I ended up going back to his original food (Cal Nat Lamb & Rice Puppy) and adding some canned. Recently, I stopped with the canned. He still gets his salmon oil on the kibble.

Some meals (oh yeah, he'll eat only twice a day....not three times) he needs to be started with spoon feeding. Sometimes he needs for me to put some pieces in the type of little bowl the cats eat from. Sometimes he'll only take from my hand. And other times he'll chow down from the bowl I intend for him to be eating from. (I've also had to try different bowls....he stopped using steel...although the water bowls are steel and are OK.....briefly ate out of the ceramic cat bowl.....and now gets fed from an 8 x 8 clear Pyrex baking dish.

So.....your pup isn't alone in this. I'd try the spoon/hand-feeding trick if you haven't already done so. Maybe see if he'll like some plain yogurt or a small bit of pumpkin (plain, not the pie-filling) mixed in.....something to get him started.

And good luck. Danny, like yours, weighed a bit less than optimum.....I didn't like to see him miss a meal.

Barb

Quick tip, get some Innova Adult or Puppy kibble, I would prefer the Adult at 5+ months old, and a can of Innova wet food. Mix in about a tablespoon of the Innova canned food into the kibble, let your dog sniff and put it down, let us know if he doesn't gulp it down right away...

If your dog is allergy free, Innova would be the choice food, Cal Nat is mainly for dogs with allergies and need a one source protein food...Innova IMHO is more tasty I would think with the 4 meat sources..