Self imposed limits
Tsuki is the pickiest little eater. And we totally enable it, un- or even sub-consciously. But she limits herself and stops eating without ever finishing a meal...
For instance:
- on raw meals, she'll eat meaty meats with fervor and considers organs and has most of the meaty bones, but she'll leave a good portion of organ and bone each time, especially if the meaty bone is poultry.
The only time she never leaves a thing with raw is when we give premade medallions, tripe or the yogurt/veggie/organ blend.
- on kibble meals, she'll eat 3/4 of the bowl and leave the rest, even if its mixed with sardines or cottage cheese
Does anyone else's dog do this? Have self imposed limitations of their meals? Its worrisome that she is so thin (in comparison to Kitsu, who usually finishes Tsuki's meal) and she basically keeps herself this way by never finishing a meal. And we go through great detail on measurements and ratios for their raw meals and we give 3/4 cup of CORE kibble usually mixed with canned in h20 sardines or cottage cheese. I measure so the correct amounts of everything are within each meal and she flubs it all up!
Should I worry or are other dogs/nihon ken like this? They finish when they are full and not when all the food is eaten?
For instance:
- on raw meals, she'll eat meaty meats with fervor and considers organs and has most of the meaty bones, but she'll leave a good portion of organ and bone each time, especially if the meaty bone is poultry.
The only time she never leaves a thing with raw is when we give premade medallions, tripe or the yogurt/veggie/organ blend.
- on kibble meals, she'll eat 3/4 of the bowl and leave the rest, even if its mixed with sardines or cottage cheese
Does anyone else's dog do this? Have self imposed limitations of their meals? Its worrisome that she is so thin (in comparison to Kitsu, who usually finishes Tsuki's meal) and she basically keeps herself this way by never finishing a meal. And we go through great detail on measurements and ratios for their raw meals and we give 3/4 cup of CORE kibble usually mixed with canned in h20 sardines or cottage cheese. I measure so the correct amounts of everything are within each meal and she flubs it all up!
Should I worry or are other dogs/nihon ken like this? They finish when they are full and not when all the food is eaten?
Comments
For Tsuki to gain weight, maybe try increasing the carbs in the diet, adding some additional sort of starch. I guess this is the downside of doing grain free, we get ultra skinny buff dogs. And/or, try increasing the fat and protein in the diet. I know of some working border collie people who use a suet like fat/calorie booster to keep weight on their dogs (Red Paw). I think it has corn oil (she has allergy issues right?) http://www.redpawfeed.com/pages/p_fat.php
There are probably similar products, but I wonder if there is an alternative that could be made at home to put in her food so she gets the extra fat and calories without the bulk.
How many times a day are you feeding her? Maybe you could try to add in an extra feeding and just feed her smaller portions that she feels like she can finish.
Unless Lucy is having an IBD flare-up, she always finishes her meals. Joey, on the other hand, seems to self-regulate his diet. He'll go stretches of a few weeks where he will eat everything in his bowl at both feedings. Other times, he'll go a week or two where every other meal or every third meal he will only eat 1/2, or 1/4, or sometimes nothing at all.
If you are concerned about her weight, then perhaps a calorie booster like Lindsay mentioned might not be a bad idea. If she is in good body condition and has enough energy, then I wouldn't worry too much.
Shikoku are also self limiters, they will only eat as much as they need. we started fasting our shikas once a week because they would do it for us anyway and we ended up wasting the food.
more insight:
- Tsuki gets two regularly scheduled meals a day. If she doesn't finish it within a 20-30 min time frame, it gets tossed. I would consider another feeding, I'll have to see how that works.
- Both dogs fast on Sunday (yes, they have 24/7 access to water even on this day).
- They get two daily walks on weekdays and we hike on Saturdays weather permitting and veg out on Sundays. Its been near single digit temps for like the entire month of January so far so we've been walking a shorter distance and not hiking. You might be on to something here, Lindsay... but we do give them a rigorous play session each night after dinner/walk, maybe we'll have to do it before hand until the weather breaks to get her worked up to eat.
- Tsuki is thin, but not too thin, kind of like Maui. She also has LP in her back left leg and I don't want to intentionally beef her up because of this.
Maybe I'm giving her too big a portion? I base the measurements on 2.5% her ideal weight, which is about 17lbs. I don't want to encourage her to eat less by cutting the portion, but maybe I should at least during the winter?
Do pet/house dogs eat more in the spring/fall/summer than in the winter?
Remy inhales his meals everday...he goes ballistic at meal time since I switched over to Orijen Fish (man that stuff stinks!!). When he was on once a day feedings he puked up bile quite a bit, which I suspect was from being quite hungry (this has resolved with 2/day feedings thanks to everyone here).
I wouldn't fast with a dog under a year old without talking to a nutritionist/ holistic vet for the harms/benefits/etc.
We decided to start fasting when we started raw, to give the digestive tract time to energize and empty any remaining bacteria, etc, following a natural process of a natural (raw) canine diet. We would only fast twice a month or so. When we decided to reintroduce grain free kibble and cooked veggies, we started fasting them once a month because of the digestion rates now fluctuating between food types (raw is faster than cooked is faster than veg is faster than grain free kibble is faster than grained kibble).
Our holistic vet thought it was a very good decision based on the type of weekly rotating diet we do with our dogs so we gave it a go and I really think we have very little digestive issues (knock on wood!) because of the fasting day. Our two haven't had a runny stool issue since ... I can't even remember when, and I contribute that to the method of rotation (between raw, cooked and kibble meals weekly) and the weekly day of fasting/healing.
Its probably not for everyone, but I believe in the whole diet spectrum we do for us and our dogs.
You are awesome. This week was 25 degrees+ so we were back to their normal walking, except we walked before we gave them dinner (usually we walk 1 hour after they eat) and Tsuki finished more of her portion than she has all winter! yay!