What to Do When Your Dog is a Pickier Eater Than Your Toddler

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As moms, we often know what to do when we have a picky eater . . . but what do you do when the picky eater is your dog? Our family dog has been a great addition to the family but he definitely has his quirks, and eating is one of them. Fortunately, we discovered a few great ways to help him get the nutrition he needs, with a little help from Freshpet.

My oldest son has been asking for a dog almost from the time he first learned to talk. We finally gave in last year and adopted a 2 year old Australian Shepherd/ Corgi mix who has been a great fit for our family.

Since my son struggles with some anxiety, we were hopeful that the dog could help him when he was feeling stressed and he has definitely been amazing for that.

The only problem we ran into is he is a very active dog who isn’t a huge fan of dog food so, almost immediately, we discovered that he was losing weight. He isn’t a huge dog to begin with so this was not good.

We had to get creative and play with a few ways to get him to eat better.

If you have a picky canine eater, this is what I recommend:

• Let them eat with the family. Our dog is very social so he always wanted to be near us during meal time anyway. We started feeding him a bit at each meal and, once he realized he wasn’t getting any extra attention from us, he usually gave in and ate his food too since he could still stay nearby.
• Make it fun. Sometimes we’ll have my kids feed him dog food by hand after asking him to practice some of his tricks he has been learning. He loves the attention and it gets him to eat a bit more than he would otherwise.
• Be consistent. Dogs thrive on routines, just like children do. Be consistent with when you feed your dog so he will come to expect it.
• Change up the food. Some dogs just don’t like particular brands or styles of dog food. We had to play around with what our dog liked. It turns out, he isn’t a huge fan of dry dog food but he absolutely loves anything from Freshpet. With big chunks of chicken and vegetables, I can definitely see why it is more appealing. He always gobbles this up so there’s no more need to encourage him to eat. I love that they never use any pre-processed meat powders, “chicken meals,” or by-products – just real US meat as the #1 ingredient, and real veggies you can see.

Freshpet even has a great line of treats that our dog loves just as much as their line of dog food.

We have been enjoying knowing that our dog is getting the nutrition he needs and feeding time has been way less of a chore now that he is eating his food willingly.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.