How to get Summer to eat soft food?

Laurelin

Laurelin

I'm All Ears
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Summer needs to be on canned food/soft diet for 7-10 days and I cannot get her to eat it. I've tried all sorts of canned food from shredded food to chunks to the 95% meat. I've tried all ranges of 'quality'. The only one she ate at all was science diet ID. But even then she picked at it a couple bites then walked off.

Don't normal dogs think canned food is a treat? She hates it.

Ideas?
 
You've got me. After Meg's cleaning/extractions, they told me she would be hesitant to eat and need to be on soft food. And while I was in the store buying soft food, she ate the wrap I had bought myself for lunch. I considered that a soft meal.

Can you soak her regular kibble so it is soft? Maybe in chicken broth or something? Honest Kitchen? Boiled chicken and rice?
 
Try heating it up, warming it makes it stinky. Stinky =yummy to dogs. We fed Gracie chicken and rice soup after her spay but that wasn't as long.
 
Maybe sprinkle parmesan cheese on it? I did that once to try and get my cat to eat wet food. Would something like Fresh Pet (the little nuggets) be soft enough to feed her? My aunt and uncle did that after Phoebe got her dental, but I'm not sure if they did it right away or if they just did straight wet food for a while first (she had over 20 teeth pulled so didn't know how to eat kibble for a while). Summer might like the texture better than normal wet food.
 
She has eaten a few pieces of Ziwipeak but even refused a full serving of that. That's pretty unusual for her. :/ Ziwipeak is not soft but it's not as hard as kibble.

The store with the freeze dried is closed till monday and I won't really get a chance to go there until probably next Friday since they close so early... Might could drop by though and take off a bit. But she has hated things like the honest kitchen when we have tried that.

It seems almost like it is a texture issue- it's the same issue we had with her and raw. Maybe once she realizes kibble isn't coming, she'll eat. But she's starved herself for days until she made herself sick before.
 
Maxy24 said:
Maybe sprinkle parmesan cheese on it? I did that once to try and get my cat to eat wet food. Would something like Fresh Pet (the little nuggets) be soft enough to feed her? My aunt and uncle did that after Phoebe got her dental, but I'm not sure if they did it right away or if they just did straight wet food for a while first (she had over 20 teeth pulled so didn't know how to eat kibble for a while). Summer might like the texture better than normal wet food.
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I actually looked for the freshpet at petsmart but the freezer was empty. they sell it at one of the grocery stores so I could try it tomorrow.

I do think it's a texture thing for her.
 
Ok, so tried one of my freeze dried Stella and Chewy's patties soaked in water and that was another no-go. Urgh frustrating dog.
 
I actually looked for the freshpet at petsmart but the freezer was empty.
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Funny, they're all empty here, too.

When Logan had his extraction it was a PAIN to get him to eat - he likes soft food, but he was so sore and the antibiotics made him not want to eat on top of that. He's always up for pumpkin and canned chicken, though.
 
Well so far the only thing I got her to eat was a bunch of rotisserie chicken.

I mixed up the Ziwipeak (her favorite usually), with the canned food and some cheese and heated it up and she snubbed it.

At least I got some chicken in her but she can't just eat chicken breast for 10 days.
 
Will she eat like a boiled chicken/cooked rice/cottage cheese mixture?

Or maybe like canned tuna, or something, since it is super stinky...

Honestly, I wouldn't be worried about 100% complete nutrition for the next following days, I'd be more worried about just getting her to eat. There are always actually appetite stimulants that you can get rx'd by your vet to encourage her to eat...but I wouldn't think that should be necessary. But then, trying to wrap my head around a dog that won't even eat table scraps is making my brain hurt. LOL

I've had very good success getting animals to eat Hills A/D when they otherwise wouldn't want to eat. That was the only food Dameon would touch when he had pneumonia and zero appetite due to feeling like poo.
 
I've been thinking about doing some chicken/rice/something mixture. I'm not too worried about it being perfectly balanced but if I could get her more than just cooked chicken breast that might be better, right? Maybe I should look up some home cooked dog food recipes?

Summer likes her kibble, lol. It's odd to me that she eats kibble so much better than yummy stinky food.
 
Honestly, she probably could just eat chicken breast for the next 10 days and be fine, lol. 10 days isn't long enough to create any kind of deficiency to my knowledge.

But anyway, what about something like chicken breast and boiled/mashed sweet potato? Or is it truly a texture thing and that won't work either? You could use white potato too, obviously, my dogs just all like sweet potato so that's the first thing I thought of. Boiling the potato in chicken broth would make it more appetizing as well.

Summer, stop being so weird! Who doesn't eat canned food??? :p
 
I think the potato is a good idea. Maybe I can get her to eat some potato/rice and boiled chicken?

She doesn't like cottage cheese though.

Sometimes she'll eat scrambled eggs, so maybe add in some of that. I have some pumpkin and canned tuna as well. In the past, I am pretty sure she avoided the pumpkin but it's worth a shot. I also picked up a small can of Royal Canin Appetite Stimulation food. Not very optimistic but worth a shot.

She is very weird. This is why raw never worked for her- she hates any mushy textured food.

time to get creative. :lol-sign: Mia is getting fat though gobbling up all the stuff Summer is refusing.
 
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