Hi Adiaguan, She is five and half months old puppy, she doesnt need her mother anymore. She is fed only twice a day and completely house trained. The problem is she will only eat few meals to survive and would skip most of the other meals. I don't know if this is normal behavior especially for puppies after two weeks with us. I do not see any sign of nervousness of surroundings or any physical discomfort outside her body.
Ghilly, Thank you for your advice. I fed her the wellness brand food and she is a small breed dog. I noticed, when she was with me I changed her food she would readily eat. I gave this on the same bowl size the breeder used because I exactly saw how much she ate with the breeder. I know for a fact she was comfortable with us when we were around her. Although she won't eat much, she was still active at times so Vet said she is doing fine but I always felt she is very quite and nervous dog over all. So we gave her all the attention this past two weeks that we could.
Now the breeder called me and told me she has got no behavioural issues and from her judgement, she has a wide range of palete and some obedience issue going on at the same time, that she needs different flavored foods for her taste. If she doesnt get the flavor she likes, she will not eat and will barely eat to survive. We could take her back but need to take some obedience training classes and also to open her up for all kinds of different dog food. Even if it can be home cooked chicken or something. I don't mind taking puppy class and training but I don't know if this is related to her eating issues.
We are first time puppy owner and I am not sure if it is in the best interest of the puppy that I should take her back and try to rehome her again, knowing that she will always be a fussy eater and cannot find a confirmed cause for her not eating. She is now eating for the breeder a little bit when she is offered different meats that she cooked. I know when I tried to change her food to nature's choice, she ate one full meal although will not eat at the second time but then had loose stools and I got nervous and put her back to Wellness brand again.
My only concern is, even if this is palette issue, I can deal with buying different foods, that's not a problem! How would I know, there is something else to this? Breeder thinks there is no problem! She also told me she has got some inquiries for puppies and we have got till Friday to decide whether we want to take her or not. But I want to wait and first figure out her issue and address this before I bring her back. This has caused a lot of emotional strain on my daughter and myself, we thought she would be ours and I had to explain my daughter why we are returning her for her own good and that she might have behavioural issues per the breeder. So i am not willing to go through this again and again.....
I really feel for the puppy though...... I don't know if the breeder will once again attempt to rehome with someone else or if she will keep her.
Again, I don't have any bad feeling about the breeder though... becasue I know she stood by us this whole time and she even returned the money back when we returned the puppy as she thought she might have behavioural issues. Now that she feels, she doesnt have this, she wants us to consider taking her back. But how would I ever know for sure if this is just Palete issue like the breeder thinks? unless we wait and see what happens.
Sorry to hear that .I have a puppy ,too .He is a very strong and naughty boy .When he came to my home at first time ,he don't ate anything ,either .I change the brand of dog food and then he ate better .My friend told me a puppy will not eat when he feel unsafe .Maybe she just feel lonely or unsafe .She is too young , just 1/2 month old .She need mother .Maybe you should try to use a milk bottle to feed her .Just like her mother .Hmmm...
Hope your puppy could be better soon .
If your vet has examined her and has found no physical deformity or health-related reason for her to not want to eat then it has to be something psychological. These things can be awfully difficult to figure out. The fact that she is back at the breeder's and STILL doesn't want to eat tells me that at least it's not something that was only happening at your house, that it is definitely something with the dog herself and not with her surroundings. Unless you want to be saddled with hefty vet bills and/or pet psychologist bills, my advice to you would be to leave this puppy with the breeder. I am never one to advocate for rehoming a dog, but in some circumstances it is better for all concerned. And this sounds like it might be one of those cases. At least at the breeder's house she will be in familiar surroundings with familiar other dogs. If she DOES have psychological problems (and it seems that she does), at the age of 5 months they more than likely started while she was at the breeder's, in my opinion it is better to let the breeder sort it out than for you to get stuck with all sorts of medical bills for treatments that may or may not work, for a puppy that maybe should not have been sold in the first place.
This is a very tough position you have been put in. I hope you are able to come to a workable solution for everyone concerned, and I hope that if this IS a problem that started with the breeder that she takes care of whatever the problem is before breeding more puppies, or at least before breeding the parents of this puppy to each other again.
Ghilly