[The Popster]

Hi there,
We have a nearly 6 month old female Minature Poodle. ( Or possibly a Kangapoo ).
Poppy - aka The Popster, Popsicle, Madam.
Of course, no need to say here she is incredible.
We used to have a dog some 25 years ago.
Kipper was his name, a mixture - guessing Rotty/Lab. Cost £14 including lead and collar from Battersea dogs home.
He was a very special dog ( as they all are), really really smart.
We went through the pain of losing him, but did not 'replace' him as our lifestyle changed.
For the past couple of years we wanted to have another dog.
Truth is with this lockdown/working from home situation, and the knowledge that our lifestyle was going to change again with the intention of including a dog in our lives, we decided to 'go for it'.
I had it in my head for sometime that I really wanted an intelligent breed. Recalling my mother's opinion that Poodles were extermely smart I decided a Poodle was on the cards.
But for lockdown, with the planned move to the country put on hold, where the plan was for 2 dogs - mine a Standard Poodle, hers possibly a Ridgeback, in the meantime a Minature Poodle suited current situation.
Poppy arrived back in November.
Flippin' hell !! Inteligent ? Smart ? It's been a real eye opener!
But no need here, I'm sure to wax lyrical about these amazing dogs! Like you don't know!

Funny really, because I did my 'research' on Poodles before commiting, but clearly I blanked out some of the 'minus' points about Poodle care, and their characteristics.
I probably could bang out quite a few questions to you guys, but right now I have just one that I'd like some advice on.
Here it is - ( finaly).
FUSSY EATER ?
Poppy has been eating since we got her. She is coming up for 6 mnths old and weighs in at 5.49.
Our breeder had been feeding dry Eukanuba, she came with a supply.
Been through all the dry vs wet conumdrum, no cereal etc etc...
So for the past couple of months there has been a mixture diet.
Coming down mainly to Pedigree chum puppy/ Butchers puppy wet ( tins and sachets), and kibble as treats in snuffle mat and puzzle toys.
Her poos are 90% good, nicely formed and even roll if deposited on a slight camber.
She has had a couple of tummy upsets, one a bug going round the local dog population, and another we don't know what but only lasted 24hrs.
She does have boiled chicken, which we used to settle her down when she had the bug.
She still has the chicken which we use mostly for training.
But the last 2 days she is turning her nose up at her wet food offerings. Completely.
She could be fussy in that she simply wanted a different flavour we discovered.
But now she turns her nose up at whatever is there.
Should we simply insist and leave to the food down, and just let her get hungry so she eats then?
An older dog I would do that, but should we do that as she is a growing puppy?
She certainly would never turn her nose up at the boiled chicken.

One of the things that amuses me is looking back at my 'research' one point I 'missed' is that they can be Fussy eaters.
Hmmm... because I also missed that apparently these little darlings are also extreme scavangers? ( Hey though what dog isn't)?
Begs the question, turn your nose up at Pedigree Chum, but scoff that bit of 'god knows what ' ? laying in the gutter!!
Hey, but that's a bit like the old adage about dogs having 10,000 times better sense of smell than us.
Which begs the question, why stick their bloody nose right up the bottom of another dog if their sense of smell is so acute?

Anyway any advice please would be most welcome.

 

[twyla]

A healthy dog will not starve itself. I have no fussy poodles, they eat what they are given.
Unless your dog has a food intolerance which one of mine does but the food ingestion results in diarrhea, GI pain, gas and belching.
I do have a fussy 15 1/2 year old chi mix which she had gotten better about, I found out they changed the formulation of all their wet food, discerning dog parents are reading the ingredients these days and they loaded the wet food with green beans, I found that she enjoyed eating fresh pet as well as the GI diet one of my poodles is on.

 

[The Popster]

A healthy dog will not starve itself. I have no fussy poodles, they eat what they are given.
Unless your dog has a food intolerance which one of mine does but the food ingestion results in diarrhea, GI pain, gas and belching.
I do have a fussy 15 1/2 year old chi mix which she had gotten better about, I found out they changed the formulation of all their wet food, discerning dog parents are reading the ingredients these days and they loaded the wet food with green beans, I found that she enjoyed eating fresh pet as well as the GI diet one of my poodles is on.

Hi, and thanks.
Interesting as Poppy has always made little 'furbee' noises, tiny belches.
But her appetite has been good, and her stools good.
Just the past couple of days 'turning her nose up'
She has got a tooth waiting to come out, which may be irritating her.
Good point about the loaded beans!
We do have some of the GI dry feed from when she had a bug, might offer her that.
Hey, thanks for your reply.
All the best to you and yours.

 

[The Popster]

Thanks.
Just offered Poppy her Royal Cannin GI feed. ( Supplied when she had the bug).
She ate it happily!!
Very Interesting.
When she was 'ill' she ate it, but after 2 or 3 days turned her nose up.
Either way great to see her noshing.
For now.

 

[Dechi]

With poodles you need to be the one in charge and once you’ve found a food the dog likes, stick to it. Of course you need ro make sure there are no medical issues. But if not, then that’s how it is. If not you’ll end up cooking homemade fancy stuff and it still won’t be enough. They’re intelligent dogs so why would they settle for dog food if they can get filet mignon ?

 

[WinnieThePoodle]

Winnie is just over 7 months old (mini poo) and she goes through periods where she doesn't want to eat much. She has kibble dry during the day (or sometimes with a little drizzle of salmon oil) and kibble in the evening with a little bit of wet food (only a little bit of wet food, maybe a third of a tray or pouch). When she is hungry she eats it all. Sometimes she doesn't eat very much at all. She is healthy in every way so I just leave the food down for 20 or 30 minutes and then it gets picked up. She won't starve. She knows how much she wants to eat. We weighed her when she was 6 months old and she was 7.5kg (she is full mini poo height).

 

[CieCie]

Welcome to this great community! Our old spoo didn't become hard to feed until her last year and our new pup will eat anything she can get ahold of and I'm sure our home would be in a real panic if she ever walked away from her food bowl. I agree about them being so smart she might choose to hold out for that delicious chicken over anything else but for now we'll consider it a win that she ate her GI feed. Yay! Let us know how the next few days go. 😊🐾❤

 

[PeggyTheParti]

Had a good laugh at your entertaining introduction. Thanks for that and welcome! Flippin’ hell, indeed. Lol.

Despite my previous experience with poodles, Peggy was quite the eye-opener for me. She is sensitive and brilliant and excellent at self-regulating her diet. I fell into calling her picky at the start, but quickly realized she knows what she needs and I can trust her. Food can go off. It can have ingredients that cause an uncomfortable tummy. All sorts of things can make a poodle abruptly turn up her nose. So we did lots of trial and error, and made frequent use of our local pet food store, which offers free samples.

We now feed a wet food that is essentially just shredded chicken. She gets a small dollop for each meal, and then in a separate bowl (important so it doesn’t get contaminated by the wet food) she gets Farmina kibble, which we top up throughout the day as necessary.

Some days she’s ravenous. Some days she barely grazes. These fluctuations, which we’ve diligently tracked over the past 1.5 years, have been linked with growth spurts, hormonal changes, teething, illness, and sometimes nothing we could decipher.

One constant is that she loves to work for food, so we have a second brand of kibble (Honest Kitchen), which we hand feed throughout the day in short training sessions. She also gets it as a bedtime snack and during grooming. If I were to fill a bowl with it, she’d eat it sporadically like the Farmina. But in these contexts, she consistently gobbles it down.

 

[PeggyTheParti]

(Should add that we would never leave the wet food out for more than 20-30 minutes. In the rare case she doesn’t eat it in that time, it goes in the fridge and is offered one more time, then it goes in the garbage.)

 

[Rose n Poos]

Hi and Welcome!

Good points all around made above. Poodles generally self-regulate. Poodles will decide the menu, if allowed - with a caveat.

In my now 7 miniature poodle lifetime, I've had one that I had defined as picky - until I discovered that I had simply never found a kibble that he actually liked. I felt terrible realizing that he'd just been tolerating food for the previous 2 years.

For the last year and some, every day, 2 times a day, he happily eats his base kibble to the shiny bottom of the bowl. By happy, I mean he does a happy dance while I'm fixing it.

What does change daily is the topper. This is usually a small amount of bits of unseasoned pan fried chicken with a small amount of plain rice for the early meal, and bits of whatever we had for dinner, minus dog unfriendly ingredients, for the dinner topper.

 

[The Popster]

Had a good laugh at your entertaining introduction. Thanks for that and welcome! Flippin’ hell, indeed. Lol.

Despite my previous experience with poodles, Peggy was quite the eye-opener for me. She is sensitive and brilliant and excellent at self-regulating her diet. I fell into calling her picky at the start, but quickly realized she knows what she needs and I can trust her. Food can go off. It can have ingredients that cause an uncomfortable tummy. All sorts of things can make a poodle abruptly turn up her nose. So we did lots of trial and error, and made frequent use of our local pet food store, which offers free samples.

We now feed a wet food that is essentially just shredded chicken. She gets a small dollop for each meal, and then in a separate bowl (important so it doesn’t get contaminated by the wet food) she gets Farmina kibble, which we top up throughout the day as necessary.

Some days she’s ravenous. Some days she barely grazes. These fluctuations, which we’ve diligently tracked over the past 1.5 years, have been linked with growth spurts, hormonal changes, teething, illness, and sometimes nothing we could decipher.

One constant is that she loves to work for food, so we have a second brand of kibble (Honest Kitchen), which we hand feed throughout the day in short training sessions. She also gets it as a bedtime snack and during grooming. If I were to fill a bowl with it, she’d eat it sporadically like the Farmina. But in these contexts, she consistently gobbles it down.

Many Thanks.

 

[The Popster]

Welcome to this great community! Our old spoo didn't become hard to feed until her last year and our new pup will eat anything she can get ahold of and I'm sure our home would be in a real panic if she ever walked away from her food bowl. I agree about them being so smart she might choose to hold out for that delicious chicken over anything else but for now we'll consider it a win that she ate her GI feed. Yay! Let us know how the next few days go. 😊🐾❤

Sorry such a late response, but new here and....
Truth is Poppy still is doing our heads in when it comes to eating, but re exaimining comments here we see some good points.
We wondered if she is simply self regulating, simply not hungry not burnt enough energy....
She will get stuck into her minced lamb, but next meal turn her nose up. Then we discover she wants her 'boring' Royal Cannin GI 'pellets'.
Boiled chicken ? Yes absoulutely .... to begin with, then depends. ( Gosh the amount that ends up in the garbage).
But one thing we noticed, offered her her chicken in the food bowl.... nose turned up, then put it in one of her puzzle toys and she ate it!
It's a voyage of discovery.

 

[The Popster]

'With poodles you need to be the one in charge and once you’ve found a food the dog likes, stick to it.'

Oppps ... true of all dogs, but yup Poodle especially ...
I believe we are deluding ourselves that we 'get' this, I fear we have not quite 'got' it.
We are old soppy fools, who after 30 years without a dog.....
Oh gosh.

 

[The Popster]

Well we tried her with some liver. ( calves liver).
Raw not interested, but lightly pan fried?
Ate it very happily.
Likes quails eggs too.
This morning put down her lamb mince, which she happily ate yesterday, but turned her nose up.
Until Sue spoon fed her!!!!
This has happened before, accepts 'mum' feeding her from a spoon.
I mean, really ????
Poppy does love a bone though.

 

[Yellow]

You could try " ditch the dish" it is used for training. figure out kibble amount you would feed for a day and use that through out the day for training. She will be looking for her food because it isn't fed all at once. Be sure and get a good kibble. go to a natural dog food store and they will have well researched food. You could also have chicken on hand to use through out the day for her. Egg is good to add. Yogurt frozen in a Kong would be nice afternoon treat.

 

[PeggyTheParti]

It sounds like you’re offering Poppy a lot of yummy, rich foods that are very filling (lamb, eggs) but not necessarily complete meals.

If you wish to feed a raw or homemade diet, you need to be very careful to ensure it’s well balanced. I’ve researched this myself and got overwhelmed.

If you are only supplementing her diet with these yummy things, you have to be very careful you’re not filling Poppy up with them so she has no room (or desire) left for a well-balanced meal. We recently encountered this with some jerky Peggy loved. She started turning her nose up at dinner because she’s very good at self-regulating and her belly was full of meat. Yes, we could tempt her with kibble if we “animated” it (such as on a spoon, as your wife has discovered) or fed it in a puzzle or as part of training, but her reluctance at meal time was giving us a clear message: I’m not hungry.

Have you tried tracking everything Poppy eats for a week or two and seeing how many calories she’s consuming? She’s still a growing girl, right? So it’s extra important her meals are nutritionally balanced.

 

[Rose n Poos]

I'm going along with PTP on this now. Poppy is a miniature and 10 or 11m old now, if I've got the numbers right.

She's been allowed to dictate the menu since, well, a long time.
This is time for tough love, or you'll be doing this for a very looooong time, if you're lucky.

How tall is Poppy at the shoulder and how much does she weigh?

She needs a reset. A balanced diet is super important for long term health, and based only on the snippets here, her diet doesn't sound very balanced.

Balanced diet isn't just having a range of ingredients, it's also a proper combination of nutrients and how those ingredients mix with each other to provide proper nutrition.

I'm going to copy the information from the kibble I use as my boy's daily base food. I'm not suggesting that you switch Poppy to this, just offering it as an example. Purina has staff veterinary nutritionists to develop the various formulas for different sizes, life stages, and other specific needs. They are meeting the AAFCO guidelines for the foods and those guidelines are recommended to be followed by the WSAVA (World Small Animal Veterinary Association). Other companies, I believe RC is one, do this also. Look for AAFCO on labels.
---
PURINA PRO PLAN BRAND DOG FOOD SMALL BREED SHREDDED BLEND CHICKEN & RICE
FORMULA

For more information about how we source all of our ingredients, check out Every Ingredient has a Purpose.
Guaranteed Analysis

Ingredient	Amount
Crude Protein (Min)	29.0%
Crude Fat (Min)	17.0%
Crude Fiber (Max)	3.0%
Moisture (Max)	12.0%
Linoleic Acid (Min)	1.5%
Calcium (Ca) (Min)	1.0%
Phosphorus (P) (Min)	0.8%
Selenium (Se) (Min)	0.35 mg/kg
Vitamin A (Min)	15,000 IU/kg
Vitamin E (Min)	460 IU/kg
Ascorbic Acid* (Min)	70 mg/kg
Glucosamine* (Min)	400 ppm
Omega-6 Fatty Acids* (Min)	1.7%
Bacillus coagulans* (Min)	600 million CFU/lb
*Not recognized as an essential nutrient by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles.

RECOMMENDED DAILY FEEDING AMOUNTS
Using a standard 8 oz/250 ml measuring cup which contains approximately 97 g of Pro Plan.

Weight	Feeding Amount
(lbs)	(kg)	(cups)	(grams)
3 - 12	1.4 - 5.4	1/2 to 1	49 - 97
13 - 20	5.9 - 9.1	1-1/4 to 1-1/2	122 - 146

We recommend that you keep your dog in ideal body condition and not allow your dog to become overweight. The exact amount of food your dog requires will need to be adjusted according to age, activity and environment. But a good place to start is with these guidelines for an average, active, adult dog fed once daily.

MAKING THE SWITCH TO PRO PLAN
Although you’ll be anxious to see the difference Pro Plan can make in your dog, please allow 7 - 10 days to ease the transition from your dog’s current food. Each day, simply feed a little less of the previous food and a little more Pro Plan until you’re feeding Pro Plan exclusively. This gradual transition will help avoid dietary upsets.

Contains a source of live (viable) naturally occurring microorganisms.

Provide adequate fresh water in a clean container daily.

For your pet’s health, see your veterinarian regularly.

Calorie Content (fed)
4075 kcal/kg
397 kcal/cup
---
For the sake of example, let's say that Poppy now weighs 12lbs/almost 5.5kg.

The total daily calorie intake based on the nutrition provided by this particular food is 397 kcal per cup and 1 cup daily is the total if feeding only this kibble and not a tidbit more.

My miniature boys each get half that amount of kibble daily because the additional calories are made up from toppers to their morning and evening meals, and a few treats thru the day.

Yellow's suggestion to use her kibble as training treats is a good option, but you'll need to portion it all out prior and stick to it. It also isn't setting a pattern for regular mealtimes, which may only be important if you won't be traveling with her, or won't need to have regular mealtimes for her.

If you want to encourage regular mealtimes, and if she's always going to be the only dog in the house, I also like PTP's method with Peggy.

A portion of Peggy's daily meal is some sort of wet food which she usually eats straightaway. You can switch up flavors and such, just keep an eye on the calories and nutritional analysis. If Peggy doesn't eat that within a short time it gets picked up, refrigerated, and brought out one more time for her later meal.
Her kibble portion is left out thru the day and she grazes on that as needed.

What I like about this is that the wet portion almost always gets eaten so you know that some nutrition is going in.
You could combine the two methods by putting down the wet potion as described above and use the kibble portion as training treats.

I'm all for finding foods that my pup likes but that doesn't mean I'm struggling every 2-3 days to find something, anything that my (what I thought was a) picky eater would eat. 4 months since I wrote of our experience above, he still performs his happy dance with the same kibble and the variations with the toppers . In his case, it was simply finding a kibble that he liked.

Poppy may have been inadvertently encouraged to dine from the menu without prices .

Indulging Poppy isn't actually in her best interest. So long as there's no health issue causing the pickiness, she will eat when she's hungry, and she may need to actually get hungry to appreciate the good food offered.

 

[PeggyTheParti]

@Rose n Poos, you’re so fab at aggregating info. I especially love how you gather and sprinkle in little tidbits from other members, too. You have such a kind heart and clever mind. Thanks for sharing them with us.

 

[Rose n Poos]

(😊 TY and back atcha!)

Truth is, everybody contributes, whether this thread or another .

Shared knowledge is a powerful thing .

 

[The Popster]

TO ALL ABOVE
Thank you all soooo much!

'Thanks for sharing them with us. ' , absolutely

@ Yellow @PeggyTheParti @ Rose n Poos - Poppy came to us from the breeder 'on' Kibble. Round about 2 weeks into being with us she turned her nose up at the Kibble.
For us this was PANICK STATIONS !
She's a puppy, growing developing, she has to eat!
We tried a wet puppy food, which she wolfed down happily. We did start by doing the suggested mix, to avoid upsetting her tummy, but the kibble just got left.
Another week or so she turned her nose up at the wet puppy food brand we were using.
Then began the journey of trying this and that, most on first couple of meals 'wolfed' down with relish, but more and more quickly turning her nose up.
Interestingly, as each new food was introduced with the usual advice to introduce slowly, it became apparent that Poppy seems to be able to change her food without upsetting her tummy.
Good poos almost without fail. ( I read somewhere that Poodle poo tends to be soft )? Poppy's stools are not usually soft soft, in fact quite often roll down a slope.
This journey ended up more and more expensive and wasteful. ( Smell from the kitchen bin ..... ).
We ended up with boiled chicken and rice.
Chicken pieces for training too.
Oh boy, just realised this really could end up a long history of Poppy's cuisine...
But actually I think you all know exactly how it goes.
Teaching grandma to suck ... Quails eggs.
Poppy likes raw mince, but prefers Lamb to Beef.
Poppy does like boiled chicken, but not so much in her dinner bowl, more in her puzzle toys and for training.
Poppy likes liver, but not raw, panfried.
Poppy likes carrots, but not cooked.
Poppy likes potatoe - mashed, and boiled.
Poppy absolutely loves a bone from the butchers.
Poppy seems to know when she needs her bland Royal Cannin gastro pellets.
Poppy will eat a tinned dog food on very very rare occasions.
Poppy loves treats , but even these come in for picky selection !!!! ( Bought 2000 tiny liver training 'pills' - these are now refused ).
Poppy of course is very keen on what ever me and Sue are eating. ( She does NOT get a tit bit from us, unless it is 'ok'. Hence my food is somewhat bland as Sue cooks with Poppy in mind )
( Sounding misoginistic ....sorry ).
Poppy likes eating bloody sticks and roots.

Yeah , there's a thing.
Read how Poodles can be ( not sure about the 'can be' ), fussy eaters and yet can be ( not sure about the 'can be' ) extreme scavangers!!
Turn your up nose at the latest expensive canine gastro delight we have got you, and yet eat that disgusting god knows what you found in the gutter ? Brilliant !!
And you are renown for your inteligence you ... you ... little beautiful treasure!

'She's been allowed to dictate the menu since, well, a long time.' - Guilty.

'A balanced diet is super important for long term health, and based only on the snippets here, her diet doesn't sound very balanced.' - This is what we are afraid of.

This morning she had her aperitif - chicken wrapped chew. ( half ). This happens so often, turns up her nose at dinner bowl, but after a 'chew' comes back and eats!
55g of minced lamb.
Quails egg.
10g of panfried liver.
1 duck breat treat.
Water of course.

Last weigh in 2 days ago 7.03 kg ( Poppy will be 10months old in August ).
Height at the shoulder measured 37 cm from ground to top of shoulder.

We have also wondered and think Poppy may be a bit more of a grazer ? And that she might not be hungry because she .... just isn't hungry.
And the discovery that she might not want to eat out of her bowl, but if she has to 'work' for the food she will eat it.

Anyway, thanks so much everyone ... appreciate advice and can see this is not entirely unusual.

Our old dog Kipper ( 30 years ago ), typical dog wolfed down whatever was put down in front of him.
So this is a wierd thing for us.

Oh, we do give Poppy a course of the pro biotic paste every month or so.

Thanks ( From Poppy too ).( Poor girl stuck with us neurotic panicky over gooey 'parents' ).