[Dailydrool] Feeding issue & question

[Lisa Cook]

Hi everyone,
We have a situation with our 1-year old female basset hound.  At about 7
months of age, a couple weeks after her spay, Maeby became really fussy
about her feeding.  Prior to this time, she had a voracious
appetite...eating her kibble in less than 2 minutes.  But, after her spay,
and now, she has become quite picky...we constantly have to put some kind of
Iams sauce on her dry food, mix in some wet food, add cheese and/or ham, etc
otherwise she will not eat.  Even when she does eat, it take her about 10
minutes...she sifts through the food and eats the "good stuff", such as the
cheese and ham, before finally eating the kibble.  Plus we have to basically
follow her around with her food until she finally decides to take a nibble.
All of this would be ok if we didn't have another buppy, Lindsay-Lou, who
has that voracious appetite...she eats at the same time as Maeby, but
finishes her meal within a couple minutes and then either me or my husband
have to hold the little one back while Maeby slowly eats hers.

Now, I have read on the drool that we should only put the food down for
10-15 minutes and if she doesn't eat her food or begin to eat her food
within that time, we should take the food away.  After a couple missed
meals, the dog will learn to eat when the food is placed in front of her.
Now, I completely agree with this notion, believe me, but we have another
problem with Maeby.  We have learned that Maeby has a very delicate GI
system.  When we first picked her up from the breeder, she had a very bad
worm infestation...this was a very good breeder, by the way, who did treat
the puppies with a dewormer but learned that the dewormer didn't take.
Maeby was fortunate, in a way, because we picked her up a little early and
brought her to the vet for her check up and caught the worm infestation
before it got too bad...some of her siblings were not as fortunate, some
ending up with gait problems...the breeder has kept them as her own pets and
spent a lot of time and money trying to determine what happened to them, but
to this day, they still don't know what happened...

Anyway, the reason why I mentioned all of that about the worm infestation
when Maeby was a puppy was because we used some wet mixed with her dry food
to entice her to eat.  Once she started on the treatment, the puppy's
voracious appetite emerged.  And it remained until she was about 7 months
old.  Then she became very fussy.  We have tried the tough love approach and
taking her food away when she is being really picky, but when she misses her
meals for 24 hours, the next day she starts dry heaving, eating grass, and
vomiting.  Now, it's not as if she won't eat anything....if we gave her a
bowl of cookies or cheese, she would gobble it up.  She just will not eat
the dry kibble, even if it is mixed with wet food or anything else.  Quite
honestly, we are at a loss because we will not just feed her what she wants
to eat, but I can't also do something that will make sick.  Any
suggestions??

Lisa, mummy-girl to Maeby and Linday-Lou
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