Average Reading Time: 3 minutes, 10 seconds

©Scott Sheaffer, CBCC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA, USA Dog Behavior, LLC

“My dog is a picky eater – What can I do?” is a common question for many dog owners. It’s actually a much easier behavior problem to address than most dog owners realize.

Money motivates people, but food is the monetary system of dogs. Food is an important variable in a dog’s behavior and needs to be controlled by the dog’s owner and not by the dog.

I’ve provided five ideas below to help you get a handle on this. If your dog is unhealthy, senior, very young, or on a diet protocol as suggested by a veterinarian, these suggestions may not be applicable or appropriate.

Scheduled feeding is best. Free-feeding, versus scheduled feeding, is when dog owners fill a bowl with food and leave it out for the dog 24 hours a day, topping it off as needed.

Free-feeding has a number of drawbacks:
- Your dog makes no connection between you and the food you provide. They think there is a magic food bowl that dispenses food independent of you.
- It’s unsanitary. Would you want to eat like this?
- You don’t have control of how much, or how little, food your dog is eating. Not surprisingly, this practice is associated with overweight and underweight dogs.
- Dog training treats become less motivating for the dog because they have access to food all the time.
- You miss a great daily opportunity to teach impulse control to your dog by having them wait for your cue before eating.

Scheduled feeding (normally once or twice a day for healthy adult dogs) can get otherwise finicky eaters into eating when you want them to eat.

How does it work? Put the food bowl down for 20 minutes. If your dog isn’t actively eating or done with their food after this amount of time, pick up the bowl and try it again at the next regularly scheduled feeding. In a very short amount of time (usually 12-48 hours), your dog will happily eat when the food is presented. Mother Nature has a wonderful way of making this happen - appetite.

You’ve heard of a topper, but a bottomer is much better. A topper is when dog owners put something extra delicious on top of their dog’s regular food. A bottomer, on the other hand, is simply putting the something extra on the bottom of their food bowl (i.e., put the bottomer in the food bowl first followed by their regular food).

This works well because it forces the dog to eat through their regular food before getting the good stuff. It’s dessert, not an appetizer. You’ll want to slowly fade the bottomer out until your dog is happily just eating their regular food.

Here are some great bottomer ideas I’ve discovered:
- Plain white Greek yogurt
- Canned dog food
- A small amount of cat food (dry or wet)
- Chicken broth
Don’t change their food. If you have a dog that is picky about their food, don’t change what you are feeding them. Once you find a food that agrees with them (i.e., taste and digestibility), there is no reason to change it. Dogs are 100% happy eating the same food for years. By changing foods, you run the risk of having them reject each new food or having to deal with gastrointestinal issues caused by food changes.
Stay away from your dog’s food bowl when they are eating. Dog owners forget sometimes (I’m guilty of this too) that dogs are animals. Animals are predisposed to guarding their food. How would you react if someone at a nearby table in a restaurant decided to sample your food? Would this make you want to eat in front of that person?

Messing with your dog’s food causes them stress and can sometimes make them wait to eat until you are not around. Please, stay away from your dog’s food when they are eating - this is especially true for children. And don’t “test” to see if they are food aggressive by putting your hand in or near their bowl. This “testing” can actually teach a dog to resource guard their food.

Bottom line, stay away from your dog when they are eating in order to create a more relaxed eating environment for them.
Watch the dog treats. Dog owners sometimes forget that extra treats given to dogs between meals can be filling to dogs. If your dog is a picky eater, slow down or eliminate these treats in order to ramp up their appetite for when you would like them to eat.