One of my fears about nurturing a child is getting them to eat when they blatantly refuse to. My mum told me stories of being a difficult baby as regards food and I was so tiny because I refused to eat. I had a small appetite so I was often forced to eat.
I don't buy the idea of forcefully feeding a child in the typical African mother style so it bothers me how I would carefully coerce a child that refuses to eat. I tried with my niece and coercion doesn't always work. At least I had the option of giving her back to her mother when she stressed me too much.
Well, Panda is starting to give me a taste of my fear I think. Panda loves food so much, both her dog food and even human food. There's no limit for her and she never seems to be full.
However, she refuses to eat sometimes. The first time that happened, I was scared and thought she must have been sick. We had the vet check her and he said she was alright.
Since then, there are times she doesn't eat and it has become frequent. I expected it because the vet mentioned a change in appetite was going to happen, but not so soon.
Whenever I serve her food and she doesn't eat, I nudge her towards the food and it works sometimes. Other times I've had to take out the food from the bowl and then put it back to make it seem like I put in new food. That works too.
There are a few times when she didn't eat at all and I've had to throw away the food. I then started feeding her like a human baby. I put the food in my hand and she eats from my hand. I do it once or twice and then she goes into the bowl herself to finish up the rest.
In recent times, like today for instance, when I stop giving her food from my hand she doesn't go into the bowl anymore. She waits for me to continue feeding her instead.
I felt good that she ate at least but I'm worried about what that means. Am I doing it wrong? Am I spoiling her? Or does she just like being babied and there's nothing more to it?
Does anyone else feed their dogs from their hands even when the dog is in a healthy state? How else can I get her to eat? So many questions!
I feed her canned dog food of either beef, sausage or chicken. Sometimes I give her a little human food mixed with dog food. I also give her bones and fish too. She's almost 6 months old now and I wonder if she's tired of these foods already.
Please indulge me, how do you deal with a puppy's appetite?
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