Puppy off his dog food

[sonic81]

My 9 month old pup has always loved his food, in fact he is really greedy and will eat anything we put down, as fast as possible.
Since Friday he has hardly been eating his dog food (he usually has 1 1/2 cans of Winalot a day)
Today he hasnt touched it at all, its still in his bowl.
I dont think he is ill as he will eat any 'human food' offered.
His mother is owned by my parents and is a really fussy eater - only eating human food!
I'm determined he wont go the same way and am tempted to leave the dog food and offer nothing else, however I obviously dont want him to get ill through not eating.
Any advice welcome!

[Rosetta]

Two alternaive reasons occurr to me
1) he is off his food because he is poorly in which case he needs checking by the vet

2) he is trying it on in the hope you will give in and just feed him human food. If this is the case you just need to tough it out with him

However I would get him checked by the vet first as you would feel bad if he was coming down with someting, whe you might want to be tempting his appetite with little treats

human food does not have the nutrients a dog needs so you are right in general to want to keep him on a doggy diet

Hope it goes well

[craft1948]

I had a dog who would only eat human's food. The vet found nothing wrong with her and told me to just put down dog food - it took 3 days before she ate anything but was fine after that.

[lankeela]

At nine months he should still be on two meals a day, so put down a breakfast and if he doesn't eat it within about 20 minutes take it up again. Do this with his evening meal, and if he doesn't eat then take it away again. Tinned food contains very little goodness, and he really needs some better quality food to help him grow properly and fill out.
Try him on a small amount of dry complete food with some of the tinned meat mixed in, and you can eventually get to the stage where you can leave dried food down all the time for him to eat as he wants.

[sonic81]

Hi, thanks for the responses.
Lankeela, we do feed him twice a day but have never had to do the 20 mins thing because the food disapears within a minute!
This morning he ate his breakfast as usual and has been fine since. I can only presume he was trying it on for better food!
Thanks

[~max~]

Oh, as long as he is fine otherwise, don't worry! they are manipulative little *******! lol
My cat does the same. She eats her normal dry food with no problem, but I made the mistake of giving her wet food as a xmas treat....Now she turns her nose up at her dry food, understandably. I didn't give her anything else to eat though, and she came round. A healthy pet , just like a child, will NOT starve voluntarily, don't worry. xxx