Discovery!

Puggles

(Geisha)

will eat regular kibble if she is fed by hand!

It took the doxies two days of sniffing kibble to realize I would not be breaking open a can of soft dog food anytime soon. Now they hop and wiggle for their dry dog food.

But Puggles would not eat anything. Granted, she seriously needed to loose weight. And she was getting more active by the day during her outdoor time. She was also drinking plenty of water. So I figured she would eat when she was ready.

But she never wanted to even come near the food dish. Then Saturday we had beef steak, and Clancy cut off all the gristle, bone, and fat after it was broiled. I decided to feed Puggles by hand, a small amount of gristly meat cut into tiny pieces, just to see if she would take it. She loved it. But she wouldn't come out of her kennel for it. Three of the pieces sat in a dog dish only six inches in front of her crate, and it took her all afternoon to work up the courage to surreptitiously nab them one at a time.

So I have decided that working on Puggle's fear of being out of her crate is more important than her eating out of a dish like the other dogs. This morning I used a bit more meat to tempt her out. She leaned out of her crate door quite a ways to take the meat from my fingers. Good start. And just to see if she would, I offered her the weight-watcher's kibble...and she took that from my hand as well!

I guess I will be hand feeding the pug for a while. But at least she will eat something. It is sad to see her so fearful of being in the house. There are only three places in which she is at ease: outdoors, in her crate, or installed on someones lap on the sofa. All transitions between these places cause her great anxiety. But we are working on it. And she has already made quite a bit of progress. I believe she will one day be a well-adjusted dog if her new family can have compassion for her issues and continue to work with her on them.