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When a Little Prince gets tired of eating at the same old places, he has to search out a special place for a dinner date.
Hu-Dad’s study is a special place for dinner.
Typhoon has long been the finickiest eater of the Herd. Hu-Dad has prepared a whole array of meals including chicken, beef, salmon, satin balls, cheese, etc., etc., etc. Once one of those meals works a couple of times, Hu-Dad gets excited and thinks he has solved the puzzle. Hu-Dad will prepare a sizeable quantity of the currently desired dish and Typhoon will promptly decide he no longer likes that. People really do not believe that Typhoon has refused to eat steak, fish, poultry and so on, but he has.
And, yes, he loves to chase rabbits. Hu-Dad even got some rabbit for Typhoon to eat, but he turned his nose up. Chasing them is fun, but eating is declined.
In all previous canine residents of Chez Herd, Hu-Dad has employed the eat or else tactic. No dog would refuse to eat so many meals in a row, right? Typhoon broke that rule. He actually dropped weight to a dangerous level once in his refusal to eat, and he hardly has any extra to spare.
And, of course, Typhoon’s medical exams have been thorough (much to his displeasure of being touched) and blood has been analyzed with no cause identified.
So things were trucking along great for several weeks with Typhoon eating every bite of his meals, but he went off that routine a little over a week ago and started refusing to eat or only picking at his food. Hu-Dad has gone back to mixing up meals of various types trying to find the current solution.
Last night, Hu-Dad delivered the bowls to all of the dogs and Typhoon’s special dinner was placed in his crate. But Typhoon refused to even come up from the lower part of the yard to sniff the bowl. The battle of wills went back and forth until Hu-Dad finally decided to pick up the bowl and wait later in the evening. Sure enough, Typhoon ended up having dinner in Hu-Dad’s study about a half hour later.
And cleaned his bowl.
The Little Prince loves tormenting the Hu-Dad with his picky ways.
I wasn’t hungry 30 minutes ago.
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Our Hu-Dad shares the latest updates on his writing projects, the books he's reading, and other details in random musings posted on his website. You can check out his novels there as well.
Wings of Doom
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Eddie (also a husky, looks a lot like the younger Herd boys) won’t eat if he hasn’t had a walk – so on the rare days when I’m sick or really busy with work that we haven’t gone out properly (he’ll still get to sit outside and supervise the squirrels/rabbits/etc or do his business) he just won’t eat. He’ll be dozing on the couch with his stomach growling so loudly that it can be heard across the room, but he honestly doesn’t seem to notice and won’t touch his usual food. The first time it happened I was worried he had a bowel obstruction as it was so loud, but he was otherwise well. He did this last week, and I made a giant pot of plain rice-and-lentils at 10pm (1:1 ratio of each dry, add 3:1 water, cook for 1/2 hour or so) because I did not need to hear that growling all night long, and that did the trick as it’s one of his favourites. There was enough left for him to get some all week.
I’ve often wondered, does the ‘no touching’ include no scratching or petting for Typhoon?
To a large extent, yes.
Like much of everything else, the Little Prince decides when and where things work for him (thus, the nickname). He has his moments where ear scratches and butt rubs are ok, but then he will just as quickly walk away. And if you walk up to him to pet, he will grumble and walk away.
Basically, Typhoon is a cat in a Siberian Husky suit.
Oh my. Haha. The cat description is hilarious. And it makes me want to hug him and pet him and love on him, all the stuff he apparently doesn’t like. One of my dogs, I swear she rolls her eyes when I hug on her. The other one would cuddle all day. Both sibes. Both sisters from the same litter. As different as night and day.
Leena does something similar. Except for not as long a duration. She’ll eat something for awhile, then just stop for a few days. Sometimes she’ll only eat once a day, sometimes she’ll demand food twice a day…with the demand part being more described as “feed me or listen to me bounce from room to room barking, whining, and talking until you give me food”. Then it’ll disappear to her only wanting what you’re eating.
I’ve given up trying to figure it out, I almost never buy the same bag of food in a row at this point. Every single time I do, it becomes a “nope, I don’t want that now” battle. My cat is almost identical. Occasionally, I can get away with it with her, but I don’t even bother most of the time.
What is a satin ball?
My daughter says,” I’ve been there dude.”
You can find a variety of recipes, but it is a mix of raw hamburger, total cereal, oatmeal, eggs, wheat germ, unflavored gelatin, vegetable oil, and molasses. It is usually considered to be the ultimate, irresistible treat to help a dog gain weight.
Typhoon liked them . . . until he decided he no longer liked them.
Having dealt with kitties who were picky eaters, I can certainly empathize with your challenge with Typhoon. I think they get bored with the same food. I alternate proteins daily to keep Juno interested and add a little bit of beef or chicken, like a garnish, from my meals just to entice her.
I have the same dog only in a 12 lb version! Drives me crazy!!
I know exactly what you mean. Aries was like that too. I couldn’t afford the expensive stuff and his favorite food was the one I refused to give. Pedigree was that boys favorite food. The reason I refused to give it to him was because of the 2 recalls and it killing dogs. My brother lost 2 puppies and almost more and the mother because of the the first recall. I don’t know if you remember that. That was about 10 years ago and several dog food companies were buying very bad rice from China. I was buying 2 different kinds of dog food because Aries was so picky, but Roxy wasn’t. I gave in once and bought it. That was when the 2nd recall came out. I swear that is what caused it seizures. I can’t prove it, but after eating it he had seizures and not normal ones. He had grand malls from the very beginning. He also developed colitis as well and the vets had me make boiled chicken and rice or burger and rice. He ended up loving it so I started adding vegetables to it and that was his food. I never had a problem getting that boy to eat again. We had a friend that would clean out his freezer every year of the venison he didn’t eat from the years hunting and he gave it to us and I made dog food from that too. I would make a big pot and separate a certain amount for a few days at a time and freeze the rest and pull a few at a time out. Sometimes I would mix it with dry dog food to make it go further. You could always try the raw diet. I have read up on it a little. That on kind of scares me a little, but I’ve heard a lot of people like it for their dogs. Hugs and kisses to the herd.
I should mention that there is some misconception with raw that is meant to be cooked (from the grocery store,) and raw formulated to be eaten raw. Raw is the most expensive and cost prohibitive for a lot of people, unfortunately. It’s also what carnivores/omnivores have lived on for millennia.