Puppy Power

I have a puppy.  Actually, she is my daughter’s puppy.  Actually, she is no longer a puppy, being nearly eleven years old.  My daughter married almost five years ago, and Emma, who is a long haired Chihuahua, refused to move with her.  We tried to get her acclimated to East Texas, but she missed the city life.

Last fall, I needed to go away on business, so I hired a pet sitter to come and look after Emma for the weekend.  The pet sitter is a client of mine, and she took no time informing me that I was feeding Emma all the wrong kinds of food.  She further instructed me as to what type of food Emma needed, and where I could purchase it locally.  Believing that organic nutrition is the best for all organic creatures, I was not offended.. In fact, we had purchased an ‘organic’ brand of food at one of the pet big box stores, but pet sitter said it was rubbish.

Fortunately for  Emma, pet sitter left a store of samples for me.  The Hubz and I have spent mega bucks at the specialty organic dog food boutique.  We tried to buy the same food that Emma was introduced to.  The proprietor of the boutique has also been very generous with samples for Emma.

Emma has the power.  She refuses to eat any of the organic offerings I put before her.  I used to use a blue plastic dog dish.  You know the kind: a side by side model with one half for food and the other half for water.  We never had a problem with Emma eating before I switched her to organic feed.  I have upgraded her dish to a crystal one, in hopes that she will be so enticed with the prisms of the dish that she will accept the organic fare.

No, Emma has the power.  She will probably eat one day out of three.  We thought that maybe her teeth were hurting, so we substituted raw food for dry food.  No success.  We then substituted raw freeze-dried organic feed.  We had success about a third of the time.  We then decided to add tripe to the food, thinking that as a predator (she has canines after all) she would be drawn to her roots and tempted with the feed.  Finally, we bought some wet food, which smells great, and I am told is the same grade of food that I eat.  Still no success.  What she will eat is what I eat.  She wants to sit at the table (ok, under the table) and beg, pray, hope that The Hubz and I will drop a morsel for her.

Emma has the power.   We have been spending a good deal of time and money trying to get our princess to eat feed that is good for her.  She is not impressed.  This has been going on since last October—nine months.

I am obviously very concerned.  Not only do I resent the time and dollars spent trying to support my puppy, unsuccessfully, but I am concerned that she is not getting the nutrients she needs to stay healthy.  I was prepared for a few weeks or maybe a month of finicky eating, but this is ridiculous.  If anyone has the answer to this problem, I welcome your suggestions.

Until next time,

Dr. Polly