Advice required for a dog who will not eat his dry nuts

I could not believe that I got genuine answers with 'dry nuts' in the title

I was trying to balance this with the telling off I would have received if I had not entered a suitable title
 
At least it shows we got true doggie people to respond with good advice not others who are out to "havealaugh" at titles!!
 
At least it shows we got true doggie people to respond with good advice not others who are out to "havealaugh" at titles!!

Feel free to join in if you find it amusing !
 
No thanks don't want to join in, as it's my dog's "dry nuts" that are under discussion i wouldn't find it amusing! thanks for all the useful responses, myself and Infoseeker will stick to the tough love approach, we going to change his dry food one last time and also try mixing in some Hills wet food for puppys which we got as a sample in a puppy pack and he loved, no more treats or "human food" for a while at least until he gets into more of a routine and releases that he can't run circles around us on the eating front! they are cleaverer than one would think!!!
 
No thanks don't want to join in, as it's my dog's "dry nuts" that are under discussion i wouldn't find it amusing!

Sorry if I gave offence, didn't intend to , I'm sure all dogs suffer from "dry nuts" at some point in their life !
 
My friend has a dog who won't eat his nuts, (Boom Boom). Anyhow he mixed it with a drop of milk and now the dog can't get enough of them.
 
hi all

I'm a vet this advice is what I recommend to my own clients. Dry food is a lot better for your dog. For one, tinned food causes a lot of tooth tartar which will lead to tooth decay and expensive dentals! Secondly dry food can be left for the day and your dog can come and go as he pleases without the food going stale or smelling your house out.

The main thing to do whrn you are changing your dogs diet or habit is to do it gradually, usually over a period of 2-3 weeks. i would suggest mixing the nuts with the scraps from the table and gradually decrease the amount of table scraps.

Remember, dogs are stubborn but their hunger will always win out in the end.

Best of luck!!
 
Yes the one thing I would worry about definitely is tooth decay. Is there any real way you can tell if they're having problems with their teeth? Going back to the chocolate, a few years ago my cousin came and I was gone so she left me a box of roses outside the door near a flower pot. Needless to say I found a lot of sweet papers under a bush but no roses, thankfully no harm was done on that occasion!
 
check if there is tartar on the teeth. a small bit is normal and not a problem usually but if there is a lot on it their breath will be really smelly, the gums at the base of the teeth will be inflamed and red. the dog may also have difficulty chewing their food if they have a problem with their teeth. I find the pedigree dentastix relly good as a preventative.
Don't worry too much about chocolate. Its only a problem in vast quantities!
 
Might sound strange but my dad used to put cold black tea on our dog's dinner (choosing my words carefully) and he loved it
 
We were recently told by our vet to change to the royal canin dry food as our collie cross is getting a bit plump. According to him the companies making dry food that can be bought in vets surgeries spend the majority of their budgets on good ingredients whereas the best known wet food brands spend a fortune on advertising and put the bottom of the barrel waste meat into their foods.
 
Our dog, a sheltie was off his food, listless, salivating a lot, took him to the vet, it was his teeth and gums, Vet said we had to brush his teeth every day, I do about 2-3 times a week. Vet had to put him under anesthetic to clean his teeth, very distressing for our dog, particularly, coming out of anesthetic. If a human only brushed their teeth once a week, they would surely have v.bad gum disease. I think a lot of dog owners neglect their dogs teeth, with a lot of dogs silently suffering,

I'm not accusing any posters, but it can be the cause of dog losing
appetite, listlessness, if you just check their gums, red, tenderness,
tartar build up, lot of salivation, you will know. If anyone knows good way
to brush dogs teeth, I would love to know, currently use a baby toothbrush, which is awkward, and special dog brown toothpaste.
 
Elphaba,

in reply to your query, i'm the other half to the OP and it's our dog who is the source of orig query but one area i don't have problems with him is brushing his teeth he loves it, i do it most days i'd say 5 out of 7,the other days i use dentasticks but my vet advised not to use them as a substitute to brushing,like humans eating chewing gum! what i find great with our guy is the finger brushes, you put them on your index finger and it gives you more control and he can't bite them,we got ours online with zooplus i think,also we got toothpaste with them aswell and he loves it,obviously it must taste lovely! but i do agree with you i would never have thought brushing teeth would be as important.
 
Might sound strange but my dad used to put cold black tea on our dog's dinner (choosing my words carefully) and he loved it
Not in the least. My father who was quite a succesful greyhound trainer in the 50s/60s used to give them strong tea (with milk)!
 
Seeing as there rae so many knowledgable dog owner, can I ask a few questions as we're going to get a dog shortly:
- brushing : do you use regular brush (soft I assume) & toothpaste or is there a specific dog brand. What the the one you put on your finger & where can you get it from?
- dry food seems to be the way to go....but seem to be mixed advice on whether it should be mixed with a liquid. I thought the benifit of dry was that the chewing helps to clean the teeth. So should it be wet or dry? And if wet, whats the best liquid to put in?
- Wet food - really not keen on tins at all. But I agree about variety. If I was to cook up a pot of food, what would anyone suggest (eg - approx % of meat, veg etc)

Thanks
 
- Wet food - really not keen on tins at all. But I agree about variety. If I was to cook up a pot of food, what would anyone suggest (eg - approx % of meat, veg etc)

The problem with a lot of wet foods is that they're 80% (or more) moisture, which means very little nutritive value. I feed my dogs the occasional pouch or tin of food, but it is generally mixed in with their dry food.

I cook a lot of food for my dogs. There are no hard and fast rules, as far as I'm concerned - it really depends on what you have in the fridge, or what you're prepared to buy for your dog. If I'm making a chicken dish, I save around half a chicken fillet for the dogs. I cut it up and boil it with a handful of veggies and some pasta. They often have home-made stew too. Sometimes they just get boiled pasta and veggies, which they wolf down just as quickly as they do the meat dishes. A couple of points I will make, though, is that they shouldn't have too many high-carbohydrate foods (so go easy on potatoes and pasta), and minced beef can lead to sloppy poops. And I don't know about other dogs, but my Samoyed gets completely freaked out when I boil liver, for some strange reason! She'll eat it no bother, but she runs from the kitchen while it's cooking. Very very odd ...