
If you offer a different meal every time your pet refuses a meal, the pet will learn that it can refuse food until something nicer is presented. Any changes in their normal life, such as moving or a new member, or environmental causes like a storm, can put them under stress and make them lose their appetite.įinally, you could be the reason your pet becomes a picky eater. However, standing close by or hovering makes the pet wary as they feel pressured while eating, Watch, but from a distance.Īny form of other stress, anxiety, or fear will also decrease appetite in pets. You should keep an eye on your pet while they are eating, so in case the pet starts to choke you can step in quickly. Males have been known to disregard food if they are within the radius of a female on heat. Even post-adolescence, some females avoid food when they are on their heat cycle. Just like us people, their bodies are undergoing psychological and hormonal changes, which makes them moody and brings on picky eating behavior. This is when they enter into their adolescent developmental period. Puppies have a second time when then get fussy about food. In such a case, offer mashed or ground meals until your puppy’s mouth is no longer sensitive. During this time the puppy is common for puppies to avoid eating chewing hard or large pieces of food because of mouth discomfort or pain. The puppy teething stage begins at 14 weeks of age and goes on until the puppy is around 25 weeks old. This feline food imprinting behavior is often mistaken as picky eating behavior. If your cat has been consuming one type of food for a long time, it most likely has imprinted that food as the safest option. The cat views only one type of food as safe and all-new options are considered dangerous. This can cause food aversion as well.Ĭats differ from dogs in the sense they have a survival mechanism that they develop at a very young age. Sometimes the smell of certain foods can trigger negative emotions if your pet had a bad experience when the same food was presented earlier.

It is nothing but a safety mechanism that is triggered to avoid consuming food that consistently causes illness.

If your pet has recently become sick after eating a particular food, then it subconsciously identifies the food as dangerous and will avoid it in the future. Resolve the medical condition, if any, and you will most certainly resolve the problematic picky eating behaviour. Check with the veterinarian if your pet has been recently vaccinated. Recent vaccinations: Sometimes recent vaccinations can also cause a pet to lose its appetite.Dental disease: Could there be a mouth injury? Fractured teeth to gum disease can make a pet give up eating.

Finicky dog eater driver#
Picky eating behavior: Don’t cater to your pet’s unnatural eating habitįood is the driver for our dogs and cats.
