Picky Boy Or Rotten Teen?

Harry can be a bit strange.  Don't get me wrong.  I love him to the moon and back, but we went through some crazy stuff with him, mostly focused around his eating habits.  For a short time after we got him, we tried feeding him a raw diet.  That went ok for a little while, but he eventually turned his nose up to the idea  of the raw meat.  We ended up feeding him the kibble that Bella was getting, but they both suddenly turned their noses up to it.  This was a high quality food that I had been feeding for a long time and was the only line we offered for sale at the kennel.

So, after no success with other super high quality kibble (and VERY expensive, I might add) we tried raw again.  Maybe this time, now that he was older and had his adult teeth, he would stick with it.  Well, it sort of was ok, but he just seemed so sickly.  Sometime in late May or early June I stopped in to our obedience trainer for some advice.  He feeds strictly raw to his dogs.  We ended up buying some really expensive frozen raw from him.  Harry ate some of it, but mostly it was a bust.  I was terribly worried about him.  He was losing weight, seemed unhappy, and we were fast approaching our June camping trip.  What were we going to bring for him to eat?

We ended up bringing a bag of good quality kibble and canned food with us, that he sort of ate, but only with some amount of vigor after a really long hike.  Even the chipmunks would get in on the action when he was taking his time or refusing altogether.

We got through the camping trip ok, and once home we gave raw one more shot after he turned his nose up once again.  The raw went ok for a while, but it just did not seem to work well for him.  The whole thing was horribly upsetting.  We tried a high quality, grain-free kibble once again.  We would put the dish down and he would stare at it, make funny faces, sweep his nose across the floor as though he was trying to bury it, but sometimes would eventually eat some and occasionally all of it.  Terribly frustrating.

To skip ahead, Mrs came up with the idea of trying a little bit of canned salmon mixed in with Taste Of The Wild kibble and a bit of warm water. She also eliminated his stainless steel bowl and used a glass pie plate thinking (and apparently correctly so) that maybe he was having an issue with the reflection in the stainless bowl.  It seemed to be working.  Still, I was concerned about his system.  I made a Monday vet appointment for him and also Luna.  I had a blood workup done on Harry including tick borne illnesses.  All of these came up negative.  We have decided that much of his issue was his sex and age.  We're on to our second bag of Taste Of The Wild and still use canned salmon and/or salmon oil for him.  He is still eating and his weight is holding.

This past Monday he was neutered.  He was SO doped up and screwed up from the anesthesia, that I ended up putting one of the larger dog beds on the floor next to his in the dining room and sleeping next to him Monday night into Tuesday.  I was terrified that he was not going to come around to his old self.  A completely irrational thought having seen many dogs in this same state over the years.

Tuesday he seemed a bit better and even wagged his tail a bit.  By the afternoon he was doing very well. Poor Harry.  Thankfully he was so hungry after not eating for the surgery, he ate the kibble and salmon right up.  We think we have the weird picky phase licked, and are happy with the Taste Of The Wild  brand.  All three of the dogs are eating it up quite nicely.  Harry is also recovering nicely from his surgery.  Perhaps we are beyond this pointer being a teen-aged pointer, at least as far as his eating habits go.