# Suddenly stopped eating RMB?



## Augustine (Nov 22, 2014)

We switched Butters to raw a little over a month ago, and she has had literally 0 problems with it since. She always happily ate it up (to the point where she would actually beg us at first, until she learned to properly wait for her food), whether it was MM, RMB, OM, chicken, beef, turkey, you name it.

But the other day I noticed that just wasn't interested in eating her usual RMB. She'd gobble up the MM and the OM just the same as always, but for some reason she simply showed not interest in the RMB. I tried coaxing her into eating it - no dice. I tried waiting to see if she simply wasn't hungry - no dice. I tried coating them with egg (which she loves), and still, nothing.

We recently started feeding her more after her vet visit, because we discovered she was slightly underweight (I was feeding her based on a estimated adult weight of 80lb, when in reality she's estimated to be closer to 85-90lb at minimum), but she has had no problems eating all of the extra meat, and would even eat more if we offered it to her.

She gets a good variety of meat, but with the RMB we've only been able to give her poultry, i.e. chicken wings and legs, because that is the only type of bone she can actually eat. Everything else is too big for her to chew and swallow. 

There really isn't much else we can do in terms of RMB around here (it's either too big, or all of the smaller stuff is unavailable), but I'm going to try and see if we can get some whole fish for her to try. I'm also going to call our vet and see if she thinks that this warrants an early visit (her next vet visit is scheduled for the end of the month), but in the meantime I wanted to see if anyone else has any advice.


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## Sunflowers (Feb 17, 2012)

Standard weight for a GSD female is 48.5 to 70.5 pounds.

Why is the vet thinking she needs to weigh more?

Ok, I just looked at your past posts. Your dog is around 3 months old. How much does she weigh, and why was she determined to be underweight?

A raw fed puppy will be leaner than a kibble fed one, and that is fine.
They should be lean.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

Teething?


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## Augustine (Nov 22, 2014)

Sunflowers said:


> Standard weight for a GSD female is 48.5 to 70.5 pounds.
> 
> Why is the vet thinking she needs to weigh more?
> 
> ...


Butters is well above the standard. Both of her parents were in the 100lb range, and Butters is nearly 10lb above the "average" weight for a 3 m/o female.

She's been gaining weight now since I upped her portions, and she definitely looks a lot leaner and healthier. Before she looked significantly underweight, but at the time we assumed they were caused by the worms she had, and not that we were underfeeding her.


Anyways, today an idea came to me and I decided to see if she was having problems with the RMB as a whole, or just the bone. So I peeled the meat off the bone and offered her the meat; she ate it. Then, I offered her the bone, and she finally ate it as well!

I have no clue why she will only eat the bones if the meat is stripped off, but I will be doing that from now on (I'm also trying to leave a few bits of meat on so she can tear it off), but I'm still hoping she will go back to eating them like she normally did, since I know her tearing all of the meat off by herself is better for her.


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## Be&Luna (Nov 25, 2013)

My shepherd is sometimes picky with her bone too. She is 3 years old and weighs about 74 lbs. I have had a lot of people comment on her weight asking if she eats enough, and telling me she is too skinny. I would rather have a leaner skinny dog then a fat overweight dog. I feed her between 2-4 lbs of meat a day, depending on how active she is that day. I let her self regulate, if she doesn't seem interested in something I'll give her something else and then give her the meal she turned up another time. Sometimes she may go a day or two without eating even. She has a good covering of fat over her ribs and is a very happy and healthy dog. 

Maybe try switching the rmb that you are feeding your dog, give your dog more to choose from. My dog never turns down pork neck! I always serve the meat at room temperature, and sometimes she will let it sit out for hours before she'll eat it. I find if I serve rmb with organ or tripe she will almost always eat it all right away. Sometimes a little bit of natural honey drizzled over the meat helps interest them more. 

Hopefully those tips help a little bit. I always ask myself "what would the wild dog do?", would the wild dog have someone to rip the meat off the bone for them? Or would the wild dog eat whatever it could find? Good luck!


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