Acana is a very good food so if your dog is turning his nose up at that!

the hand feeding needs to stop.

By all means put his food in a kong, buster cube, wobbler, tug a jug.

You can freeze the food so it sticks, use a bit of peanut butter etc.

yes, you can use raw & kibble although their is a train of thought that says not at the same meal as carbs travel through body at a slower rate than raw.
Basically see how it goes.
I feed raw & kibble although not together. Raw in morning a small bone bone or chicken wing in afternoon and a little kibble in eve either as it comes or with a pilchard in tom sauce. I usually try to moisten mine but only because one of my dogs will suck it all in like a hoover then turn and spit it all back out again all over the floor like shotgun pellets!
3 times a week I substitute the raw mince with a large rib bone or a chicken carcass.
I often use skinners field & trial as it has good ingredients and is in the much lower price range
http://www.viovet.co.uk/Pet_Foods_Di...ck_find=113008

I agree with posts above about the feeding. I think it's the mothering instinct that makes us feel if our babes are eating we are caring for them but in all honesty he will eat when he's hungry and if he has a choice of eat or nothing he will soon decide to eat.

http://www.b-naturals.com/newsletter...d-with-kibble/

One of my puppies wouln't eat. Even at the breeders with all the sibling rivalry he hardly ate anything.

I tried for a week with food the breeder fed him - no success. So I put him on BARF. He hasn't looked back since. It was like he knew what nature intended him to thrive on.

http://www.petmaniacs.com.au/pages/r...edFeeding.html

as you will see, there are probably as many differing opinions on canine diet and how to go about it as there are different varieties of dog!

My advice would be to use common sense and observe your dog. There is a whole list of no-no's such as chocolate, onions etc etc but generally if he is happy, healthy & enjoying life then you can't ask for more and you must be doing something right.

As a matter of interest who is the author of this site and what are their qualifications in canine nutrition?

I recently successfully started feeding the min pin menace on chicken wings. She would eat a whole one at a go and that satisfied her it seemed for a day (with occasional tidbit in her kong - frozen peanut butter smear usually - best tip I picked up from this forum! - as she is used to getting a treat for being left alone when we come back)

Suddenly she seemed to lose all interest in the chicken wings. I then FROZE the chicken wings and she seemed happy with one of those a day again and it seemed she enjoyed the more difficulty in eating them as she loves gnawing stuff.

When she lost interest again and it looked like I was going to be lumbered with quite a lot of chicken wings! I chucked those remaining in a pot, boiled them and stripped the skin and meat off them and fed it to her and that was fine.

She then started eating the frozen ones again. I would just WATCH HER like a hawk and the minute she stopped, take it and throw it away but I am away from home at the mo and she is having all sorts of people feeding her and walking her and I don't want her taking a half eaten chicken wing and hiding it under my daughter in law's bed! Or down the folds of their leather furniture! So I do like to try to make sure she eats what's put down for her at the time or take it away.

However, I do believe that dogs, like humans, have days when they are just not interested in food at all. Sometimes my old Cavvy used to eat for Britain and seem like she was permanently hungry and then she'd eat nothing for a day or so. Or vice versa. And seems the same with this min pin.

I have to say I never experienced ANY days when my GSDs were not interested in eating - ever!

Had success last night and this morning. Offered chicken and kibble yesterday lunchtime, wouldn't eat it so simply took it away. Tried again at dinner with a smaller amount and he ate some of it, took the rest away. Was clearly hungry this morning so offered chicken/kibble again and he ate nearly all of it just left a few kibbles. There was more chicken than kibble but over time hopefully I can increase ratio of kibble.

Am so pleased feel like we are making some progress in the right direction. I just need to stick to it and not cave in as I'm sure he might try it on over the next few weeks.

Thanks for suggestions about raw but I think I will try and sort kibble out before trying anything new.

Has anyone tried the applaws chicken tins? They are very expensive ( more than cooking value chicken myself) but might be handy to keep a couple in the cupboard.

Thanks.

There you go!

Glad you had success with the chicken. Applaws tins are great but very expensive.

You could think about bulk cooking chicken and freezing it in portions? You could also perhaps use stock to add flavour as you cut down on the chicken?