I'm sure most of us have been through this with our puppies, I know I have, and at one point, I kept on changing to this, that and t'other, just to get her to eat SOMETHING It's always best to put some wet into any kibble, and/or some bigger pieces of meat or something, we've learned from numerous threads in the past on here, that it's a lot better that way but I won't go into it now.

So you've smashed up the kibble to little or no effect, so dispense with that idea now, it's not teeth then, but did you mix in some wet with the dried crumbs?? Have you tried mixing in tripe with the kibble? You can buy the small packs of minced tripe frozen in P@H and I used to give my pup 1/4 of the pack with each meal (fed 4 times a day). Tuna is good too for mixing in.

When I got to desperation, bit like you're reaching now when you look at how thin your little puppy is getting, I had a word with my vet, and she advised me to try a wet food for a while, so I opted for the Wainwright's, which comes in a plastic box in all different flavours and my puppy ate that with great gusto, so then I thought to myself, it had just got to be sore gums/teeth because of the way she ate it, like she was starving! You could try that and see what happens? They do a tripe and something, a duck and brown rice, and they also do the puppy ones.

I know it seems so frustrating, but at the end of the day, you have to sustain that growth one way or another, and if I had stuck to that 10 minute rule myself, I don't know what would have happened, because quite honestly, my puppy just wasn't interested in ANY food at one point, so God knows what would have happened. Chappie is another good wet food to try, although of course, it won't sustain growth like the Wainwright's, it's more for dogs with upset tums although a very good food in itself.

Have your wormed regularly? Does your puppy seem sick or seems to feel sick, in which case it could well be worms and any food is not going to be interesting if they don't feel right? All the best, I've been here myself and for soooooo long!

Thanks Helena!
He seems pretty happy in himself tbh but he may need worming so I will sort that this week.
It's hard for me to get the decent dog food brands here, and finding one that will ship to BFPO is harder than it should be I will nip to the NAAFI shortly (public holiday today so Germany is CLOSED! ) and see what they have, all else fails I know he likes Tuna but it has to be in oil right?
So, regarding mixing in wet; do you include this in the portion size or is it extra? Could it also be that as he's almost 7 months and isn't growing as rapidly, that he simply needs less food? I have stopped his lunch feed now.
Thank you so much for all your advice, don't know what I'd do without Dogsey

You can also get tuna in spring water, which is what I use, or the oil but drain that off, but never the salt one! A small tin would do me for a daily ration with the kibble but sometimes, if I needed to put more in, then I would. It's very strange, that it was at about the same age last year (7 months) that I had all this with mine, but she had a dose of nasty worms, so we sorted that out, and things got a whole lot better with her eating, and I'm sure it was because she felt sick a lot, even though she didn't seem to be sick in herself, that she went right off her food around that time, so check up on when you last wormed and see if you need to do it again, coz puppies are the worst for getting them, it's not quite so bad when they're older.

I think they do say that they need less food at around 7 months, coz the growing rate starts slowing down, but I'm no expert on this. The only trouble is with your puppy, is that he needs some weight on him by the sounds of it, which is why that tripe would be a good idea coz it does put weight on? I didn't realise you were in Germany, so it could be difficult for you to get what you want, so good luck.

You really need to keep him on some kind of kibble that he will eat, because during this crutial stage you need to get the right things into him, things that he needs, so it's no good thinking of going down the route of cooking up for him, and thankfully, I never had to go there much, but I did do the chicken and mash or fish and mash for a while, but that was because she got ill with it due to those worms which I just didn't realise she had until things progressed with it and they started causing gastric problems for her which then told me.

I know you said you bought the big kibble, but does that mean it's the adult then? I think at 7 months it might be safe to switch to an adult food, as I said before, a lot of people do that way, way earlier than 7 months. When my puppy seemed to be having such a hard time eating her special puppy food (still at 7 months!) and yet didn't have a problem with my older dog's adult food, I think that's when I changed her to the wet, because listening to my vet, they wanted me to stay with puppy food for an entire year because she is a large breed and they needed to slow the growth down, to give the joints time to catch up - all very technical, but in hindsight, I should have listened to my gut instinct and gone over to adult and I'm sure I wouldn't have had half the problems I did with all those different bags of food!

All the best, you're just going to have to persevere, by all means cut out that lunch now, and see how it goes on two meals a day, you never know, you could be overfeeding, especially if you go by the bag, coz quite honestly, that is nonsense sometimes (mine said 5 cups a day!!!! No way could I have got that into her!). Hope all goes well and let us know ok.

Just a thought... if you can get the F4D over there, can you get their Salmon Mousse?? It's for mixing in with the kibble (or you can feed it on it's own), and that will contain a lot more essential vits and minerals than any tuna or similar?