It is the responsibility of the dog owners to take care of their dog’s diet because a proper diet is crucial for the excellent health of your dog. People who are considering to adopt a Siberian Husky often ask questions regarding their dietary needs.
Siberian Huskies are not exactly known as picky eaters. There are many reasons why your Siberian Husky refuses to eat. Some of the reasons are age and health issues, boring looking foods, low quality of foods, and overfeeding treats.
It is essential to have complete knowledge of the eating habits of your dog. Especially Siberian Huskies, who are picky eaters and can stop eating if they find it boring. In this article, I have provided everything you need to know regarding the eating habits of your Husky.
Why Is Your Siberian Husky a Picky Eater?
If you are going to own a Siberian Husky as your pet, you need to be educated about their history and activities. These are high energy dogs and lovely dogs. However, dealing with them and taking care of their diet is not as easy as it seems.
They can quickly become bored if you feed them with the same food every day and require a premium quality of the food only. The table below shows some of the possible reasons for Husky’s being a picky eater.
Level of Activities
Siberian Husky is a high energy dog and requires a lot of physical activities to release energy. When dogs are involved in such a high level of activity every day, they can be moody in eating regular food.
When a Husky do exercise daily, it will require a considerable number of calories, however, if it misses some activities, the energy will remain stored, and they will not need that much of food to consume.
Therefore, you need to take care of the physical activities of your dog to make sure that they eat up to their full. The eating habit also indicates the quality of physical activities. If the Husky is behaving picky in eating, then you must recheck on its exercise.
Health Reasons
If your Husky eats very less on the whole day and shows the repeated attitude for several days. Then it is an alarming situation, and you must consult with the veterinarian.
It might be something wrong with the dogs’ digestive system. Because parasites in the digestive system are common in this breed.
Some dog owners ignore the illness factor, and they mistakenly thought that their Husky is moody and fine. However, the low intake of calories adversely affects the health of the dog. Make sure that Husky takes equal proportions of food 2 to 3 times a day.
Low Quality of Diet
As discussed earlier, Siberian Huskies require a low amount of food, but it should be of premium quality. If your dog is not acceptable to eat the food you are giving it to them, then you must recheck the quality of the food. This breed can sense the quality of food very quickly.
If the quality is not up to the mark, then it can cause some problems in the digestive system of your Husky, and they would not be able to eat more food.
Therefore, you should observe the behavior of your Husky with the food. If they smell or lick the food and do not eat it, then it is an indication of the low quality of food.
You should purchase food from a trusted vendor only. Try to check all the ingredients on the label of the product to make sure that these are meeting the dietary needs of your Husky.
Boring Looking Food
Siberian Huskies can quickly get bored if you feed them the same food over and over again. However, the boring element is more related to psychological than physical. If you provide the same diet, but with different colors, Huskies will happily accept it.
Therefore, you need to learn to play with the colors of the food. You can find chemical-free food colors from the market, which can be used to make the food more fun. This will allow you to provide essential nutrients to your dog in a happy mood.
Siberian Huskies love it when you provide a variety of food. If they find new food every day, it makes them excited. They eat to their fill, which makes sure that they are getting the required calories. However, it is not the new food every day, just the change of color, which is your secret recipe.
How to Deal With a Picky Eater?
Before you start to make any changes to their diet, you need to eliminate any health issues that can make them lose interest in eating. Siberian Huskies can lose appetite and refuse to eat due to many health issues such as dental or mouth pain and upset stomach.
If you’re certain that they are in good condition and health issues are not the reason for being picky, then you’re good to move on.
Some effective ways to correct their picky behavior:
Make your Husky understands that no other options exist. Do not feed them their favorite treats or snacks whenever they refuse to eat. It can encourage their picky behavior.
Exercise your dog. Exercise will make your Husky hungry and they are more likely to eat. Take your dog outside for a walk or play some games with them like Frisbee to keep them entertained and tired.
Change your feeding schedule. Try feeding your Husky at different times of the day. Maybe he prefers his breakfast in the afternoon.
Help make their dining environment quiet and comfortable. Feed your Husky in a quiet area so that they will not get distracted and nervous. Also, place their dining place out of heavy foot traffic.
Best Food for Siberian Huskies
This is not a greedy dog breed when it comes to food. However, you need to make sure that you are feeding the best quality of food. Experts recommend adding fruits and proteins in the diet of Huskies.
Always read the label of the food before purchasing to make sure that it contains the essential nutrients for your dog.
The best way is to ask people who already own a Husky dog. They can guide you from where to purchase the best quality of food, as the quality is the most critical factor in raising a Husky. You can provide them
Meat proteins
Plant proteins
Chicken, beef, lamb
Carrots, Broccoli, Cabbage, Bell peppers
Apricot, Apples, Blueberries, Blackberries, Bananas
All of this food should be of premium quality. These provide essential nutrients to your dog. You can experiment by making a different combination of these foods to entertain your dog.
So, you make sure that they are not getting bored with their food. The food should not be feed at once.
It should be in equal three proportions. It will give time to your Husky to digest the food. The stomach of Husky is susceptible and should only get the premium quality and that too in small portions.
Although you should avoid feeding them dairy products because Husky’s stomach cannot process dairy products, also keep them away from the raw or uncooked meat. Only feed them a high quality of cooked meat.
What Does a Siberian Husky Eat in Wild?
Siberian Huskies can eat both plants and meat, just like human beings. The ancestors of Huskies used to cover over 100 miles daily. Therefore, they require high calories to intake.
These Huskies have limited resources of food in such a freezing climate, so they transformed their eating habit to consume much less than other dog breeds.
You can see this characteristic in the modern-day Husky as well. They consume much less than many dog breeds. However, you will observe a major difference between the lifestyles of wild and domestic Husky.
The wild Husky eats for survival; in contrast, the domestic Husky eats to keep up the energy level.
Fish is an essential part of wild Huskies because it contains high calories and essential nutrients that meet their physical needs. They also eat vegetables and plants to get the nutrients from them. If there is not much to eat, they can even eat seaweed, algae, and kelp.
The surviving capabilities of wild Huskies are amazing. You can see that unlike domestic Huskies, wild Huskies are much less picky about their food. They eat whatever is essential to keep them energized for the whole day.
The biggest reason is that wild Huskies are much more active than the domestic one; therefore, they require a high amount of calories.
Final Thoughts
Siberian Husky is one of the pickiest dogs when it comes to food. They can quickly get bored with repeated or dull-looking food. However, there are some instances when they are some serious problems related to dog health or diet. And Husky is accepting the food.
Therefore, it is essential to examine the behavior of your dog with food regularly. If they are not eating at all, then check the food quality or take them to the vet for a medical checkup.
You need to observe the level of activities of your dog. If they are getting enough time for exercise to release their energy, then they should also eat to get essential nutrients to keep them going.
You can use different food colors to make the food more fun because the picky nature of Husky is more sort of psychological. If you give them almost the same diet, but with different colors, then it will work for them because they will consider the food as the new one.
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