I feed my girls a combination of homecooked meals and Merrick (dry for all three and wet for two). One of my girls hates any moisture in her food so we just feed her the dry and she enjoys it (especially the peas). The other two get the dry mixed in with water, then we add a little bit of canned and they love it. I also do the same for my fosters and I've never had one of them turn their nose up to it! The Merrick canned is
amazing!
I first tried it when I was trying to figure out a food that Mocha, my picky little one who hates moisture in her food, would actually eat and we had gone through a ton of other foods without success. I had heard that Merrick was good for picky eaters so I offered it to her aaand...she wouldn't touch it. She walked away and wouldn't even go near it after that. However, my other dog liked it so much I switched her to it and for some reason, a couple of weeks later, Mocha decided she liked it too. It's been over a year and none of them have gotten sick of it!
How much the girls eat really depends on whether I give them a homecooked meal or not. I give it to them in the morning then sometimes at supper, but Mocha usually doesn't eat it until the evening. We keep dry food out for Mocha but Panna, who loves food, sometimes decides to camp out by it so then we bring it up. Initially I bought the 5 lbs. bags but after I was confident that they weren't going to suddenly turn their nose up to it I went to the 30 lbs. bag. I just keep it sealed (I love the bags they come in!) and in the pantry and then I just fill up a 5 lbs. bag from it. There's always three dogs eating it though and sometimes one to two fosters...I think we'd be running to the store too much if we got the 5 lbs. bag and it's 40 minutes away, so we're happy with the 30 lbs. bags.
With the boiled chicken...we used to do that with Mocha (I swear we don't anymore!). No, we still do, but we had to get some things straightened out since she definitely had us trained well. She wouldn't eat her dog food so we'd cook her her own food and, after a while, she somehow had us hand-feeding her absolutely everything. We stopped doing that and somehow she decided she'd eat on her own and, if she doesn't get any other supper, she'll go and munch on some Merrick. She actually likes it too, last year she actually turned her nose up at birthday cake then went and ate her Merrick! So if it passes the Mocha test and I like the ingredients, I couldn't be happier!
