How to get the world's pickiest dog to eat?

We recently adopted a new dog and she is the pickiest eater we've ever seen. She must have been a garbage dog before the shelter got her. When we first got her home, all we could get her to eat was canned food and could get away with mixing dry food (TOTW) in with it. Now she won't even eat more than a few bites of canned food at a time. She had surgery on Wednesday and since she was stressed out, all we could get her to eat was some cooked chicken and her favorite dog cookies or peanut butter on a cracker for her pills (she won't eat Pill Pockets). We've tried just about everything we can think of. Chicken and beef broth have no effect whatsoever, and putting shredded cheese on it does nothing. I tried giving her brown rice in chicken broth with the cooked chicken but all she'll do is pick the chicken out of it. Mixing chicken with canned food has the same result. We don't know what to do. She's a 55lb German Shepherd hound mix and is really skinny to begin with. She's put on about 2lbs since we got her Easter weekend but now that she's not eating much, she'll drop that right away. Her teeth need some work but we're waiting until probably June or July to do them since she's spent 2 days under anesthesia this week and has been through hell, but eating the canned food, chicken, or cookies wouldn't bother that. The vet says there's nothing health wise causing it and I know typically you just let them starve themselves until they decide to eat but since she's recovering from surgery she needs food. We've been giving her cooked chicken for the past few days since they've been pretty rough but she can't live forever on cooked chicken alone. Any ideas? I can tolerate cooking her chicken through the weekend since she's still a little sore, but after that she needs to go back to dog food. We were trying to convert her to eating all dry food but she won't touch the stuff, and we feed TOTW so it's not like it's crappy dog food. As much as I feel bad doing it since we've absolutely tortured her this week and she's already really skinny, starting Monday she might just get to starve until she decides to eat what's in front of her. Through the weekend though I'm going to give her chicken just to get something in her while she's recovering. So any help you can offer is much appreciated. ThanksThe problem is after three days of not eating she'll get really sick because of the condition she's already in. We don't necessarily want her on just dry food yet since it might be hurting her teeth. The plan is to do that with her canned food on Monday and if she doesn't eat it, she doesn't eat it, but if on day 3 she still hasn't eaten she's going to be at the vet with an IV because she'll be too weak to move. When we first got her she didn't eat for 2 days and couldn't get off her bed because she was so weak which is why we started with the canned food. Like I said, ideally she'll eat nothing but TOTW down the road, but I'm not going to force her to try and eat that yet if she's got fractured teeth which the vet thinks is a possibility. Her teeth are pretty ick, but he wants to wait a bit since she just had surgery and a PET scan before putting her under anesthesia again for something else. And Julie, you really don't have to hThe problem then is how long is soaked TOTW good for before you have to throw it out? We tried soaking it in chicken broth and water and she wouldn't touch it and TOTW isn't exactly something you can just throw away by the bowl when a dog doesn't eat it. How long will it keep in the fridge before it goes ick because I guarantee if I throw away one bowl of it there won't be a second to throw away. I've already had to ditch two (and they weren't full meals for that exact reason, but still it's like pulling money out of my wallet and dumping it in the trash) and I don't want to have to dump anymore.Ok but how long will it last in the fridge if she refuses it? When we tried before it was nasty by the end of the day and I am not wasting a bunch of this food.

Without any human food or treats, your dog will eventually become hungry enough to eat what it's offered. It takes discipline and consistency..

You are making a mountain out a mole hill. Don't give her a choice. Don't give her any wet food, chicken or ANYTHING else. Put the TOTW food down for 15 minutes. If she doesn't eat it, pick it back up and offer her NOTHING until her next scheduled meal. If she doesn't eat that in 15 minutes, pick the food back up again and REPEAT the same thing until she does eat. Don't forget, she gets NOTHING else besides the dog food. After about 3 days ot not eating, she WILL eat. YOU are the one who is creating the problem as many thousands of others have done to0. Toughen up unless you want to be screwing around with this crap for years to come.Add: The soak the TOTW in warm water to soften it.Add #2: Try putting a pinch of Garlic Powder (not salt) on it and make sure the food is warm. Warm food has a stonger odor than cold food.Add #3: If you have to pick it up and put it back in the fridge, you can keep it in there as long as you would your own food. Just take it back out of the fridge and nuke it to warm it back up. Don't forget to stir it back up. I'm sure you've kept leftover food in the fridge for at least 3 days before.

Why don't you try a commercial raw diet and add some no salt green beans.Northwest Naturals-Steve's Frozen Diet-Stella and Chewys-Nature's Variety etc.

Dry food can develop mould and poison your dog if it's left eneaten, had a dog poisoined a long time ago, it had been damp in the shop. Try some white rice, cooked with some wet food mixed through it, not alot, or ask the vet. It might be hurting her mouth to eat anything she has to chew too much, good luck