Tempt my dog

lostinrates

In the spirit of admitting we are all fallible I'm going to do something I have said I would never do; I'm going to ask for input advice about an actual animal on this board. I would normally go to friends who are veterinary scientists, animal scientists or one of my breeder friends but a few gruff words have been said and I think its fair to share a problem I have ATM.

This is a post made in good humour at the boards...''frustration'' but in truth some strained nerves at the situation with one of my family dogs.

Now, first things first, the dog HAS seen a vet and does have a health problem but the vet feels this is not something that should be causing the extreme, almost anorexic problem with the dog: at worst she should be ''a little off her food''. she is taking anti biotics.

Her normal diet is built around a dried food chosen because it is designed for giant breeds: its highly likely she is predisposed to one of the less favourable things that is a risk in her breed and this is designed around that. I am not a fan of dried food diets on the whole: but this is what she is on and there is a reason for it. It is supplemented with some raw, dog appropriate scraps and left overs and raw bones. She also has a few junk treats (pigs ears, and at least one weekly jumbone that my dad thinks we don't know about )

For some time she has shown less and less interest in food, and then last week stopped eating altogether. She is usually fed with one other dog and we have now separated them so she ''eats'' alone, both so that we can be sure the other dog doesn't help and incase the other dog is putting her off her food in any way.

The ntersting thing, to me, is she will eat some stuff. She'll eat raw chicken, she stole some raw asparagus, she'll eat pig's ears (albeit much more slowly than usual). She'll drink a little milk (far from ideal) and until today she'd eat egg. The main thing she eats, and falls on with genuine interest and hunger is cat food. She'll eat up to about half a (medium) tin of wet food for dogs, but only if given a spoon at a time (any one else querying a behavioural issue?) the whole tin overfaces her. Also smaco (spelling?) or any soft treat style food.

She will NOT eat:
cooked egg in any form (only raw), corned beef, yogurt, raw turkey, beef or lamb. Harder treats (other than pigs ears). Any dog food. Tripe. Cooked chicken, rice.


She is eating very small volumes, which for the time being is ok, I'm trying her with some food every now and then. Apart from looking very, very thin, and very slightly withdrawn (e.g. sleeping in a ball not flat out...but it IS colder) she seems perky. She is keen to play...very vigorously, with her sister and my dog. And is alert and interested, with a very waggy tale...but she is losing weight VERY quickly. She's neen out ''perfect weight'' dog. Water intake is normal. She always has a tendancy to loose bowels, but they are now looser, but obviously smaller (NB wormers/vacs upto date).

So I'm not asking medical advice which we have in hand I hope but I am asking firstly: what thing might you tempt the dog with. We need to get some weight on her and her health better before tackling this too single mindedly as a behavioural issue, but I am beig careful (to not be overly loving while doling out food in miniscule portions and to move between the three separated dgs at main eating times.

So....tempt my dog!

(I am going to ry sardines tonight, though she's never been overly keen before, it seems worth a try.)

chris_n_tj

Have you tried to hand feed? Not ideal I know but if she needs to eat, it might be worth a try.
Corned beef mixed with rice, maybe a rice pudding made with goats milk.
Its a hard one isnt it.
Chris n TJ

bramble1

I really wouldn't hand feed or she'll expect it every time you feed her and never return to 'normal'

My puppy is very simmilar, he's a fussy little so and so, verrry skinny but not underweight and just point blank will often refuse to eat, we've tried the whole he'll eat when he's hungry thing, he doesn't he would go for days with out eating.

As a result at the moment we have to feed him a rather cheap not terribly nutritional dog food because it is literally all he will eat.

have you tried her on other brands? I recommend for a wet diet naturediet, mine will wolf that down, but we've had trouble finding stockists! After the bag of his current food is finished i shall be ordering it in bulk from the internet.

lostinrates

Rice is a no no. She won't touch it. Nor corned beef. (which is weird as she usually likes that.)I wound rather NOT hand feed. There is a strong likelihood there is at least an element of ''mind'' not matter to this, and while I'm prepared to give miniscule portions in a bowl every couple of minutes, I think hand feeding is likely to exascerbate this. However, of course should things get worse we will have to review approach. She has infact just eaten one egg and a tin of sardines. (hurrah). I tried mixing and hard full of dry food wth the sardines after the first acceptable bite, but she sucked the sardine off and spat the niscuits out. (I'm not getting involved in table manners, or praise at this point, for the same behavioral reasons, at the most she gets a quiet ''good girl''). Yes, we've tried other brands (vet also gave us dozens of samples....which we are offering as treats too, no joy). Wet food...a little. Not a sustaining amount though.

foreign_correspondent

I was going to suggest sardines - either in oil or tomato sauce but I can see you have tried that - have you tried soaking her kibble in a little hit water and mixing the sardines through so that the biscuits soak up some of the sardine-y flavours?

sarabe

Whenever my large breed dog goes off of his food I can mix a little cat food with it to get him eating. I also find the presence of another dog or two increases the chances of him eating - even if he doesn't want it he'll eat it so they can't have it.

Hand feeding though is not to be frowned upon.

It is in my experience not only a great way to get a dog eating it also covers a whole multitude of other issues.

I do it as often as I can. If I had the time and didn't have 12 raw fed dogs I would always feed all of my dogs by hand.

Errata

Not sure if this will help but here goes. My mum fed her terrier on nothing but Kit E Kat and dog biscuits. The dog finally conked out at 17 years old.

chris_n_tj

Have you tried pasta, next question has she a sweet tooth? I am sat here racking my brains, its a hard one for sure.
Chris n TJ

alleycat`

I take it she won't eat from something like a ball with a hole cut in it so food falls our as she pushes it about?

I wondered if making it a game / interesting would stir something in her?

lostinrates

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

I was going to suggest sardines - either in oil or tomato sauce but I can see you have tried that - have you tried soaking her kibble in a little hit water and mixing the sardines through so that the biscuits soak up some of the sardine-y flavours?

No, I haven't, but its on the list. I had not thought of getting the sardiney flavours in there though...thats a great idea.

lostinrates

sarabe wrote: »

Whenever my large breed dog goes off of his food I can mix a little cat food with it to get him eating. I also find the presence of another dog or two increases the chances of him eating - even if he doesn't want it he'll eat it so they can't have it.

Hand feeding though is not to be frowned upon.

It is in my experience not only a great way to get a dog eating it also covers a whole multitude of other issues.

I do it as often as I can. If I had the time and didn't have 12 raw fed dogs I would always feed all of my dogs by hand.

She was fed (outside) with her sister....she was simply walking away..hence separating her. Did first try feeding her with my dog, but again, she just wasn't into competitive eating (my normally slow eating dog was though!)

I'm interested in your hand feedig experience? I treat my hand as part of my positive reaward and this tends to be (with dogs and cats) something different to their normal food (with horses I use theri normal food ration, its exciting enough) but not ever fed by hand. What issues do you think I should be resolving through this? I'm worried about encouraging too much reliance on me from this. I'm hoping you can expand on this for me