Joined
·
82 Posts
My 💗 dog will be 15 on the 4th of July this year. Up until the last few weeks, his only issues have been arthritis in the neck and spine (upper). He is on meds, supplements, and has been to the chiropractor (and for acupuncture). The last two weeks, he's off his kibble and yogurt. It started with breakfast only, and the last couple of days, he's also been off dinner. I have wet his food for some time as he doesn't drink enough water, so it's not hard kibble. When he started going off kibble, I incorporated smelly soft canned food. He's now progressed to leaving that untouched (but he'll stare at the fridge). Since he's so interested in the food in the fridge, I caved and made him a plate of boiled boneless shredded chicken and scrambled eggs. He stared at it like - well, what do I do with that? Meh. And he walked away. If I hand feed him, he will eat about 25% of the normal amount. I had to hand feed even the chicken and egg tonight.
He's going between being his sharp old self, showing my younger dog all her training steps 10x over while she's making her mind up to do it once, but then he's utterly confused. He still wants attention (when he's awake - he sleeps about 20+hrs a day, maybe more), but he will not get up to go out unless I put him out.
Last week he had full bloodwork done w/ "Normal geriatric baseline" result. Heart is good. Lungs are good. X-ray shows nothing. All he has is a cough from post-nasal drip (he's on allergy meds too). I was told by two vets he's in better clinical condition than most 10 year old dogs.
I'm realizing that I've never had a dog this old going off food without other serious underlying conditions (i.e. cancer, etc), so I'm a bit nervous about what all this means. How can a clinically "good" body just stop eating? If I didn't hand feed him, I'm afraid he'd just give up.
Curious what those of you with very old dogs have encountered and how you've helped your dogs maintain good quality of life. I will be calling the vet again tomorrow morning to see what she wants to do next.
Badger's very perky and expressive self just one month ago (right).
He's going between being his sharp old self, showing my younger dog all her training steps 10x over while she's making her mind up to do it once, but then he's utterly confused. He still wants attention (when he's awake - he sleeps about 20+hrs a day, maybe more), but he will not get up to go out unless I put him out.
Last week he had full bloodwork done w/ "Normal geriatric baseline" result. Heart is good. Lungs are good. X-ray shows nothing. All he has is a cough from post-nasal drip (he's on allergy meds too). I was told by two vets he's in better clinical condition than most 10 year old dogs.
I'm realizing that I've never had a dog this old going off food without other serious underlying conditions (i.e. cancer, etc), so I'm a bit nervous about what all this means. How can a clinically "good" body just stop eating? If I didn't hand feed him, I'm afraid he'd just give up.
Curious what those of you with very old dogs have encountered and how you've helped your dogs maintain good quality of life. I will be calling the vet again tomorrow morning to see what she wants to do next.
Badger's very perky and expressive self just one month ago (right).