Strange dog behavior... anyone have experience w/ this?
 

About a month ago I was traveling like crazy... maybe 4 days a week, come home for a few days and take off again. I normally don't travel that much but all the trips just kind of fell together.

I noticed when things got back to normal and I was home all week, my dog was eating less and less. For a while, I thought she was going on a hunger strike in protest of me being gone. She normally ate dry food.

That food that she was eating was kind of bland - made for dogs with sensitive stomachs, and since she was having issues at the time, that was the food she had. So I thought maybe it was just the food. I went out and bought a different kind, supposedly healthy & they said "dogs love the taste" so I decided to give it a whirl.

She will very rarely eat it if it's just plain dry food by itself. Sometimes when I mix in a little bit of wet food, she will gobble the whole bowl up.. other times she will eat all the wet food, and eat part of the dry food. But even now she will barely touch her food if it's just dry food.

I've taken her to the vet and they checked her all out and found nothing wrong.

Is this normal??? Should I get a second opinion? I just find it odd because she was always a quick eater.

She still "asks" for treats, so I'm assuming she's hungry, but I normally won't give her a treat unless she earned it. And i won't give her treats that will spoil her dinner.

I don't want to resort to feeding her only wet food because I've heard it's not great for their teeth, but I know that's something she'll eat... so is she just being picky? Her energy level is the same, so I don't know what to do with her.

My old dog did something like this once. My family went to the West Coast for two weeks and put him in a kennel (worst decision ever for him). When we came back, he had lost several pounds and the kennel informed us he had barely ate anything the entire time. We thought things would be fine once we brought him home, but he still didn't eat very much. We took him to the vet, turns out he had developed a stomach ulcer, the vet said probably from worrying that we had left him there for good. I was a lot younger, probably around 8, when this happened, so I don't know how the probably was fixed (I'm just assuming medicine) but it was solved and Pepper lived to be 16 years old.

However, since you went to the vet and they said everything was fine, I'm not sure. Maybe you should try to get a second vet's opinion? Or, since your dog will still eat certain foods, maybe it's just going through a phase?

Sometimes dogs don't eat much when they're being sexually abused.

-Rudey

Did the vet have any suggestions?

I wonder if it is the crunch that is bothering her or the "better" flavor of the wet food. My first instinct is to let her just eat the dry food and don't give her any wet. I wonder if you've unconciously trained her to expect the other food. Do you leave her food out all the time? Some dogs stop liking the crunchiness as they get older and need their food moistened (like old people!)

Did you switch her over to the new food by mixing a bit of the old food in for the first week or so? My vet has always recommended to not switch food abruptly, and to always mix the old food with the new.

The fact that she was eating less of her familiar food might just be her readjusting getting back to normal. Its normal for our pets to eat less while we're gone.

I am assuming they checked the teeth out and they were ok? If so then I would only offer the dry food, no wet ,for the next week and see what happens. She probably likes the wet food a lot more and would prefer this but it sounds like you don't want to continue the wet food so I wouldn't give her a choice. Good luck and let me know how it goes.

i usually wet the dry food down with water. not a lot, just enough to make the food wet with a little on the bottom. My dog is young (8 months) but he loves it ... be careful with portion sizes though because he wolfs it down (i'm sure that won't happen with your dog since its been having problems, but you never know) and i would try to mix old food with new food.
let us know how it goes...
i'm sorry he's not eating though :(

is your dog overweight?

we were overfeeding our golden-at times he would just look at the food and walk away. when we cut back on his food-at the suggestion of the vet-his eating habits changed. he now wolfs it down like the average golden, and is now slim and svelte.

Obesity is a huge problem with our pets. Probably 9 out of every 10 dogs I see are overwt. and the owners just laugh when I bring this up-it isn't funny. I tell them I will be seeing their dog in a few years for euthanasia b/c they can't walk anymore-it is blunt but drives home the point of do something now before it is too late.

Dogs are not that differnet than people, except they cannot talk with vowels and consanents!

Do we understand their lingo? Hell No!

If you talk to a doggie Dr., you will find that the same drugs given to human peole are given to dogs and is cheaper!;)

Check it out if you can and want to!:D

People Dr's are nothing but people Vets!;)

If it is good enough for Us, then it must be good enough for them!:)

I agree. My mom hates taking her dogs to the kennel whenever my family goes somewhere because one of them really pines for her and will barely eat until she comes back. That dog is always skinnier when my mom goes to get her after a trip.

Or, it could be something else. My boyfriend has had this same trouble with his dog recently. He hadn't changed the dog's food or anything; the dog just stopped eating. Which is odd, because he's usually nosing his bowl around when it's close to suppertime. To make the dog eat his dry food, my boyfriend started mixing it in with some wet canned stuff and it seemed to work, and since then he's slowly weaned the dog off it so that he's back to just dry. Everything seems OK now. I think I'd call another vet, though, and get another opinion if your dog continues to be off its feed.

I don't "free feed" her, I give her breakfast & dinner at specific times, but I honestly have a tendancy to leave her dinner out longer if it doesn't look like she's eaten a whole lot of it.

She's a medium-sized lhasa - 12 lbs. She's been 12-13 lbs for a pretty long time so the vet thinks this is very likely her grown weight. We're going to the vet again tomorrow, I'll update how she comes out in case anyone is wondering!

I asked one of my co-workers if his dog has ever done this, and he said his shih tzu started doing the same and he would put a couple tablespoons of chicken broth and his dog gobbles it all up. Is that even safe? I would guess there is a bunch of sodium even if it's only a couple tablespoons but I could be wrong.

I don't really like giving my dog people food.

I've raised several dogs over the past five years or so for a service dog organization, so can tell you a lot about the eating habits of dogs... :)

1. Don't feed your dog people food.

2. Dry kibble is enough. In general, it's best to find a dry food that has as few ingredients in it as possible. Many dogs get food allergies, just as people would if they ate the same thing every meal. By reducing the number of ingredients in the food you give them, you're more likely to get "whole" ingredients and the dog is less likely to have a bad reaction to it.

3. It is very common for dogs to all of a sudden stop liking the food they've been eating for a while. They get bored. It really is that simple. If you want to change it up a little bit, try just wetting the dry food a tiny bit. The water releases a bit of the smell of the food, so that might prompt the dog to dig in.

4. It's also possible the dog stopped eating when you left on your trip. That's very common. Some dogs get nervous when their people leave, so nervous they lose their appetite. Some dogs stop eating when their people leave as a form of manipulation, believe it or not. I've known a couple that will not travel until their cat dies because she won't eat whenever they leave her...she's holding them hostage! :) If this was the reason she stopped eating, she'll start eating again!

5. Dogs will usually love whatever food you give them when it's brand new. At first, dogs love trying the new food...they're curious. Those sample sizes of food you get from the pet store or vet probably won't tell you whether the dog really will like the food long-term. You need to buy a whole bag and see if the dog will eat through that bag.

6. Don't leave the food out if she doesn't eat it. Then she won't eat during breakfast/dinner time. If she walks away from it, pick it up and try it again later, or just wait until her normal eating time. Once she's hungry, she'll eat.

7. Know that some dogs go through phases of being uninterested in food. Period. Usually this is in between growth spurts, but I had a dog that went from eating hardly anything to eating 9 cups of food per day in order to keep up with his growth and needed weight gain.

My (albeit non-medical) guess: your dog is fine, it's just picked a convenient time (for her) to throw a hissy fit about her food. If she is lethargic, drinking a ton of water, or throwing up, then she's sick. But if she's acting fine other than not eating, she's probably fine.

If she won't eat any more of her old food, go to the pet store and ask a clerk for advice on a food to try next (remember: less ingredients the better), maybe something similar to what she's been eating, but a little different. Then once you have the new food, mix half a serving of the new with half a serving of the old food, and do this for at least a few days. This will help prevent any stomach upset that sometimes comes from switching a dog's food suddenly.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Also, you could check w/ other folks on www.petlovers.com

They're pretty helpful for opinions when it comes to pets & their habits!

The last time my dog was sick he wouldn't eat anything (very unusual for my dog - he will eat anything in site). My vet told me to make brown rice cooked in chicken or beef broth (you can use low sodium) and put baby food on top of it. She said she'd never seen a dog, no matter how sick, not eat baby food - it worked! Although in your case you may not want to try this as the dog may not want to eat anything else.

In an aside - my dog decided to eat 60% of a small hibiscus bush last night. So far no negative reaction, but we are keeping an eye on him.