Background:
Our unspayed 1 year old dog won’t eat her food but will occasionally take treats and will be interested in human food sometimes. Things like she used to be obsessed with like bully sticks, yak chews and fish skins are also off the menu not interesting. Occasionally she will eat if we feed her one morsel of food at a time but she’ll turn her nose away at it pretty quick. She’s currently eating an average of about 50-100g of her food in a day sometimes more and sometimes less. For an 83lb dog, that is concerning.
We took her to the vet and had a physical exam plus advanced blood work done to see if there was something wrong (she had picked up a couple other odd behaviours too so we thought it was likely health related) but everything came back very healthy. She’s also still full of energy and pep.
We also thought that it might be hormonal/seasonal because the behaviours and eating habits seemed to be similar to when she had her first heat. But she had JUST finished her heat maybe a month ago. Also there are no physical signs of another heat like bleeding or her vulva getting bigger etc….
She’s been eating balanced home cooked meals using the using “Hilary’s Blend” nutritional supplements and balanced recipes (the Canadian version of BalanceIt) and she was LOVING it until she suddenly didn’t. Since then we reverted back to a kibble to see if she likes it better but it seems to not affect. We’ve tried mixing in homemade stock and other mix ins to make it more appetizing but she will still turn her nose up at it.
Lastly, she’s never had any aversive experiences period. We strictly follow force free, R+ training methods. I say this because she shouldn’t have any negative feelings around food that I know of.
Sorry for the wall of text but we are at our wits end and are getting worried for the health and safety of our pup! Anybody have any ideas of what we can do or similar experiences to share or even just words of comfort?
puppy tax
Our unspayed 1 year old dog won’t eat her food but will occasionally take treats and will be interested in human food sometimes. Things like she used to be obsessed with like bully sticks, yak chews and fish skins are also off the menu not interesting. Occasionally she will eat if we feed her one morsel of food at a time but she’ll turn her nose away at it pretty quick. She’s currently eating an average of about 50-100g of her food in a day sometimes more and sometimes less. For an 83lb dog, that is concerning.
We took her to the vet and had a physical exam plus advanced blood work done to see if there was something wrong (she had picked up a couple other odd behaviours too so we thought it was likely health related) but everything came back very healthy. She’s also still full of energy and pep.
We also thought that it might be hormonal/seasonal because the behaviours and eating habits seemed to be similar to when she had her first heat. But she had JUST finished her heat maybe a month ago. Also there are no physical signs of another heat like bleeding or her vulva getting bigger etc….
She’s been eating balanced home cooked meals using the using “Hilary’s Blend” nutritional supplements and balanced recipes (the Canadian version of BalanceIt) and she was LOVING it until she suddenly didn’t. Since then we reverted back to a kibble to see if she likes it better but it seems to not affect. We’ve tried mixing in homemade stock and other mix ins to make it more appetizing but she will still turn her nose up at it.
Lastly, she’s never had any aversive experiences period. We strictly follow force free, R+ training methods. I say this because she shouldn’t have any negative feelings around food that I know of.
Sorry for the wall of text but we are at our wits end and are getting worried for the health and safety of our pup! Anybody have any ideas of what we can do or similar experiences to share or even just words of comfort?
puppy tax