PointyPupNose

Oh that's good to know! I hadn't heard of the veterinary diets before. Perhaps I will look into that/ask the vet. Yes he is! Got that checked recently.

Quick Context: Sammy is a (nearly) 11-year-old tripod who adopted us about 2 months ago. He has adjusted wonderfully to our household and has had zero issues EXCEPT FOR his problems with food. He is an old man whose mobility is fairly limited at this point and who no longer goes on walks. His "big excursions" are exploring our property during potty time. He is always supervised during this time because of his mobility issues- thus he doesn't eat mysterious/unknown things. Past Food History: 1) Sammy raced until he was five and then was adopted by an elderly couple who pretty much fed him whatever he wanted. Pretty much nothing was off limits so we have no clue how he ate during this time. 2) Sammy was with his foster family for 6 months and during that time, he was a very very picky eater. (Probably because they were actually trying to get him to eat kibble...) He went on 4-day hunger strikes fairly regularly. Vet visits yielded nothing wrong with him. The fosters started giving him a bunch of melted butter aaaaall over his breakfast and tons of wet food mixed in with his dinner. When he didn't feel like eating that, they would add pasta sauce to his food. (YIKES.) He was eating Taste of the Wild kibble and Taste of the Wild wet food (random flavors each time). After hunger striking on that, they switched him to whatever food he felt like eating. This ended up being Purina Pro Plan's Lamb Formula. (Still TOTW wet food.) When We Got Him: -We pretty much quit giving him aaaaall human junk food (no more melted butter, no more pasta sauce, etc. etc). He tried to hunger strike for awhile but we were patient and fiiiinally we had him eating the Purina kibble and TOTW wet food ONLY. -And then he started hunger striking again. -And then he started having diarrhea. (No blood, no mucus. However, we're talking straight up PASTE diarrhea.) -And then he wanted to eat grass and vomit. -And then he started to have gas the likes of which we have never seen (smelled?) before. Enough to make everybody gag and run out of the room...ALL THE TIME. -And then we started to HEAR his stomach making all kinds of interesting noises. Vet Visit: -Vet suspects food intolerance issues and NOT food allergies since he has zero problems of any other sort. He suggests only one source of protein for him because a mix of things does not seem to be working with him. We will have to do some detective work and figure out what exactly bugs his stomach. -Vet states intestinal cramping galore has been going on. -Loperamide + Metronidazole given. -Diet changes: Forced fasting on our part ---> bland diet (rice + ground turkey) that he absolutely devoured ---> Canidae Limited Ingredient Chicken Formula + Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Diet Chicken & Sweet Potato wet food. -Turkey was bad news. He loved it. It did not love him. The gas was unbelievable. O______O -Meds made him feel great! -Ate the most recent diet with no issues! -Stool no longer diarrhea paste but very very soft. Current Issues: -Hunger striking happened again. -Stomach noises back. -Did a forced fasting. -Back on bland diet. This time rice and ground chicken. -He loves it. -It appears to love him? Zero gas problems. -Stool still extremely soft. (We have almost never seen normal stool the entire 2 months we have had him pretty much.) Questions: Chicken probably isn't helping. Go with salmon? Try lamb? Do a different brand entirely? Maybe quit the whole thing? I am seriously starting to think that homemade is the way to go with this guy. Unless there is a secret food that we do not know about? Does anyone have any suggestions for what we should do after the bland diet is over with? What should we transition to that MIGHT be successful? Our concern is honestly not nutrition/best food ever because honestly, he has eaten absolutely terribly for 11 years and unfortunately, we are not going to magically undo the effects of that with the time that we have with him. But we ARE concerned with food that gives him cramping pain and makes him not want to eat over and over again. Tips, suggestions, recipes, are ALL appreciated!

Just thought I would update everyone on Sammy: it has officially been one month since he adopted us and thanks to all of your suggestions WE ARE NOW SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!! I never thought I would feel so refreshed after a standard night's sleep but I feel like I can take on the world!! LOL Amazing! We are so, SO happy he is sleeping through the night now! And we get to be in our room (he is not with us) AND keep the door closed. No cats stomping on our heads either! YAY! A few specific things we did in case anyone is going through something similar: -Left lights on. We leave a lamp on for him in the central room AS WELL AS a night light. This boy seems to be rather afraid of the dark. -Alarm clock training that was mentioned above. I thought this would take months and months. He actually caught on to this WAY faster than I ever anticipated. -And some straight up ignoring. This was very hard. But my husband and I did the same thing with our Oriental Shorthair cats when we first got them. We can be pretty determined when we want to be! The cats soon figured out how nights were going to go...lol and it seems like Sammy has as well! Thank you everybody for all your advice and suggestions!

For everyone in this wonderful community who has been SO helpful these past few days, this slew of pictures is for you!!

I'm so happy to hear that the alarm strategy worked! This gives me hope. The past few sleep-deprived weeks have definitely been rough. We have actually thought of the screen door possibility! Keeps cats out + he can see us. I think we'll try this other stuff first and see how it goes. Can you send me a link to where you bought your ex pen? That definitely sounds like a better idea.

I completely agree with this. I think we'll try x-pen, blanket that smells like us, perhaps a housecoat, and a few other small things. But at the end of the day, it really seems like he just needs to understand that the morning starts when we want it to- not when he dictates it. Also, we won't be running to him the second he whines and sleep on the couch for hours. That's honestly not conducive to either of our sleeping and we can't function like that on a daily basis (no idea how his foster's did it but I'm pretty sure they were literally angels). We have accommodated him in pretty much every other way (eliminating all stairs and making him ramps, pretty much altering his diet to what HE wants, etc.) but the sleep issue is something he will unfortunately have to adjust to and learn. :/ On a separate note, his diet was a whole other issue we had to tackle. His previous owners pretty much fed him whatever he wanted (ah...what a GRAND idea) so he received melted cups of butter all over his kibble in the morning (EVERY MORNING) and pasta sauce mixed in with it in the evenings, etc, etc. The list goes on. He was pretty impressive with his hunger strikes at our house (goes 4 days pretty easy). We FINALLY have him eating and while we definitely don't do what they were doing, we mix a deeeecent amount of wet food into his food. You know how most dogs get kibble + some wet food mixed in? Yeah. He's the opposite. He gets wet food with some kibble mixed in. I initially worried this was a dental issue (teeth bugging him so he doesn't want hard stuff) but NOPE, he eats every rock hard treat just fine. He's going to be 11 in a few weeks and I don't know what impact I can have on getting him on REAL food after 11 years of eating complete junk...so we compromised and he gets wet food and we both were stubborn for a long time...and he ate it. Pick your battles I guess! But alas, the sleep thing is something we will simply have to win, despite it most likely going to take a long time. Honestly, an x-pen is probably a better idea for him than trying to MacGyver our own crate. Thank you so much for the links, going to purchase one today!

This is actually a good idea- I'll try to maybe sleep with a blanket or something for awhile and then hand it to him. Similarly, he does have what he came with from the fosters but he doesn't seem to care/want that anymore. It's definitely the issue because he did the same thing at his foster's house for 6 months. :/ Unfortunately, he pretty much had them trained: he whines at 3:00 a.m., somebody wakes up, goes downstairs, sleeps next to him on the couch, he shuts up forever until you actually wake up to start your morning. That's pretty much exactly what he wants here.

YUP!!

Oooooooh!! What a great idea! We'll look into this. I'll keep you posted!

I have been trying to figure out how to post a picture on this site since I joined! LOL I will definitely do so as soon as I figure it out! THISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHIS!!!! This is the advice we have been looking for!!! AHHHH thank you so much!! I knew it wasn't going to happen overnight but I just needed somebody to tell me what to do to finally get him there because it was looking kind of hopeless for awhile. THANK YOU SO MUCH! We will try this and I will keep this thread posted.

LOL definitely not people jerky but a good question because I'm sure someone has made that mistake at some point! XD

We will definitely order a housecoat! Thank you for that recommendation. The cats can definitely jump over pretty much any gate whatsoever. I really do wish he could do a crate because I think that would help him since he was crated forever prior to his amputation. This is probably unfamiliar place + now I have no crate + where did everybody go. It's totally understandable why he does it; I just have no idea how I can help him. :/ I really like the idea of placing a new bed in our room throughout the day and just seeing what he does with it. I think part of the problem here may be that no one in the family is in their rooms at all unless they are sleeping. Everyone is always out with him in the central room, so he probably sees zero reason to even go into any other room at all. And then at night, everyone disappears. It looks like the options are to ignore him forever and have an iron will and pretty much make him adjust despite however long it will take OR lock him in our room with us and make him adjust however long it will take...but then if we go on vacation or away for a weekend, make him sleep in the central room again and ask the house sitter to sleep on the couch with him? Do I have this right or is there another option I'm totally neglecting? Hmm...maybe? His fosters fed him at 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. So I know he went 3:30 p.m.-7:30 a.m. every day without food. At our place, it's a 7:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. feeding schedule so he eats even later. He doesn't get a cookie before bed but he does get jerky! (Jerky is pretty much the best thing ever for him.) Do you think maybe we should try cookies before bed?

Thank you so much for your sweet words!! The baby gate is definitely an idea, I wish the closed door would work for him because it's always kind of weird sleeping in your bedroom with the door open in a ranch-style house where everyone is on one floor and all other family members have pretty much a direct view into your room... but that's also something to consider! As for locking the kitties away, hahaha! I don't know if you are familiar with Oriental Shorthairs and their vocality, but their meows rival his barks LOL Our cats are 8-year-old litter mates; they are already locked away during his mealtimes (they HATE it and we tolerate their shrieks while he's eating) because apparently they need to eat his food because they're starving. (Yeah RIGHT.) I think then at night it would turn into a "well, the dog's quiet but now what do we do about the cats screaming all night long?" They've never been confined for all the years we've had them (never had to be honestly). Thank you so much for your suggestion though because otherwise, it makes perfect sense!

Thank you so much for your response and your kind words! He honestly is the perfect dog at every moment of the day- it's literally only at night (and specifically, at around 4:30-5:00 a.m.) that we're having issues. We definitely haven't tried the "shhhh" you're mentioning so we will try that tonight. As for other concerns, he was with his foster family for 6 months and pretty much consistently performed this behavior the entire time. (With that being said, they gave him attention each time he did it, thus reinforcing that behavior...makes total sense why he's trying it with us.) We've tried going outside for potty multiple times, never really interested. He stops the moment we're standing in the doorway with the door open and after a moment (usually waits to see if he'll get pets) he'll lie down in his bed. It really doesn't seem like he has to go out. As for cold, it's a possibility but our house is set to the same temperature the entire day/night (this is the dog that gets annoyed when a coat is put on him). I'm hoping it's nothing medical and he's not in any pain. He's definitely had a tough time and we're well aware of how old he is though...just want him to live a happy life with whatever he's got left!

Oh! Maybe there's some hope in him just being in the central room then? Perhaps we need to get ear plugs and honestly just play the Ignore Game and wait for him to figure it out. It really would be so much easier and better in the long run if he could sleep in the central area instead of our room because of how things are at our house. Last night, my husband did open the door, say "NO" in a loud, firm voice and Sammy went directly back to bed and didn't let out a peep until we got up at 7:00 a.m. ...something tells me he's done this before and is used to this reaction. Perhaps with his previous owners? Our house is at 68 day and night! He seems 100% fine throughout the day so hopefully he's okay throughout the night too? I do think he runs a little higher than most Greys, we've tried to cover him with a blanket and he hobbles out of his bed and looks at us like, "Really guys? <_<" He also runs around outside (we're in Michigan) in 28 degree weather with NO coat on and couldn't care less...meanwhile his humans are freezing their butts off and hoping he finishes his business quickly! XD He's fuzzier than any other Greyhound I've ever met so maybe that just keeps him cozy?