ZoomDoggy

Might be worth a try. Thanks for the idea.

Such wonderful news! :

Marla ate 1/3 of her evening meal last night (after skipping her breakfast and afternoon meals entirely), and none of her breakfast today. I KNOW she's hungry. I keep putting her food down, she keeps sniffing it and walking away. But she came running when she heard the treat jar being opened. Then she stood there looking pitiful, wondering why she doesn't get a treat as Tip crunches happily away at his. So I offered her food dish again. She sniffed and walked away. I will not be outwilled by this dog. Not again.

Oh I've no doubt she'd like ice cream. But ice cream is for two kinds of doggies in this house: Good doggies who eat their food in addition to aforementioned ice cream, or sick doggies who can't eat much else. Marla is neither right now. ... at least I hope not the latter...

Marla didn't touch her afternoon meal.

Interestingly, I did try offering Marla Tip's dish, but she was uninterested in that too. It is the same mix of food, minus the "extra" goodies, so I wasn't surprised she snubbed it.

What drives me batty and makes me think it's behavioral is that there are no other tangible symptoms. No fever, no increased or decreased drinking, no probs with elimination, no limping, no panting, no vomiting, no sore/tender areas, no burping, no gas... She just seems a little down. Doesn't play with her stuffies before mealtimes like she used to. Doesn't do her "yoga" stretches as often. I can tempt her to eat if I offer something really special (yesterday afternoon I added some leftover bits of ribeye steak to her meal and she wolfed the whole bowlful, steak, kibble and all!) she'll eat with no problems. The only thing I can see physically wrong with her is she has a corn on one toe of each of her back feet. They're not new, and rarely do they cause her to limp. I am treating them with duct tape. I really don't want to be forced to find novel foods for her every day (so far nothing I've tried has been effective for more than a few meals) when her normal diet was perfectly acceptable for months up until just a few weeks ago. If it were just a matter of changing the kibble, that'd be fine, but I just can't offer novel stuff every day indefinitely!

Dislocated toes do not always heal or "pop back in" on their own. The longer a dislocated toe stays dislocated, the more likely you'll have permanent ligament damage, which will result in repeated dislocations and possible arthritis in the future. Do her toes look straight and in normal position? If she's still limping badly several days after the incident, I personally would want to have it Xrayed. Just my opinion.

Tootsie..

Bratty brat brat! She ate yesterday afternoon, no probs. She ate about 1/3 of her dinner. She ate nothing this morning. She watched me fix the food as always, followed me to the feeding area, sniffed the food, and walked away. After several minutes of trying to coax her back to her dish, I dumped her food into Tip's dish to store for his afternoon meal. Then she came back to her dish and eagerly licked out the remaining gravy. So I put one spoonful of her food back in the dish. She sniffed it, walked away. : So if this is behavioral, how long do I let her turn up her nose at meals and starve before I bring her in to the vet?

Thanks for the update, and I too am glad your gamble went well. As for your recommended steps, if anyone needs lessons on step 1, feel free to contact me. I have that one down pat.

Thanks DeVon. I did cancel the appt. So watch, when I get home, she won't want to eat again. </Eeyore voice>

Yegads, I'm such a big flake. Now I plan to cancel Marla's appointment for today. She ate perfectly normally yesterday afternoon and evening, and again this morning (yes she normally eats three times daily). Eliminated normally also. She still acts a tiny bit off in a virtually indescribable way, but it's so vague that I just can't justify bringing her in yet. I'll wait and see how things go over the next few days. Thanks again for all the replies. I'm sorry to be so flaky. It's just that worry is kind of a natural state for me. I come by it honestly. I'm from a long line of worriers. I'll certainly keep y'all posted if anything changes again.

Marla has an appt tomorrow at 3:15. Not sure what we'll do, besides more bloodwork...

Sparks does not add any stress. Don't be silly. He's a perfect boy. As is Gobi, so I have no worries that our guest hounds will cause any problems. Sounds like Willow may not arrive until Sunday. She's no prob either, the little cutie.

Thanks Carolyn. I know I can be pretty negative. It's one of the reasons I like GT-- helps me get a smattering of other opinions before I utterly freak out with worry. Yes, Tipper has really been in good shape for all the 4 1/2 years I've had him (except that recent stupid dislocated toe incident, which led to my baseless bone cancer panic ), so the poor boy does get taken for granted sometimes. Knock on wood. He eats like a champ. If he ever skips a meal I would run, not walk him to the nearest E-vet.

Thanks you for the replies. I think I will schedule an appt for her. It's just that I can't really point to much in the way of "symptoms" so I feel sort of vague and alarmist... You mean my Tipper-boy doesn't count? Poor Tippy.

Her last bloodwork was June 21st. The only thing I see slightly off is creatinine 1.7 (range 0.5-1.6). That doesn't seem too bad to me. : But it's possible she's been drinking a little more than usual... Or maybe my panic-prone brain is imagining it... : I don't mind giving her whatever food she wants, I just fear going down the path of encouraging a picky eater to be pickier. BTDT, it's a maddening game. Marla wasn't picky at all the first 6-7 months. This past month, she's become pretty finicky. Today and yesterday I can't even tempt her with various dollops of soft food mixed in. I thought at first she was just jealous of all the good stuff Chancy was getting, thus I started adding the spoonful of goodies to Marla's kibble. That worked well for a while. This past weekend, even that won't do. Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and bring her in.

Just when I think I'm all worried out... Now I think something's up with Marla, my little 10 year old girlie. She's very hard to read, so I'm having trouble figuring out if she's really not feeling well, or if she's depressed, or if she's just playing me to try and get different food... We've had Marla since December, and I still sort of feel I don't really know her very well. She came from a home where her owner passed away. Marla has always been a little mopey, which I had attributed to missing her owner. (She's the first bounce I've ever seen who was relatively well cared for) She has occasional bouts of playfulness with her stuffies, but it's not consistent. She doesn't like going for walks, which may be due to the corns I see on her back feet. She doesn't usually limp, but will sometimes if I make her walk too far. What really is starting to concern me is that since Chancy passed away, Marla seems even more mopey and had intermittently stopped eating. I thought perhaps she was reacting to my depression, but when the weather turned cold late last week, she seemed to perk up, both energy- and appetite-wise. She went on a hunger strike for a couple days early last week when I tried to transition her back to her regular kibble (when Chancy was sick, I had been giving Marla a dollop of Chancy's soft food mixed with her kibble). Marla wouldn't touch the regular kibble until I resumed putting the dollop of soft food in. At that point I figured she was playing me to get the "better" food. But yesterday and today, she doesn't want the kibble no matter what incentives I add to it. She drinks and eliminates normally, and she even comes in to watch me prepare her meal, as though she's hungry, but as soon as I put her dish down, she sniffs, and walks away. In desperation to get her to eat anything since it had been since Saturday evening that she last ate, I thawed some of Chancy's leftover meatballs and Marla ate those just fine. So. Is she just upping her manipulative food-games? Or is something wrong? Her last bloodwork was a few months ago, and all was normal. If she doesn't snap out of this weird funk soon, I'll have to take her in. I just feel sort of drained both emotionally and financially since losing Chancy. I feel like I barely have the energy to worry about Marla right now.

Acupuncture can help alleviate pain also. It helped Chancy when she had flare-ups that pain meds couldn't touch. Some have had luck with chropractic treatments also, but that didn't help us.

The syringe for your Cobalamine injection will have a larger gauge needle than an insulin needle. But fear not, most greys do just fine. Like someone above said, be matter-of-fact about it, and it will likely be fine. It's great if you can have someone distract the pup with lovin's from the front while you do the deed. I always made Sissy stand for her injections, as I wanted to keep her bed as her "safe" place where nothing bad ever happens. Just firmly pull up a pinch of skin (I used the area near the shoulderblades) to form a sort of tent. The only mistake I made my first time was I accidentally put the needle through both layers of skin, so the injection squirted out in the air through the other side of the pinch of skin. : Sissy really didn't seem to mind much, thankfully. Oh, and the most critical part: treat liberally after each injection.

I'm so sorry for your loss. I had followed your threads with much hope in my heart, and was very saddened to hear of the outcome.

Warm washcloths (water only) after meals worked very nicely for Sissy's foodstains.

I'm clearly no action photographer (Tipper looks like a deranged kangaroo there). But I swear my ol' tigergirl's toes hit that soft sand and ten years evaporated off her age.

Oh DeVon... It's just so damn hard to watch them slow down. Every minute is precious, every wag, every car-ride, every happily-gorged-upon meal... I know you know that.