Losing Weight

[Guest RICHandJUDE]

My 12 year old greyhound has been losing some weight. She has lost about 6 to 8 lbs in the last six to eight weeks. She normally is fed 2 cups of dog food, twice per day. Up until a few months ago she would gobble the food down. Now she eats only about 1 cup per meal. She keeps pushing the dish away with her nose.

 

She has been eating Eukanuba for 4 to 5 years. We do feed her the kibble with moisture. We have added yougart to the kibble, we have added canned dog food to the food, we have added boiled chicken or boiled beef to her food. Sometimes she will eat it and sometimes she won't. This past week , we have been giving her some tuna or sardines with the kibble. With the sardines, she eats better.

 

Somebody told me that sardines can cause pancreitis. Is that true? Are sardines safe to use all the time? What about tuna or salmon? I have a call into the vet right now. The tech told me that sardines weren't good for them.

 

She had blood work done and a sona-gram. Everything came back normal.

 

Thank you

[silverfish]

If she's had a thorough vet check and seems fine, it may be the heat (which tends to affect them more as they age). I'd expect that if she had parasites she'd be hungry and losing weight, not simply off her food, but there may still be something ... If she continues to lose at this rate, you'll need to go back to the vet and ask for more investigation.

 

However. If she really is fine, just lacking appetite, there are various things you can try. We use sardines, mackerel, and pilchards all the time with no problem. They've had herring and tuna, too. The thing about pancreatitis is that there are SOME dogs who are extremely prone to it and you have to take a lot of care with fats in the diet of those dogs. If your dog has no history of pancreatitis, go ahead and try them. You should perhaps start with a small quantity and work up because, as with any new food, especially an oily new food, they can get diarrhoea.

The fats which are truly bad for pancreatitis dogs are cooked animal fats. Fish oils and vegetable oils tend to be better tolerated though with a dog who is really prone to this, caution is advised. If the vet tech told you that sardines were generally bad for dogs ... well, I don't know where they got that from! We have been feeding sardines to our dogs since our first - in the nineties.

Oh, I nearly forgot. I tried Satin Balls today for the first time with Jeffie because he's a skinny senior and has been losing weight, too. He loved them - and he always refuses raw meat! There is a separate post about them, with a recipe.

[Burpdog]

Be very careful with high fat in a senior.

 

You can get frozen BilJac in Ohio. Try it and if she likes it the weight will come back on easily. If she doesn't, try BilJac kibble (don't put too much water on it)