BC-Liz

@GentleLake Thank you for posting. I'm so sorry to say that Masi went downhill pretty quickly after that post. I laid her to rest yesterday. She's back with her sister and without pain.

That's my problem too. Masi doesn't have an ounce to lose. Makes me wish I'd let her get fat in her old age instead of keeping her trim and maintaining activity level. She's starting to snub baked chicken now. I'm trying tuna on her at this point and I'm slowly introducing a low fat dog kibble. I'm tempted to put her on appetite stimulants but I don't want to artificially extend her life when she's just plain getting tired. Thoughts?

@D'ElleI spoke to my vet last night about reintroducing dog food into her diet and got some direction from her. She said you have to take it a step farther than looking at the %fats on he bag and look into how many grams of fat per 100 kcals. She said to aim for 4 grams of fat per 100kcals. She said that sort of information is more likely to be online than on the bag. I hope that helps!

Thank you all for our advice and thoughts! I'm glad to say that Masi is doing much better the last couple of days. I ran out of rotisserie chicken and have been feeding her baked chicken breast instead. I'm hoping after about a week of this I can start reintroducing low fat dog kibble again. She's got one more day of at home fluids and then I can stop poking the poor thing. She still loves her walks like nobody's business. I'm going to get her passed this pancreatitis and let her live her best life until the tumor takes her. Might be a week, a month, or a year. There's not really any telling. My plan is, if she makes it to her birthday on the 14th of Feb, I'll get her another ultrasound and check on her little buddy.

@D'Elle I'm still struggling with this right now. I can't tell if Masi is getting better or not. At the moment she has a euthanasia appointment scheduled for this afternoon but all of a sudden she has an appetite so I might be cancelling it. Anywho that wasn't your question. I did dig up some advice on fat content in dog foods. I found a recommendation from a vet online for about 2 to 3% crude fat content and to make sure it is an animal fat, not a vegetable fat. Obviously the important thing is to cut out human food since our foods always have a high fat content. I would check your treats too for fat content. It was recommended to me by the vets here, to help Masi get through this, to buy a rotisserie chicken and feed only that and bland rice/noodles. So far she loves the chicken and has said hell no to the noodles. I don't blame her, bland noodles sounds pretty awful. I wish you the best of luck.

Well update from an ultrasound: her liver is fine. But she has masses on her spleen. So, same difference. But the more immediate issue is she also has pancreatitis. The vet thinks that is what's keeping her from eating. Fluids, different drugs and no more fat, hopefully she bounces back somewhat. But at this point she's a ticking time bomb. I'll keep her going until she doesn't want to walk, that's my cue.

Thanks everyone, it's comforting to read your well wishes. Spoiling Masi is my new day to day goal. Unfortunately she's reduced to only eating things from my hand and the occasional plate. I've had to get inventive but so far she will eat SPAM, peanut butter tortillas, crackers, boiled egg, and the occasional scoop of dog food. Bready things seem to be the most appealing to her. Once I Get her to eat some tortilla, I can get her to show interest in SPAM or the egg. But never the other way around. It's funny, when the other two were around, they had epilepsy and issues with being on those drugs most of their life. Rhea had 2 cases of vestibular disease before she went. Masi was always my easy dog. Chill as could be and happy to do anything with her mom. That's why I knew something was wrong, way back in October when she started refusing food and acting incredibly nervous. Nothing showed up on tests until that one a week ago. I really thought I'd get her to 16, her body is in such good shape still. She's 1 month shy of her 15th birthday.

Thanks @diane allen. I'm probably not going to get an ultrasound. My vet said she wouldn't suggest surgery...so I'm on the "make her comfortable" plan. If she were a couple years younger I think I may be more inclined to it. Thank you for your story.

Results from her bloodwork came back. No kidney issues. But her liver enzyme levels are highly elevated. Probably means a mass on her liver. So I guess I got my thing to blame. But I can't fix it.

Well just got back from the vet. She lost 2 lbs in 1 month. On a 30 lbs dog, that's concerning. Now she's down to 27 lbs from 29 last month at her teeth cleaning. I got 30 day bottle of mirtazapine and gave her a dose at 5. Hopefully she'll eat dinner. I also grabbed some more wet dog food and will "cook" for her again tonight. Then I'll get some mini raviolis from the store tomorrow. If this damn dog is going down, she's going to go down spoiled rotten.

@GentleLake I never wish for her to be in pain. But at this point if it's not something I can manage, then she's going to kill herself through starvation.

@aschlemm She's going back into the vet today for another blood draw. About a month ago when her teeth got cleaned her kidney values were elevated and they asked I come back in a month, so here I am. Or there I'll be. You get it. I'm also asking the Vet about Mirtazapine. The vet tech on the phone said they have Entice, which may also work. Anyone used Entice before? She was eating pretty good for about 5 days b/c I was using her food as treats to do tricks. But that's stopped working. Yesterday I "cooked" wet dog food up (I warmed up a half a can) and she ate that. This morning her stomach is upset from the wet dog food and I finally relented again and gave her human food by way of a flour tortilla (she seems to love them) because I wanted her to have something on her, more than likely, cramping stomach. I honestly hope it's kidney issues, so that I have something to blame and something I can fix. If it's just depression because she misses her sister...well that's just a whole bunch of sad.

@gcv-border I think I'll be calling my vet for this after Christmas. After about 6 days of getting her to eat pretty regularly, she's back to refusing everything. I even just dehydrated chicken livers to see if she'd eat those as a treat and she wouldn't, makes me think there's something up with her tummy. Thanks for the advice.

Thanks for the advice! @diane allen, I've noticed the same. If she's not interested in breakfast, I'll wait until 10 or 12 to try again. Luckily I'm working from home as we all are. @gcv-border & @Journey I am not really sure she's nauseous because she will normally eat treats. I'll keep it in mind if she does the "my stomach hurts" things.

@SS CressaThat sounds so similar to Masi. It's a constant dance of what will entice her to eat. I have tried those things but it does help to know I'm not alone! That this sort of thing is an old dog problem.