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.

@urge to herd He does have the same issues that I have. Just not as pronounced. Meaning she still snubs food but he doesn't have to coax her at long. There's a few things that might help that though. For one thing she's back in the house that we lived in for 10 years. It's familiar and comfortable for her. I left him with an arsenal of things to try, hopefully she does alright. I recently started giving her a small dose of trazodone to help with anxiety of "life". It appears to help her here. Maybe after a week or so of being on that, she'll be less anxious.

Thanks, everyone, for your advice. I wish I could say I found the magic sauce over the weekend. I actually started adding warm broth to her food because I read somewhere that making it warm and smell like it has been cooked helps. It worked for a day. I think @urge to herd is onto something and I've tried disappearing. It's strange, if I don't stand there and encourage her in high pitches baby voices (my god I sound like an idiot), she won't start eating. But once she starts, she finishes and I'll disappear. I'm going away for a couple days and she's staying with my ex but when I get back, I'm going to try dehydrating chicken livers and see if something homemade like that will make her excited again.

I guess I should mention she's 14, almost 15.

Hey folks, It's been a while, I used to frequent these boards on a daily basis. Well time's have changed and my trio of border collies is down to a solo, the other two passed on this year. 2020 can kiss my ass. Masi, the last remaining, was my rescue dog. She's always been a bit edgy but after 14 years with Rhea at her side, she'd really come around. Rhea was every dog's security blanket, she was amazing. I won't get started. Masi had already been through some changes before Rhea's passing, my moving out of the house that I shared with my husband and into several different friend's houses until I settled on an apartment and only having Rhea around every other week as my husband and I shared her. She started being finicky about eating near December of last year. I'd add a walnut or two to her food to encourage her to eat. When Rhea was around, she ate with gusto. Same food, different atmosphere. With Rhea passing I knew Masi would continue to struggle with eating and I was right. To exacerbate the issue, I bought a house and moved her again. To make matters worse, I had to temporarily (3 months) relocate to a far away town for work and I tried to take her with me. This is when she got really bad and would go into full body shakes from nerves. Ultimately, I gave her to my ex to watch for the last month that I was there. Returning to a home she remembered and a routine she remembered was good for her and she calmed. That project ended in October and she and I have been in my new house since then, with a solid routine. Still this is a struggle. I've exhausted my expertise, I've exhausted my food stores expertise, I don't want to have to put her on appetite enhancers unless absolutely necessary. Can anyone lend some advice?! Here is what I've done, none of these have been successful: Switched kibble both brand and flavor inside the same brand. Tried wet food Tried adding varies people foods, carrots, cheese, beans, eggs, etc She's been to the vet for bloodwork to make sure there's no underlying cause, there is not. She's recently gotten her teeth cleaned to make sure she didn't have dead ones that were making it hard to chew (she did not). CBD Oil, 1ml didn't seem to affect her (she's 30 lbs) Composure liquid (this seems to have some small affect) Adding the freeze dried raw meal mixers that my food store recommended. Cut out people food completely (I've started doing this now) Feeding her on the carpet instead of the hardwoods Doing tricks to jazz her up for food time I'm at a loss. I would greatly appreciate any new ideas. I thought I had this pupper figured out but she's definitely tense and I think she knows I want her to eat even when she refuses and that makes her more tense even though I keep my voice light hearted and give her loves. I don't want her to get skinny and hasten her way to the rainbow bridge. Thanks for reading!

You misunderstand me. I'm not assuming that this has nothing to do with physical causes. I'm just asking for advice on behavioral ones. That being said. I really don't need sarcasm right now. I'm dealing with enough between Gunnar's issues and Rhea's to top it off. Thanks for your advice I do appreciate it.

Best reason I can give you to why I have this idea is because I know my dog. I know his behavior, I know his looks. I'm not ignoring that the medication can have an effect on his appetite, I imagine it does. However, I'm also considering years and years of past experience with this pup on medication. Also, if it was just him feeling like trash he wouldn't want his treats as eagerly as he does. If I were to put a small pile of his kibble in front of him and a carrot as well he would eat the carrot and leave the kibble to the kitty (who is amazingly not picky). Oh I wanted to point out that the last thing he had was not a UTI the vet was sure of that. He tested negative for all those symptoms. She had a theory that he had an infection in his urethra which can be caused from excess...uh..cleaning...which this boy can be bad about. With some antibiotics it cleared up. This time he had crystals in his urine. Poor pup... Thanks for all your input everyone!

Valid point. Perhaps I shouldn't wait him out and see if he eats regularly again. He is pretty fond of yogurt and that doesn't seem to upset his stomach, I could add that to his kibble. No, she didn't do a sterile urine tap. She suggested an ultrasound...should I bring this up? Our old trick of adding olive oil didn't work either. That's kind of why I was thinking it had something more to do with being nervous and having a negative reaction to feeding time. Maybe he just really hates Taste of the Wild...

This is honestly my greatest fear. I'm waiting for one of the epileptics to come down with cancer because that would just be our luck. I think the first time she checked his white blood cell count and it was outside of the range they look for for cancer but I may ask again. I'm thought of the egg mixture thing actually. It's a good option if he persists in not eating. Anybody ever have a dog stop eating because of nerves?

If it comes down to it we will. We're kind of going along with the advice of our vet at this point. We'll do the blood panel if she asks for it. What kind of things should I look for in his mouth? We brush their teeth fairly often (just did so on Sunday actually) and can check ourselves. If it persists this may end up being what we do.... I'd like to avoid it as much as possible but as they get older I imagine it will become necessary.

Hey when I said "ill" I meant vomiting. I tried to make that clear, sorry for the confusion. Yes he has some sort of urinary tract infection and yes he's gone to the vet and gotten checked over. Thus the drugs. I think his last blood work was at the end of last year to check all his levels (seizure medication protocol and what not). Also, the first time this happened he got the full typical work up for anything urinary related. Everything came back negative. This time his urine sample had a few crystals in it. So if the antibiotics don't clear it up we'll be going in for an ultrasound. Really hoping the antibiotics help. The first time he had the issue I believe we had his thyroid levels checked. He is on thyroid medication as part of his seizure control regiment and that was my first thought too. I'm pretty sure I remember his thyroid levels being normal. Thanks for your sympathy. It certainly is a pain in the rump. We absolutely took him to the vet as soon as his symptoms returned to get checked out. Yeah epilepsy is a demon. Luckily (knock on wood) he hasn't had a seizure recently (yay!). He's never had problems eating post seizure though... He's a happy go lucky chap once he comes out of it. We haven't tried mixing in treats yet...and I'm reluctant to because I don't want him getting used to that and I think he'd just pick out the carrots...