Loving my Oldies Posted November 6, 2018 Share Posted November 6, 2018 (edited) Anyone with long memories and have read my “I’m tearing my hair out” posts about the eating difficulties and idiosyncrasies of my dogs may know that I have two dogs on diets to lose weight and another two on diets to increase weight. I’ve tried all sorts of things over the years with Jeune and Tamar to try to get them to eat: different places to feed them, different bowls, different foods and so on and so on. Jeune is by far the worst though why I should worry as she has now turned 18 I don’t know. And Tamar (15 in January) is on a very expensive medication to give her an appetite -- she was skin and bone, but bright and happy so no medical issues. (Naturally, they have had many visits to the vets over the years.) However, I just have to recount this morning’s episode. Bunter in the study, Mezza in the bedroom, Tamar and Jeune on the deck. Tamar and Jeune circling their bowls as though they are full of piranha or at least something that is going to do them a great deal of harm if they get within striking distance of the bowls. Eventually, I had to let Mezza and Bunter out of their rooms and picked up T’s and J’s bowls. I decided on another try with the girls and took them and bowls into the bedroom and put them all on the bed (with mattress protector) ..... yep, both of them guzzled down a good breakfast!! Crazy. Edited December 28, 2019 by Loving my Oldies 1 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BJ. Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 Oh I can relate DDD, since Nash's passing I have been having terrible troubles getting Jester to eat. Vet visits showed nothing wrong, changed food, mixing different things into his food, nothing made a difference. One sniff and he was out of there. A Basset not eating is unheard of. When I let him out in the morning I feed the cats their raw food, if there is any left overs he can eat them when he comes in. So a few days ago I left his bowl of biscuits in the cat room, bingo all his biscuits gone. I haven't had a problem since....touch wood. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loving my Oldies Posted November 7, 2018 Author Share Posted November 7, 2018 Touch wood, indeed, @BJ.. Hopefully this will continue. I don’t hold out many hopes for my peace of mind, though. Tonight or tomorrow, they will refuse to eat again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asal Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 (edited) went through this with amigo, sorry I cant do better than commiserate. At least with Stringy he would eat the plateful as long as there some some chicken in it or at least the scent of chicken in or on it. Edited November 7, 2018 by asal 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loving my Oldies Posted November 7, 2018 Author Share Posted November 7, 2018 I used to think roast chicken was the absolute go to for the girls, but the last one was refused meal after meal and eventually thrown out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PANDI-GIRL Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 Hi, I love reading about your days with all your lovely old dogs I feel so happy for them, that they have a nice home with you @Loving my Oldies you seem to understand their funny ways How are your fluffys with eating now, I can tell they make your day Happy & interesting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loving my Oldies Posted January 2, 2019 Author Share Posted January 2, 2019 29 minutes ago, PANDI-GIRL said: Hi, I love reading about your days with all your lovely old dogs I feel so happy for them, that they have a nice home with you @Loving my Oldies you seem to understand their funny ways How are your fluffys with eating now, I can tell they make your day Happy & interesting I can assure you that some days, I am all for bundling them into the car and off to the nearest pound I have a little foster dog now, so that means a fifth place to eat, but he is very easy - I brought the crate in from the garage. (In fact, I always bring a crate in when I have a foster so if I have to go out, I can keep the new one safe until they know I am coming home.) Bunter is still in the study and Mezza is in the bathroom. The bedroom trick with Jeune and Tamar lasted that one time (or maybe a second, I’ve forgotten), so they are fed now in the dining/lounge kitchen as the deck is like a furnace these days. I finally relented in desperation and, on the suggestion of a friend, am buying those little cans of dog food for Jeune. But when I give her those, I have to separate her from Tamar as Tamar is on a renal diet. I did take one of them down to the vet to ask the vet if the cans were okay for Tamar and she said only in tiny amounts, so that is relatively easy to police. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
persephone Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 LMO .. so, basically you don't even have to really think about it at all ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PANDI-GIRL Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 How funny they only would eat in the bedroom 1 or 2 times, then no more, did they just look at you when you put them up on the bed & you could tell they wouldn't eat Jeune might eat a bit more with the canned food it's quite smelly Do all the dogs go outside to toilet or do you have an indoor potty tray for night time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loving my Oldies Posted January 2, 2019 Author Share Posted January 2, 2019 5 hours ago, PANDI-GIRL said: How funny they only would eat in the bedroom 1 or 2 times, then no more, did they just look at you when you put them up on the bed & you could tell they wouldn't eat Jeune might eat a bit more with the canned food it's quite smelly Do all the dogs go outside to toilet or do you have an indoor potty tray for night time I take them into the backyard before bed. The dogs have always gone outside, but as they get older with all the attendant problems, we do have accidents in the house. It can be a long way out for little elderly dogs (Bunter is the “biggest” at 6.6kgs): through the house, across the deck, down the stairs or ramp ..... sometimes they decide the deck is far enough and that’s okay as I wash up any mistakes and hose down every couple of days. Jeune has had THREE meals today. . I had to have a nap to get over the shock 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PANDI-GIRL Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 Jeune must think the canned food is delicious, fantastic she is enjoying it so much, I hope this enjoyment of food keeps up! & Jeune stays healthy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loving my Oldies Posted January 2, 2019 Author Share Posted January 2, 2019 You and me both, @PANDI-GIRL. Jeune is the most stubborn dogs I have ever known. I have seen her hanging over a bowl of food licking her lips and almost salivating. But if she decides she isn’t going to eat it, she won’t. I can SEE the difference in her weight in the past week, though, so I am very pleased with her. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loving my Oldies Posted December 28, 2019 Author Share Posted December 28, 2019 (edited) I decided to take a look at the topics I’ve created regarding my dogs and that great mystery, EATING, and came across this one started a year ago. 2019 has been a very very very long year in terms of trying to manage to give all my very elderly dogs the best lives I can. Despite all the supplementary feeding she is getting, Jeune continues to lose weight and I am very very conflicted, because, depending on what illness or age a dog has, it can be very difficult to make the decision as to what is in the best interests of the dog (or any other pet). When I got up this morning, Jeune was out on the deck in the sunshine. As I watched she had a couple of little episodes of throwing up something that is very rare considering her age and her cancer. She is drinking a lot these days and I wonder if that is because of all the extras she is getting such as lots of Nutrigel and Anitone (I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten who recommended that). When I checked on her again, she was just lying down on the deck, which I’ve never seen before except when she lies on the top step in the sunshine. After her meds, she had about 25mls of Recovery, Bone Broth and Nutrigel and ate a tiny bit of breakfast. Her #2s are normal and I have only once seen her straining and that was some weeks ago. So for a very elderly dog with cancer (not in pain and taking Piroxicam), is she okay considering these things? I just don’t know what to do. I cannot see it in her eyes that she is ready to go and, yesterday, after I gave her a bath, she was racing around the house and deck like a youngster, but today she is very tired and is so thin. If someone picked her up in the street, they would think she’d been deliberately starved. I last took her to the vet on 17 December and the vet said to see her in a month’s time. Well, this is just a bit of a ramble because I don’t really know whether I keep on doing what I’m doing until Jeune is half the weight she should be. She still makes her way downstairs and has a little potter around, but mostly she just does her business, stands around for a while and then comes back upstairs by herself or waits for me to carry her. (I should add, that she has always done this, even when she was young and healthy. She would just stand in the sun for ages. I’d take a bed down for her, but, nope: she just wanted to stand there soaking up the rays.) A little anecdote from many many years ago. A woman with terminal cancer was being interviewed about the refusal of the Australian government to allow a particular drug into Australia because they weren’t satisfied that enough testing had been done to prove or otherwise its efficacy or safety. That woman was relatively young, she was standing at her front fence talking to the interviewer and she didn’t look too bad, just quite pale. It was later reported that she had died the following day. The point of this story is that although she was “well” enough to stand up and talk to reporters, she was actually just hours away from death. Edited December 28, 2019 by Loving my Oldies 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebanne Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 I'm so sorry LMO. It's such a hard decision to make. For me, if I start asking myself should I or shouldn't I, then I usually do. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
persephone Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 I am no help to you ... I'm the better too early than too late person .... If I notice myself checking on them often ... That's a pretty good indicator. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papillon Kisses Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 There are various quality of life scales posted online that may help you think things through. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loving my Oldies Posted December 28, 2019 Author Share Posted December 28, 2019 1 hour ago, Papillon Kisses said: There are various quality of life scales posted online that may help you think things through. I’ll look that up, thank you, PK. However, I do contemplate the quality of life issue daily and that is what is at the heart of the quandary. Jeune has always been a funny little girl (funny as in odd and different). She has always been fiercely stubborn, has never played with toys, out on walks when we had them, if left to her own devices, she could have taken an hour to go 20 metres or even less because she would fasten on one spot and sniff and sniff and sniff. I once tried to time her as to how long she would stand sniffing at one little patch. She won and I had to drag her to continue the walk . This was always the pattern of our walks . . . . . . So, maybe she is quite content in just snoozing the days away?? She has been in my life for over 16 years, 3 years old when I adopted her. I made a mistake in my post above. She saw the vet on 11 Dec not 17 Dec, so it is just over a week before we see her again and I will ask for some more guidance then. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ish Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 It helps me, when I’m in that awful position of wondering if it’s time, to remember that’s it’s not hard on them, only hard on ourselves. For them, they don’t regret not having one more day - they only know they’ve had years of happy days with us. It’s not what may still be ahead that matters for them, they can’t think like that. Making the decision before their quality of life gets to the point of being questionable will cause you more peace in the long run, even though you may question yourself at the time. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
persephone Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 0 Advanced issue found ▲ 8 minutes ago, ish said: It helps me when I’m in that awful position of wondering if it’s time, to remember that’s it’s not hard on them, only hard on ourselves. ..this is so true What they have everyday is what's hard on them. That visit from the vet OR trip to the vet is "just another inconvenience" out of many such over a lifetime.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loving my Oldies Posted December 28, 2019 Author Share Posted December 28, 2019 She is now on the deck eating dinner with Tamar swapping bowls 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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