After 2 days of decent eating, Arri went completely off food of any kind. He turned his nose up on everything. Not even cookies or meatloaf would tempt him. The odd thing was that every time I walked near him, he gave me the 'got food?' look. I would offer and he would snub it. We have seen this before so I wasn't concerned just yet. I gave him 24 hours to be sick and then if he still wouldn't take food, I would shove an appetite stimulant down his throat. Since he is not even trying to put food in his mouth, this would have to be the method.
It wasn't until late in the morning that he ate a hamburger and a few cookies. Two hours later, he was refusing food again and had not had a drink all day. He ate a little more burger and cookies in the late afternoon. But refused anything again a few hours later. Right about bed time - for Arri - 8:30, he ate some more burger and finally had a little water. Overall, he ate one healthy sized meal of burger and cookies.
Fri, Feb 22: Today I will see if I can get an appetite stimulant in him. This morning, he ate 3 cookies and 3 'if I must' bites of canned food. It is a slight improvement but clearly he is still going to be finicky and his stomach just isn't quite right. He refused all food until 10:30 am at which point he felt well enough for some burger again. I suppose I need to make him a meatloaf because it has some extra vegis in it.
He is having some toileting issues at the moment. Considering the how little water he is drinking, he is still peeing just fine. Too dark in color but that will get better when he is eating better and I can add more water to his food. His other end isn't working right. That is one of the possible side effects of the medicine. He is a little too soft. I will be picking up some medicine to help that later. It was a good thing I was on the phone with the vets office because I couldn't help rolling my eyes and smiling when they suggested a low residue diet. As his chemo happened elsewhere, I can't expect them to know what is going on so I remind them that he is currently refusing to eat anything but hamburger. They send home some complimentary low residue food to try when we picked up his medicine. : ) They take such good care of my 'kids'.
 |
| Look into my eyes......you want to give me cookies.... |
Sat & Sun: The appetite stimulant has kicked in so Arri will now pretty much eat anything and is begging for everything. He wants to make up for lost meals. With Arri eating meatloaf, eukenuba, baby food and cookies all day, we have developed some issues with the other dogs. They have been given a few too many sympathy treats and have started begging or maybe demanding is more accurate As of Sunday, they have been banned from treats unless being put in their kennel. Oregon has been the worst and has his own story.
Oregon: For months now we have been battling the clock with Oregon. We are of the opinion that toileting does not need to happen between 10 pm and 5 am give or take. Oregon often thinks 10pm, 2 am, 4, am and 6 am work well for his schedule. Despite the time difference, we have made progress in that he will now whine to let me know what time it is. We went through a phase where his signal was to go and then wait until the smell wafted over and woke me up gagging.
We have tried digestive medicine that worked for a short time. Then we added probiotics to his food and that worked until we took him off it to see what would happen. I finally tried to switch him to a new food. Well, that backfired spectacularly. Ok, it could have been much, much worse, but either way, it failed. We were switching from Eukenuba to Science Diet. I have never had a problem with Science Diet. Oregon did fine during the transition period. He ate his first full Science Diet meal and I thought all was well. The next morning, he refused to eat. He didn't refuse all food, he walked away from his and tried to get Arri's meatloaf. I guard Arri when he eats so Oregon didn't have a chance. After refusing to eat several times, Tim gave him a bowl of Eukenuba and he ate without hesitation. Ok, Science Diet is out. Thankfully, Tim had picked up the smallest bag. I mix the Science Diet with the bin of Euk. so we use it up. Oregon refused the mixed food. It seemed that if he smelled the Science Diet, he would not eat it. This boy is going to get really hungry. I am not picking out the Science Diet and he will not be getting treats to make up for the missed meal. At this point, the appetite stimulant had kicked in and Arri was happily eating everthing so he ate Oregon's food. Oregon won the battle so that I finally diluted the food bin with more Eukenuba and now Oregon tolerates his meals. Maybe he understood what the goal was because he has not asked to go out in the wee hours since the experiment. Woo Hoo a week of mostly undisturbed sleep. We won't count Arri waking me up with labored breathing because we are just happy to hear him breathe.
No comments:
Post a Comment