Our Doberman is about 3 years old and was rescued. He has been under specialist care for few weeks now. Main problem right now is that he is not eating (not eaten for 5 days now, and just since yesterday he started to take sips of water at least). He has already been force-fed once (and that was not the best solution since it leaves a hole in skin and to deal with that all). We plan to stay on the course of keeping him alive so please chime in with any helpful tidbits you might have and even tricks or things that can be used to entice him to eat.
His diagnosis is little vague ... Sclerosis Encapsulating Peritonitis. He has had one Laparatomy that was un-successful. Obviously he has had exhaustive testing for almost everything out, leading Gastrointestinal surgeons, Internal Med specialists, Encologists, all have come to agree on the above diagnosis. His physical condition is not bad at all, he seems to be fighting, but goodness knows why he is not eating. He is on pain, anti-emetic, and anti fibrosis meds. They have been stopped periodically to see if they are helping or not the cause, but not much success so far. Ironically before getting sick, his appetite was like a horse, there is no obstruction or anything.
(Please move thread to appropriate forum, if this is not right place)
alanj: his surgery was 3-4 weeks ago, his stitches are out. After surgery he was better, somewhat eating, drinking, and somewhat running. Though 70% of the food he was eating was getting expelled due to vomiting. His med, Cerenia (maropitant) has helped reduce nauseaus and vomits. But now he has stopped eating, period.
Sieya: his favorite is cooked chicken, but now it carries zero interest to him.
What a weird disease , i am sorry you are having to go deal with this! Many times after surgeries like this the bowels will go to sleep...do you think this is what is happening? Is food passing from the stomach thru the intestines or does it just sit and vomited up?
So sorry you are going through this. My Doberman has gone through brief spells of anorexia while dealing with her DCM, and it was unbelievably stressful as she was on a lot of meds for her DCM and dropped weight very quickly when not eating. We would feed her anything that worked (cooked chicken, meatballs, dehydrated dog food, raw), and what worked would change all the time. I also found this article helpful: How To Feed a Dog That Won’t Eat
alanj: I dont think in his case the bowel is in sleep mode, since after surgery who was doing well. In his case, the intestines are not able to expand/contract enough to make the food pass easily. But thats the medical side, in real-world he has been eating all fine despite this diagnosis.
sieYa: That is correct, there is lack of motility in the gi tract. I cooked broth (nicely) and took away his plain water, but he showed zero interest on broth (which is totally un-usual for him). Then giving up on that trick, I put the water back alongside cooked broth, and he does drink the plain water at least.
scorning: thank you on the link, I did read through, and tried to force feed manually through mouth ... nice trick, while not fully successfully, though at least he ate 4-5 bites of chicken, and after which (un-characteristic of him), he displayed anger, at which I stopped ... I thought I'll give him rest (maybe the antiq is hurting him) and I could re-try it in few hrs.
LindaH, thank you for the links. Scorning: thank you so much for the links. I read through them and took some amunition yesterday in front of his GI surgeon and she prescribed him Mirtazapine. Viola after eating the tablet, he ate by himself a small portion of his orijen diet ... first occassion in as many as 6 days. And today, I had to go rogue, I offered him raw chicken breast, and it made me so happy - it was a sizeable portion and he finished it all though slowly piece by piece.
I'm so glad the Dogaware link helped your boy. That site is loaded with good information on many, many subjects. Or maybe it was scorning's link as it recommends that medication, too...whichever, glad he's doing better.
Ask your vet if liquid B complex vitamins are ok.
One summer helping with a litter of wormy not eating much puppies (another breed) we used Nature's Bounty sublingual drops and that helped quite a bit. (with the owners vet ok'ing it- said they could have full human dose)
/not a vet nor play one on tv - always check the ingredients for artificial sweetners/toxic to dog ingredients
glad to report, our Guis has recovered from his anorexia bout. His CT scan revealed inflammatory cells (non-cancerous). As soon as he was put on prednisone his hunger came back, and he is eating like an oxe, and putting up his lost weight. Mirtazipine had helped too. We have to keep our fingers crossed for now.
Thank you to all, for your providing a wealth of information, without which I would not have had all the courage to keep hounding his docs. Cant imagine a dog going on a fast for like 9 days, this has been a remarkable recovery.
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