What should I do if my dog refuses to eat?

It can be difficult to know what to do if your do is off-color or recovering from a serious illness, and is refusing to touch his food. Many people are tempted to take the attitude of “he'll eat when he's hungry”, feeling guilty about bothering the dog or trying to force him to eat when he clearly doesn't have any interest in it. However, periods of sickness are when your dog needs good nourishing food more than ever. If he goes for a long time without eating anything, his energy will continue to fade and he won't get the nutrients that are essential to help his body fight the illness and make a recovery. For this reason, it's important that you try to get a sick dog to eat, just as you would with a sick child who had gone off their food.

In many cases where there has been an illness and medical attention has been necessary, the veterinarian will have placed the dog on a special diet for the recovery period. If this is the case for your dog, then you need to strictly enforce that diet, and make sure that your dog is fed nothing else. This includes treats, table leftovers, or special snacks to entice him to eat. The veterinarian knows what's wrong with your dog, and what foods will aid or hinder his recovery – you don't! So stick to any diet that has been set by a veterinarian, until you are given the all-clear for the dog.

 

Daily nourishment is very important for recovering from serious illness. If no restricted diet has been imposed, then feel free to vary the food you offer, in the hope that something else will appeal to the dog. Now isn't the time to be worried about causing him to become a fussy eater, even though you would normally be discouraged from offering a variety of different foods. But in the case of an ill dog, your main priority is getting nourishing food into him, so don't just keep putting out his usual food and taking it away uneaten as you would normally do, thinking “he'll eat it when he realizes he won't get anything else”. This works on a healthy dog, but a sick dog might have no interest in food, and will continue to starve if you don't try to entice him to eat.

A good tip is to make the food smell as good as you can, in order to entice him with good aromas. Try cooking something with an appealing aroma. Offer the dog a variety of tempting foods in the hope that one will be irresistable to him – try him on heart, kidney, or liver, all of which are particularly appetizing to dogs. However, there's no guaranteed winner – be willing to experiment until you find something that he's going to eat. It's worth it if it results in getting some much-needed nourishment into him! Pet owners have tried all sorts of foods, everything from prime meat cuts to tomato juice and egg yolks. Hopefully you'll manage to find something that the dog will eat.

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