Our old dog - feeding suggestions?

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I_am_a_cucumber

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We don't know exactly how old our dog is as she is a rescue (stray - so no history), but our (and the vet's) guess is that she is between 10 and 12. She really seems to have aged over the last year. She is almost completely deaf and quite arthritic. The arthritis was controlled quite well with metacam but we had to stop this as it affected her kidneys. She is now on glucosamine/chondroitin etc, which is hopefully having some effect, but I also want the vet to have another look at this. In addition to this she is getting more and more senile. :(

Anyway, besides all this, my main concern at the moment is food. Over the last couple of months it has become more and more difficult to get her to eat something. She has been on a raw diet for the last two to three years and was doing quite well on it. Then she seemed more and more reluctant to eat anything (apart from stealing catfood :rolleyes:). I then started buying the packs of frozen food from Pets at Home etc (Prizechoice?). At first this worked well and she was eating most of it, then she began leaving most of a feed. :( Some days she hardly eats anything. :( Yet she will still steal the cat's (tinned) food if she can! I'm sure if I started buying tinned dog food she would eat it, but I'm really reluctant to do so.

I'm really not sure what to do about feeding her now. :( Maybe I just need to buy tinned food on the basis that it's better than nothing? Any other ideas what I could try? I will take her to the vet's this week anyway, but I'm sure if I start talking about food they will just recommend dried food anyway.

And another issue, while I'm here: she had an operation a couple of months ago to remove some suspicous growths from her abdominal area. They could only remove half the growths (because there were so many / covering a large area) and are planning to remove the rest of them soon (about now, probably). At the moment I'm reluctant to put her through an operation. I'm hoping that with an improvement in her diet and better control of arthritis and hopefully her increasing senility she will make some improvements over the next few weeks and that we'll do the operation when she is better. If not, I'd rather not put her through it. :(

I know all this doesn't sound good and obviously if she's really suffering we'd do the right thing and put her to sleep. :( (Though just thinking about that option breaks my heart. :() But she still seems to enjoy life, loves her (short!) walks, loves a fuss and sleeps most of the day. I really hope with the vet's help we can give her a few more happy, healthy years.

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense... writing it down has actually quite upset me ... I guess my main question is about the eating because that concerns me most at the moment. Any suggestions as to what else we could try? Should we just give her dried/tinned dog food?
 
Bless her she sounds like she's been through the mill. So firstly food, my oldies are on Vitalin because it's wet therefore easy for old teeth, get the one with gravy and I've yet to have a dog not eat it, and with regards to meat...well my dogs are usually raw fed but to be honest if they are old and they want tinned meat..then they get tinned meat!! I give the old boys Butchers meat because it's good quality and stinks so tempts them to eat! Otherwise they get cooked chicken (obviously meat only not the bones), tinned sardines in tomato sauce or raw mince mixed into the Vitalin.

For the joints I started using Feedmarks Agility a while back because it was on offer and I've found it the best supplement for helping with movement! I also add to the anicent boy (17) 2 Green Lipped Mussel pills (500mg per tablet) a day and 1 Devils Claw (300mg).

My bitch is covered in fatty lumps but we've decided to not operate on her because they are not inteferring with her life and her heart isn't fabulous so my vet decided to leave well alone, if they did become a problem I'd consider the op but please don't worry about them if the quality of life isn't compromised.
 
Poor baby! sounds like she is in good hands tho!

Did she have a mammary strip done? cancerous tumours in her mammary glands?

There are drugs to help with senile moments, they increase oxygen to the brain

Has her Kidney function settled down since you stopped using the Metacam? Hows her drinking and urine? Maybe she needs a prescription Kidney diet to support her kidneys?

The arthritis will certainly need supporting if she is sore she will go off her food too, I suspect when you sort out the other problems her appetite will come back, think a visit to the vet is needed again xx
 
I think YD maybe means vivitonin? tablets for the senility.
If she still wants cat food she is still hungry, just parky:D is she holding weight ok? dogs really don't need as much as we think they can and will/can easily go a few days without, they are designed this way, aslong as they are not losing weight and are ok condition wise.
Maybe look at the Fish4dogs (saok the dry) range or tripe, its fab quality and they do salmon oil, mouse sachets, this may interest her, and only offer a small meal at a time, 10 mins down then lift, if she eats it all then by all means offer more but only a small amount to start of with to encourage her to eat.

Ps thankyou for the donation, you really did not need to:o:)
 
I think at this stage of her life I'd be inclined to feed her exactly what she wants. And if that's tinned food, so be it:o
 
If she's interested in wet food, could you consider the Arden Grange wet food, when comparing against the likes of pedigree etc. it looks to be fairly good quality to me - although i stand to be corrected. Best of luck though, its never easy to know what to do for the best!
 
My ancient JR who is approaching 21 now is now fed a sachet of cat food (only gravy ones will do for madam and no cheapy unbranded if you don't mind :) ) daily or she won't eat her autarky. I mainly use it to hide her metacam. She is now fed at least 3 , sometimes 4 times a day to help her keep weight on - funny as she was on a permanent diet for years as she once got so tubby that she got stuck in the cat flap...

When she went onto metacam a couple of years ago for her arthritic hips I had the discussion with the vet about the potential damage to her organs associated with long term use and we decided that short term comfort was much more important than prolonging her life so, for her it really is the 'last chance saloon'. She does sometimes have a violently upset tummy, usually because she has scavenaged something very dead/rotten :rolleyes: but so far, so good. Last time we were at the vets he mentioned a new anti inflammatory drug that is a once a month injectable, I didn't get any details but might be worth asking about? The other thing is that she really brightened up once she started the metacam. In hindsight I can see that she must have been very sore but she didn't show any obvious symptoms just appeared very old and tired(if that makes sense?) but she started doing so much more within a week of being on the drug.

My girl also has a 'lump' - a huge fatty cyst that started when she was about 14, it was drained twice over a couple of years but came back bigger each time so as she was about 16 then the decision was made to ignore it, the expectation being that she wouldn't still be alive when it became a problem. TBH I wonder if we should have risked the op as it is as ugly as sin but it doesn't seem to bother her so maybe it was the right decision - who knows?
I personally wouldn't put an old dog through much more treatment than pallitive care IYKWIM but I really think that choices like that are only for the owner, nobody else.
 
First of all, apologies for not replying sooner. :o Thank you so much for all your replies, they've been very helpful.

Just a quick update: I've taken her to the vets again and he thinks it's secondary tumours which have spread to the lungs and possibly liver. :( This would explain her lethargy and lack of appetite. She really has lost a lot of weight. :( She was a bit overweight to start with so I wasn't too concerned first of all, but she has lost far too much. I have tried all sorts of food (thanks for the suggestions) and she'll typically have something once or twice and then refuse to touch it. For a while the only thing she would reliably eat was cat food, preferably stolen from the cats' bowls. :rolleyes: She has even refused that a few times now. :(

She is having x-rays next week to confirm whether secondary tumours are the problem, and she is now on steroids, which should also help with arthritis pain and will hopefully stimulate her appetite again! If it is secondary tumours we will just do what we can to make her as comfortable as possible. Quality rather than quantity of life ...
 
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