Older Dogs

There isn’t a one size-fits-all-solution when dogs begin to refuse food and it depends on health status, but at least one (and hopefully more) of these things can help:

Change the diet (be sure it’s balanced) Dogs can associate feeling nauseous with something they ate in the past that seemed to have caused the nausea, and if that something happens to be the usual diet, food aversion happens quickly.

Change the feeding bowl. A flat plate can seem attractive to a dog who usually eats from a bowl. Some dogs refuse any type of feeding utensil, but will eat food off a placemat on the floor.

Sometimes an area of a room or even an entire room becomes a “bad place”. Negative experiences like nausea and vomiting may be related to that location. Try another place in that same room, or feed the dog in different room.

I have a “thing” for older dogs. Ok, I seem to have a thing for all dogs, but the older ones really get to me because they’ve given us their entire lives with pure love and abandon. So, I want to talk about what we can do to make things better for them from a dietary perspective.

First and foremost, be sure the dog is healthy by having a complete blood count (CBC) and super chemistry profile done every six months. The ageing process is speedier in dogs, so in dog-years, six months is a fairly long time. A lot of things can change during this seemingly short period, and dietary manipulation can address quite a few of them, so it make sense to do it sooner rather than later. Read more Older Dogs