Dog not eating dog food while on meds, only chicken/tuna. What to do?

Thank you for contacting PetCoach with your question about Sophie. Unfortunately tuna and sweet potato are not a balanced diet for her, and I do not recommend it long term. If you want to make her food for her, check out these two websites below that have recipes for balanced and nutritious diets for dogs. I hope this helps! https://secure.balanceit.com https://www.petdiets.com

You might consider trying canned food if you aren't doing so already. If you have, I would continue to keep trying other brands. You can also consider taking any brand of dog food and mixing in some chicken or scrambled eggs to spice things up. Just realize that if you do that you will be doing it forever since Jake will never want to go back. Also you will need to monitor Jake's caloric intake carefully since he is a small breed dog. Calories from chicken and eggs will add up quickly and can result in an overweight dog. As far as medication, obviously whatever you need to do to get the medication down is fine. I tell my clients that are having trouble to use sticky things like peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, cream cheese, so on and so forth. Given that Jake is a dog prone to coughing (I don't know anything about his medical history) it will be especially important to find something that he doesn't fuss about too much in order to avoid getting him into a fit of coughing or possible aspiration of materials into the lungs. Hope this makes sense. Let me know if I can assist you further.

This question really depends on what medicaiton she is getting daily. Yes it is true that some pets take time to adjust but she should still be energetic and relatively normal otherwise. She also should be receptive to taking yummy irrresistible treats. I would recommend offering her some boiled plain chicken and rice or cottage cheese to see if you can coax her to eat a full meal. Once she eats you should be able to resume her medicaiton. Also please keep in mind that some medicaitons can cause lack of appetite as a side effect so it is important to have her re-evaluated by your local vet if she is having such a reaction. She may even need to be placed on a different medicaiton that her body will agree with. If you need to discuss her case more in detail feel free to request a consultation at your convenience. I hope this helps! Take care.

It depends what type of pain killers she is taking, as it is every 8 hours i assume it is an opioid which is fine to give even on an empty stomach. antibiotics can also be given on an empty stomach, although not ideal as this can cause nausea. try giving her some boiled chicken, treats or a canned food called a/d from Hills.

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! I recommend Purina Pro Plan shredded blends chicken and rice. This specific diet is very palatable and also very good in terms of nutrition. You could also consider adding dog grade gravy to her food which may improve her appetite. Another thing you can do is add pieces of chicken to the kibble at least for now to encourage her to eat. Good luck!

It's most important right now to get Shep to eat so he can take his medication, so the chicken and rice is fine. Once he's feeling better, you can worry abou transitioning him back to his dog food. I hope this helps!

You may try adding a scoop of canned weight loss dog food. This would likely have less calories than chicken or hamburger. You must also remember that dogs try to train us. As long as she is healthy, she will eat when she is hungry. It is OK for most dogs to miss a meal here and there as long as they don’t have a metabolic health concerns (like diabetes). You may also try mixing the canned food with water to create a gruel and pour this over the kibble and mix well. I hope this helps and please feel free to post any additional questions.