About three days before we left, Alice stopped wanting to eat her regular dog food. She was still eating peanut butter and cheese and treats in good quantities, though. I called to make a vet appointment and we had to wait until we were back anyway to see the vet. So we decided to go ahead with our trip as planned.
For the first few days, she ate progressively slightly less peanut butter and treats every day. Then for 2–3 days in the middle of our trip, she ate almost nothing at all! I was extremely worried!!! We bought all kinds of things for her to try—lots of different dog foods, yogurt, broth, cheese, etc.
Then a day and a half before we came home, she started eating more. Gradually she’s eaten more and more until last night she was eating about a normal volume of food even though it was mostly chicken breast and two spoonfuls of wet dog food.
This is the third time in her life she’s gone off her food. Each one has been about 2–3 months apart. This one was the worst, though, with her almost completely stopping eating for a few days.
Today we took her into the vet. The vet says she looks healthy and happy! She has lost about 6 oz, and the vet said she is underweight but not worryingly so.
They took blood and are doing a full blood workup plus an extra pancreas panel. They said from the sound of her response to food (sniffing and licking the air but not wanting to eat the food) that she is probably nauseous. So they gave us some anti-nausea pills to give her for a few days. The next time this happens, we’ll have more pills left over and can just go ahead and start them.
They also gave us a Chinese herb called 8 gentlemen powder. This is supposed to help stimulate her appetite as well.
The vet didn’t seem super worried, and told us that if it doesn’t resolve on its own that we could do an ultrasound. Or the next time it happens if the nausea medication doesn’t work, we could do an ultrasound. It may be that she is just prone to bouts of nausea.
So I am feeling a lot better!
When we got home, I gave her the gentlemen powder and her anti nausea medication with a good amount of peanut butter. She seemed happy to eat it all up!
Brad got a picture of me sitting on the bench in the room with Alice on my lap and Hestia on the bench next to me. I am wearing the blue mandala dress from Amazon.
