Casper, our nearly 12 year old DSH, was at the vet yesterday for testing due to daily vomiting this past week - about 3-4 days of it. This combined with his appetite being off and a couple of bouts of what sounded like a cough/hacking. He does have a history of bringing up his breakfast now and then, but this was also happening later in the day now which concerned us and it really never happened day after day. The vet also noticed that his hind legs seems to have lost muscle tone, which explains why he appeared to be having difficulty going up the stairs for a while now (down, no problem though).
Everything else looks good though, all vitals were fine.
The vet put him on medication for gastric reasons, 2x a day and we need to wait an hour before feeding him. He mentioned feeding him HIll's special food which I declined rather forcibly. I have no desire to support their company.
The vet said I could feed him a mixture of ground boiled beef mixed with rice. Well, that was a big fail. He refused it completely. I even tried recooking another portion in the microwave without draining as much of the fat so it wasn't as dry. Still, no go.
So, now I have a problem because he won't eat what he suggested and I'm not about to purchase Hill's.
What else, is an appropriate diet to feed for about a week which won't upset his stomach/esophagus? It was also suggested that plain skinless boneless chicken breast would be ok, but my concern is that because there is no "flavor" in these things, he is going to keep refusing the food.
Are there other canned foods which are safe for him to eat, with extremely limited ingredients?
Would love to hear with others have figured out in these kind of circumstances.
He's behaving really strange this morning, probably because he's really hungry, doing things he's never done before like jumping on chairs, and going from each chair to chair. I'd ideally like to be able to get food into him by this afternoon because he hasn't had a meal since Friday evening. He brought up his breakfast Saturday, and the vet didn't want up to feed him last night, and wouldn't eat what I presented this morning.
Thanks!
Laurie
Everything else looks good though, all vitals were fine.
The vet put him on medication for gastric reasons, 2x a day and we need to wait an hour before feeding him. He mentioned feeding him HIll's special food which I declined rather forcibly. I have no desire to support their company.
The vet said I could feed him a mixture of ground boiled beef mixed with rice. Well, that was a big fail. He refused it completely. I even tried recooking another portion in the microwave without draining as much of the fat so it wasn't as dry. Still, no go.
So, now I have a problem because he won't eat what he suggested and I'm not about to purchase Hill's.
What else, is an appropriate diet to feed for about a week which won't upset his stomach/esophagus? It was also suggested that plain skinless boneless chicken breast would be ok, but my concern is that because there is no "flavor" in these things, he is going to keep refusing the food.
Are there other canned foods which are safe for him to eat, with extremely limited ingredients?
Would love to hear with others have figured out in these kind of circumstances.
He's behaving really strange this morning, probably because he's really hungry, doing things he's never done before like jumping on chairs, and going from each chair to chair. I'd ideally like to be able to get food into him by this afternoon because he hasn't had a meal since Friday evening. He brought up his breakfast Saturday, and the vet didn't want up to feed him last night, and wouldn't eat what I presented this morning.
Thanks!
Laurie