Dog refusing to eat

[moosemama]

My rather more than a little bit highly strung rescue Lurcher, who is usually massively food motivated, suddenly refused his evening feed last night.

He has no other symptoms. I have checked his mouth and teeth, no bad stomachs, no sickness, temp normal and doesn’t appear under the weather, just doesn’t want to eat.

I will get him booked in for a check-up when the vets open but, honestly, I think it’s behavioural. He stands there looking at his bowl for an age, then looks at me, then back at the bowl. I tried not to make a fuss, because I know how hyper-vigilant he can be and he also has a habit of making negative associations (he has separation anxiety and is always hypervigilant for signals). I left him with the bowl for 10 minutes, then, when he didn’t eat I took it up. My husband has started working away one night a week and was due home last night. The dog really misses him, so when he arrived home last night I suggested he gave it to him - and he ate it.

This morning I have just put his food down and he’s refused it again. He keeps coming into the living room and staring at me, then going over and standing by our other dog, then going back and standing by his bowl, but not eating.

I did try tipping it into his green feeder, as his lower jaw is short and he is very pointy, which means his nose gets in the way when he tries to eat out of a normal bowl, but he uses his tongue to grab the food in the green feeder and is super fast at emptying them. Nope, wouldn’t eat out of that either, so after 10 minutes I took it up again.

He does have Saluki in him and I know they can be funny around food, but he is almost 5 and has never done this before. For background, we have had him since he was 10 weeks old. He was very, very poorly when we took him on and the vet said he wouldn’t have survived another week if we hadn’t taken him, because he was so emaciated and had a nasty campylobacter infection. It took till he was 20 weeks to nurse him back to health and he wasn’t allowed to mix with other dogs at all during that period. As a result, he is great with people, both adults and children, but we have never been able to get him over his fear of loose dogs. He can cope if they’re on the lead, but is terrified if they are off lead, either running around a distance away or worse, if they dare to approach him. We have taken him to training classes, seen behaviourists, both breed specialists and not and worked very hard with him, but it seems he is just one of those cases that is never going to be quite right. He also developed separation anxiety when he was very poorly as a pup and although it has improved to the point where he is now happy to be left with my sons, despite lots and lots and lots of hard work around it, we have never been able to completely get him over it.

The only other thing of note was that earlier this week he was doing an odd thing where he’d take a mouthful of food, move his head over his bed, then crunch it, dropping crumbs and slobber all over the bed, which he hoovered up after eating. This isn’t his normal way of eating, but I have had a thorough check of his mouth and can’t see any problems at all. (He is cooperative to having his mouth handled, because he loves having his teeth brushed and will lie with his head in my lap while I scale his teeth as well.)

I am flummoxed. All I can think is that something has happened that upset or bothered him while he was eating and he’s developed an instant negative association with his dinner because of it. In which case, I wondered about shifting onto a different food, in a new bowl and feeding him in a different area. Other than that, I am out of ideas.

Does anyone else have any ideas?

It might be worth a visit to the vet, just because of the weird crunching behaviour, but I do agree that salukis can be weird. My one who is greyhoundy salukiy will refuse to eat if a) someone is looking at him funny (includes the chickens) b) the food is not exactly to his liking - too many crunchies/gravy based wet food when he wants chub roll c) he actually needs a poo but won't go and do it because its raining/someone is looking at him/ the puppies are out there.

If its a wrong food day, nothing will shift him, but sometimes I need to put him in the hall with his food and shut the door so he concentrates on it and not on being a special snowflake

I have called the vet and they have no free appointments today. Their advice, based mainly on the fact he did eat when dh came home last night, was to observe him today and if he is no better take him to the main branch tomorrow.

We’re not sure of his mix, as he was found in a ditch at less than 24 hours old (hence all his issues) but have been told by lots of people who know better than us that they can clearly see Saluki in his build and he certainly has some of their ... more interesting personality/behavioural traits!

He has never done anything like this before - although he is definitely one to avoid pooing - or weeing - if it’s raining or the weather is somehow otherwise not to his liking ... or the squirrel is in the greengage tree!

He’s been on this kibble for over a year and always eaten it with gusto before. It’s a new bag, but our other Lurcher is eating it - although he’d eat just about anything. I suppose there is a possibility they have changed the formula and he is just being picky, as our other lad wouldn’t care as along as it filled the hole in his stomach!

I would try putting him somewhere else to eat, but knowing him, he’d then be stressed because it was out of his normal routine. He’s a complicated dog. It’s a good job we love him so much, because he’s blooming hard work!

Okay. So I was having a cuppa with a couple of custard cremes and he seemed very interested, so I gave him one. (Wouldn’t usually, but desperate times and all that.) He ate that, then went straight to back the door. Let him out, he came straight back in and stood looking at the top pantry shelf, where I’d put his green feeder this morning.

Put the feeder down and he’s eaten the lot.

So, it was something behavioural and whatever it was his hunger has got the better of him!

Now the other dog is looking at me accusatorily because he’s convinced he’s missed a feed.

Dogs eh? Ddog1 really won't eat his own dry food unless it is satisfactorily coated in wet food, and even then at times he picks it out. However, he's been eating the puppies dry food at every possible opportunity. Currently, he's standing on the garden table staring into space..

Like cmot my dog won't eat his dry food unless it has wet food in it too. He used to be fine with it, then one day he just suddenly took against it. He won't eat it even if he's starving.

On the subject of dry food needing wet, I am convinced that unless you have a dog that will eat anything, dry food is just not that interesting to them. When we changed to 80% wet with a bit of kibble for crunch BiteyDog suddenly became enthusiastic at feeding time.

Dogs! Indeed.

He is absolutely fine now, scoffed the lot, then came in the living room and delivered every single one of his toys onto my lap, before creating havoc throwing them around before going outside to make sure the pigeons weren’t daring to stroll around the lawn now the rain has stopped. hmm]

I often think that kibble is incredibly boring for them. We used to be BARF feeders before we moved here, but now have nowhere to store the meat and bones. Mind you, I said upthread that our old lad would eat anything - anything except raw - we tried him with it a couple of times and he actually ran away from the food with his tail between his legs. I seem to be attracted to daft dogs!

I used wet food from Nature Diet for a while, until a bad batch made my SCW Terrier very ill, leaving her with colitis for the rest of her life. So kibble it is these days. We used to feed him cold-pressed high-quality kibble when he was younger, but the protein levels had him bouncing off the walls and a leading Lurcher trainer advised us to use this one, which has suited him really well - until now.

I will confess that although my dogs have Burns Sensitive or Vitalin Sensitive dry food, their wet food of choice is the disgustingly smelly, probably made of vile bits of meat, but grain free, chub roll. My dogs look great on it, and where ddog1 can't tolerate many foods (inc v expensive ones) it suits his tummy very well

He’s resource guarding. Can you get the bowls off him?

He doesn’t resource guard at all, he will let you take anything off him and also has solid ‘drop’ and ‘leave’ commands. He wasn’t bothered one bit when I picked his bowl up and put it on the shelf.

I have only ever had one resource guarder, a terrier pup from a big litter that did guard her food bowl and learned from her that it’s vital pups see people approaching their food bowls as a positive thing.

Just sounds like he’s bored. I get this with my lab, who according to type should eat everything going. I order him a sack of dog food every month so he does tend to have the same flavour all month and he sometimes won’t eat it because I think he’s fed up. I’ve started mixing a little wet food in with it and he’s wolfing it down.

We've an ex rescue Border Collie, was in rescue for 5 years being unsuccessfully rehomed and returned due to 'issues' - you could not walk the dog on a lead by a road without passing vehicles being 'attacked' for example.
Food was always take it or leave it affair, we have settled on a resonable edible kibble which comes in 3 flavours so we rotate buying a smallest bag of each flavour so boredom is not an issue and most times is eaten, but before this in order to get the dog to eat we had to lace the food with something smelling tempting - a little grated cheese, raw liver or scap from the butcher. Every couple of weeks we still get food refusal (& this is 3 years on!), so out comes the cheese grater again!

He’s been fine ever since. Eating with gusto again.

He has a tendency to be neurotic generally and I am pretty sure something must have spooked him whilst eating, as he has form for making those sorts of negative associations. Once I gave him a biscuit, hunger got the better of him and he overcame the fear to approach his food and eat it. Since that first meal after whatever it was that bothered him was out of the way, he hasn’t looked back.