Dog won't eat - Labrador

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I have a wonderful full of beans three year old black boy lab. He's healthy, happy and MOST of the time is classic lab and will just scoff his food and any few little titbits that we give him. He's ideal weight for his size (saw vet for check up two weeks ago).

Every now and then (and it seems to more often now) he just refuses to eat. Did this a few weeks ago. Just didn't eat for two days. Done it again today, won't go near his bowl. We have a few different flavour packs of soft food so have tried using a different flavour both with and without his kibble.

TIA for any advice or thoughts.

Did you mention to the vet when you took him? If not I would take him back for a more thorough check up, especially if it is happening regularly, ime dogs do not usually go off food for more than a meal unless they are feeling unwell or getting fed too much (if there is such a thing for a lab!) elsewhere such as from the table or treats.

Any vomiting, diarrhoea etc? Unusually for a lab, my girl has several intolerances. It started as food refusal, then we had vomiting . She’s now on a hydrolysed diet and does well with that.

I did mention that it had happened the week or so before (as it was then). As he had bounced back to full eating capacity by the time we saw her we didn't dwell on it for long. But she would have it in her notes. The main eating "issue" we had then was that we had noticed he was producing bile overnight in nice little piles on the kitchen floor. Her comment was that this can happen when their tummies are empty so we changed his eating pattern slightly to ensure that he has a small amount of food just before bed. Since doing this, no more piles of bile. But the lack of eating, even occasional, does concern me as our previous Labrador (albeit a lot older) did this and little did we know she had been developing pancreatitis and almost died.

So I get nervous if he does go off his food as it brings back all the awful memories of last time.

My Labs always ate and were always looking for food - the only time my older boy went off his food was when he had a burst splenic tumour and was an emergency! This obviously isn't the case with your boy but I would be concerned if I was you too. I would probably take him back to the vets to discuss the specifics of the issue to see if anything springs to mind with the vet. I have a lurcher now who is also a food focussed dog - if she didn't eat for one meal I would be worried!

The only time my dog (not lab but love his food) stopped eating was when he had a blockage due to eating something he shouldn't have. Initial investigation showed no foreign body but then opened him up as he was going down hill rapidly and found the foreign body.

Whenever my dog has stopped eating there's been something wrong. He's only ever done it twice and both times we found an issue (both minor, but still).

I would get him fully checked over by the vets.

As a PP has mentioned, in an older dog it can be an emergency (my old boy was operated on for his splenic tumour in time, but a friend wasn't so lucky with her dog), but for a Lab not to eat is usually an indication of a problem.