I didn't know that a full day without food was Very Bad for cats (I'll certainly bear it in mind now!) but with my husband and I both owning elderly cats with developing geriatric complaints, we've generally gone the 'tempt her' route. One cat (16, hypothyroid, developing kidney problems) is fairly picky; the other (13, also kidneys) has some preferences about the style of food she gets - pate style is favoured over chunky - but within those fairly broad limits will eat anything. Accordingly, we don't often end up actually WASTING food, as if cat #1 refuses a meal we can often give cat #2 her plate. #2 gets extra food, #1 gets replacement food, both are happy. :) Both are also slightly underweight, so at least we don't have to worry about putting them on a weight-loss diet as well as low protein and potassium!

I had no idea about the cat meal thing. I read "somewhere" that a cat sometimes gets in a mood where they just don't want to eat. Shows me not to trust everything I read.

The most ironic thing I think I have ever seen is our shelter mutt Tina. She was 35Lbs from the shelter and looked healthy so she was obviously eating. I usually give a dog straight dry and they tear it up, especially a shelter mutt. Tina? No way. She took to doing vomiting the green crap, a sign of a dog not eating, but she simply would NOT eat. She is equally as bad with HUMAN FOOD...prefering cheese and most meats and shunning about everything else.

Now we take a half can of some VERY good $2/can grain free dog food (no endorsements, so I won't leave the name) and mix it in to a proper portion of equally expensive and highly rated, grain free dry. We feed her a "heavy" day's worth, and she eats about 75% of the bowl, the leftover usually being the dry. Furthermore, if you don't give her a bit of variety IE different flavors of the canned, she will go right back to not eating.

So how does a typical shelter mutt eat? My last dog Tigger, a 52Lb dog of many breeds, was timed. From the time one large can of dog food hit the floor to the time the bowl was clean was a tick under 11 seconds, the bowl tumbling on it's bottom in a cartoon like fashion. Probably could have gotten away with not sweeping the kitchen floor with that dog.

Well, this isn't quite what you address in your article, but I've got a senior dog who developed an iffy appetite in Dec. If I can get her started eating, she'll eat...but a lot of the time she'll just look at the food and lay down or walk away. (I hand feed her some to get her started, I give her treats in the food, I put chicken broth over it, I wait for the other dogs to come over so she'll eat it so they can't have it...etc etc etc. Some days nothing works.) She can't afford to lose any weight, this one.

We've got her on a course of prednisone right now for something else, and boy oh boy the appetite is back! After being on pred about 4 days she started being quite eager to eat. I hope this lasts after we finish the course. I'll just have to see.

Thanks for this.. I often tell my "puppy people" who complain their dog won't eat.. to well.. not feed them.. and of course to watch for normal passing of feces and urine.... if they vomit once or twice.. let them REST .. good advice.. but in my breed anything other than that.. and for sure.. if they have projectile vomit.. or look "hunched up".. get to the vet.. we have plenty of dogs who have had 'zipper surgery' more times than i care to count.. I also advise.. if you see it going down.. things like plastic bags full of cheese ( last weeks adventure with an 11 year old dog).. get out the peroxide.. and makes them PUKE... on a funny note.. I have a friend who imported a dog from England.. he came over in great shape but his eating was "off" " for a week or two.. he ate but not with enthusiasm.. he passed a nice ball of "something'.. turned out to be a rolled up garden glove.. when my friend called the breeder in England she said.. Oh dear.. I wondered where the mate was".. LOL..

I had a "safeway kitty" , Jeffie. georgous and normally very healthy. When he was about 9 my husband and i went away for weekend, leaving him with his brother, Mutt, and our two dogs being babysat at home. Sitter reported Jeffie would not eat. Upon my return the next day, i took Jeffie to our vet, same one we'd always had. Vet did LOTS of tests, etc. finally doing exploratory surgery finding absolutely nothing. 4 days now kittie is not hungry. FINALLY vet says, well, lets try giving him some valium, that is an appetite stimulant. Guess what. Jeffy started eating after second dose and went on to be healthy and georgeous another 8 years. Why didn't we try the valium first???

One thing for cats that I've found works is to try kitten milk or the kitty "ensure" for senior cats. It's not a cure-all but I've found it can buy you enough time to get to the vet during normal business hours.

Galadriel, I have been through this a few times, senior dogs who don't want to eat or will only eat a little. Part of it may be a diminished sense of smell/taste. I'll just list some suggestions and keep in mind my dogs were underweight so the calories were not a big issue.

Hand-feeding definitely helped - yes, hands full of goopy wet food because kibble is boring and doesn't smell as much.

For one dog, making sure his food was broken up into small bites - he didn't seem inclined to bite into bigger chunks, and no, he didn't have any obvious dental pain or gum disease but who knows what his problem was. But he definitely preferred the little bites, even better - out of my hand.

Frozen raw food (the commercially prepared kind), thawed in the microwave

Or, adding flavor to the regular meal with one or more:
-grated cheese (like Kraft in the green can) sprinkled on top
-a spoonful or two of plain yogurt
-freeze-dried liver crumbled on top
-A dollop of stinky fishy cat food

Good luck

Having a poor appetite should have been the first symptom of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. My dog went to the vet for three years and was treated for various symptoms: starting with chronic diarrhea, flatulence, anal gland infections, bacterial skin infections, ear infections, pica. Last was hunched posture, obvious pain, and vomiting. None of them ever went away. Interventions were mostly Pepto Bismol, antibiotics and sometimes Hills ID. The Hills ID didn't help. I also tried some kibble for sensitive stomachs that was no help. Very slowly his body condition deteriorated with an awful coat and dusty skin. He just didn't look as healthy as his sister who had a cast iron stomach and wolfed anything down. And every night for three years we went outside for diarrhea. I suffered from sleep deprivation. Only later did I realize the dog may have suffered from this too. Always having to wake up for diarrhea.

The eureka moment came when I read an article in Whole Dog Journal, "Turning Down the Flame" describing IBD. I followed the recommendations in the article and slowly my dog healed and he has been perfectly healthy the last three years. He eats raw meat and bones, raw milk, some canned salmon, organ meats, and grass fed tripe. He is now six.

I think the problem with his vet care was each symptom was treated as though they were separate and they were all part of the same problem. And they came about slowly over time getting worse. The dog had chronic diarrhea and flatulence for three years without solution. When I kept bringing it up, my vets would just address the latest problem, usually sores, infections, and usually antibiotics. They see an anal gland infection and think antibiotic. They don't also think about the ongoing diarrhea and flatulence that hasn't been solved yet. And the next time when it is skin infections, it is another antibiotic. Again the previous conditions still haven't been solved and the dog slowly gets worse. I don't think vets look for underlying problems and food intolerance is not something they consider.

Looking back the first symptom should have been a problem with the puppy's appetite. I saw him in his litter with all of the puppies gathered around a circular pan eating puppy pablum. It probably contained some sort of grain and the puppy wouldn't eat it because he knew grains made him sick. The breeder said "I'm having trouble weaning the one with the white tail", the one I eventually bought. And there he was lying away from the others who were eating at he circular pan and he contently licking himself. He was hungry as he threw himself at the mother when she came into the nest and latched on as she dragged him around by her teat. I only thought about that later when I first walked into the house with a container of raw milk and he began repeatedly jumping in the air begging for some, a spaniel leaping in the air like a terrier. He had never done that when I walked in with pasteurized skim milk like I usually bought. When I went out of my way to get raw milk he recognized it sealed in a glass container and begged for it in a way the other two dogs didn't. Although today they all drink it first in their bowls before any meat.

When I first brought him home from the breeder I used the high quality kibble recommended by the breeder and I had a very difficult time getting him to eat it. I followed recommendations to pick it up after 15 minutes and not feed him again until later and it didn't work. Eventually he would eat a few pieces if I hand fed him, which I was warned not to do, but it was never enough. I bought his sister and the competition made him eat more than he would otherwise but this was not a puppy with a fat belly. He would get excited about frozen yogurt with Pepto Bismol. When I took him out for diarrhea he got all excited because he knew he would get a sundae of frozen yogurt and Pepto Bismol. But it never worked for long. He had diarrhea for three years. Looking back it was the rice in the kibble. And chemicals and preservatives and maybe just that it is cooked. That was also the problem with the Hills ID...rice and cooked. The dog is intolerant of anything with any grains in it even rice. When he was in great distress the best thing was to fast. I gave him real bone broth I made. But what do you do later when he will only eat enough to keep going and it is never enough and the diarrhea continues? I found out by accident he needed real food, raw. Unprocessed. Unpasteurized. No supplements.

The first symptom of IBD was a difficult weaning and his refusal to eat kibble. Later when he ate it, he never ate enough and ate slowly. Later his eating became an eating disorder where he compulsively ate anything he could get in his mouth, pica. When I took him for walks, I held his head up to keep him from eating stuff he found in the neighborhood: packing peanuts, pine cones, wood chips, rocks, plastic, asphalt pieces. And he would look at me with misery in his eyes as he was hungry for anything. And I was sad as I walked this miserable dog.

I have a 2 yo ragamuffin cat who has always been fed raw and who suddenly last year at this time and again this year has decided not to eat. Lulu would rather go outside in the morning with me than eat. She never seems really hungry anymore and will eat with much coaxing. She gets the best of everything and eats only raw food by choice. Never ate kibble and doesn't seem to want any flavor of canned. My last cat a ragdoll died of IBD so I know something about it. Lulu has no loose stools nor does she vomit. Last year she lost 2 lbs in about 2 onths which was attributed to a nerve reaction to Advantage and I no longer use the spot on treatments. We detoxed her and she started eating again quite well. Sooner or later she will eat but most of the time she prefers to finish about 12 o'clock at night. She will eat some yogurt and canned tuna-nosalt. In the morning she will walk up to her dish look at it and walk away without even tasting. Living in South Florida I will not leave the food out for any amount of time. At this point she is a healthy 9 1/2 lbs with plenty of energy but we are perplexed at the situation. She has never been a water drinker but since her whole diet is raw I do not worry and add some extra water to her dish.

Anybody any ideas? She gets duck, grassfed beef, lamb, chicken and turkey. beef organs and chicken organs. all organic and hormone,- antibiotic free

We've had our pooch into the vet a bunch of times, due to the fact he'll eat and then end up throwing it up sometimes. Although, it's a pretty rambunctious dude, so he usually gets worked out, and has a sensitive stomach on top of that. Definitely a good idea to take them in though, if that happens in regular cases.

- Doug (Heartgard Plus Rep)