Senior Dog Has Become A Picky Eater & Losing Weight

Hello, vets! Our senior dog, Bubbles has become a very picky eater leading him to lose weight. He is no longer interested in wet food. We’ve tried many things to get him interested again. The only thing he will eat is spam / Vienna sausages. He will eat those like a savage. Does anyone have recommendations on things we can feed him (that are soft) and healthier? We know Spam & Vienna sausages aren’t the best, but it’s the only thing he will eat. He drinks water and has a lively personality. Just turning his nose up to wet food.

The same happens for dogs.  Even if they are not hungry / slightly nauseous, they still have a strong drive to eat tastey, highly flavoured, warm, wet, food.  So if your dog isnt up for good quality dog food, trying chicken or, indeed, Spam and Vienna sausages, might encourage them more.  I can see that its been working for you - to an extent....

However, from a vets' perspective, the question ought to be:  why is the dog declining food all of a sudden?   (Tutu once said that rather than pulling bodies out of the river, we should go upstream and find out why they're falling in).  If the dog has pancreatitis for example, feeding fatty food is practically the worst approach because fatty food could make pancreatitis worse in the medium term, even if the dog does eat the fatty food in the short term.   Similar problems could be encountered with liver or bilary disease.

So, rather than concentrating on the immediate problem in front of you (my dog won't eat the food - lets try tastier, more tempting food) there is a great case here for going upriver - and working out why Bubbles is refusing his food in the first place.   This does, I'm afraid, often require a veterinary examination and tests.  It could be that Bubbles has liver disease, kidney disease, gastritis, pancreatitis, a tumour,  or some other cause of nausea.  Pancreatitis, for example, can be quite treatable.  Another possibility is pain (this is actually what puts pancreatitis patients off their food, but alternatively there could also be spinal pain, or dental pain, for example).

So to finally get round to answering your question:  cooked chicken without bones is warm, moist, low fat, nutritious and may encourage a dog to eat.  But - we would actually reccommend finding out why Bubbles doesnt want to eat, because it could be that theres some more serious underlying cause, that could be treated more effectively by your veterinary surgeon, for example with appropriate pain relief.   Please do let us know what happens next.

I have never met a dog that is a picky eater to such an extent that weight moves off them.   Usually, there is some cause - it may just be a challenge to pinpoint.

I feed my dog this drools chicken and egg dry food - https://pawrulz.com/drools-chicken-and-egg-dry-food-puppy-dog-dry-food/