Freddie is 14 and came to live with me in June, rescued from my nephews. Since then I've continued his feeding routine of a tin of wet food and 3 cups of kibble (split into two meals) each day. Now, Freddie's always been a poor eater and hardly ever finishes a meal, and he's always been very thin. But this week I learned he'd lost 3 kilos since I last took him to the vet's three months ago (check-up in June, booster jab this week btw; he wasn't ill).

Since I learned this, I've tried changing his diet. I need him to put on weight, otherwise he'll freeze to death this winter. The vet suggested mixing cottage cheese with the meat, but he just refuses to eat that. I then tried putting the cottage cheese on the side; he licked the whey off, and left the curd! He now refuses all kibble full stop, and if you mix the meat with the kibble he just licks the gravy off. I tried tinned-food only, but that gave him the runs. Yesterday, in an effort to get him to eat fibre, I mixed home-made beef gravy with mashed veg (you can't lick the gravy off that!!!!) which he ate with gusto. But then I decided this wouldn't add the bulk on him so this morning I mixed some meat in. He's just eaten his first mouthful now, and given up. I don't think his teeth are giving him pain, because he still crunches his dentastix with great delight.

I always feed him good-quality food (always eat organic myself, no reason why he can't eat well); the kibble is James Wellbeloved senior food, the meat is whatever's in the pet shop that has at least 70% real, named, meat in it (sometimes he gets Winalot Casseroles because that's what my sister-in-law gave him, but I don't like that one; sometimes he gets stewed steak).

Question is, after all that ramble, will mash with gravy be enough to put weight on him, if that's all he'll eat? It was potato, carrot, parsnip and butternut squash mash that I'd made to go with the roast beef we were having - he ate a couple of pieces of beef but refused any more.

try some Tripe it is excellent
Eggs
Oily Fish like sardines, pilchards
Fatty mince

__________________





http://www.weynoakebordercollies.co.uk/

yeh tripe is brilliant. i used it along with scrambled egg and boiled rice with my eldest collie when he had some weight loss as a pup. got back to normal weight in no time

To answer your question, no, that would not be an adequate diet. Gravy is far too high in salt, especially dangerous for an older dog whose kidneys may not be functioning as sufficiently.
Also, you have a carnivore as a pet, and as such, it should be fed a meat based diet to prevent malnutrition, as opposed to a vegetable based one.

Your first port of call should be your vet for a thorough health examination. Then i would suggest a good quality wet (not tinned from the supermarket) such as Forthglade, Naturesdiet etc. Or maybe try a raw diet of various minces. I took my nieces dog about a year ago, and had a similar issue where he just wouldn't eat. As i raw feed on the whole, i tried this, but he was just too stuck in his ways, and found the whole ordeal rather stressful. I stuck him on Natural Instinct, which is a bit of a mush type mince, and he now wolfs it down.

no gravy too much salt... avoid flour too

My rescue old lab was like this.


This is what I did.

He went semi raw, as for a while he stopped eating and tried to take food off my other two. Fussy eater my ****. He was fed twice a day with a bowl of Goats milk when OH came home for lunch sometimes mixed with vitalin sometimes not (depending if OH remember or not). He also had the Pets At Home Mature Large breed mix which he had on the side but he never really finished that.


Anyway he basically lived on:

Tripe and vitalin Gold

Chicken (raw/ cooked) and vitalin gold

Goats milk

the odd rabbit

He ate a lot of tinned in tomato sauce sardines. Almost every other day.

And if he was having a sicky day, he would get vitalin gold and mash potatoes.

and he basically got a pigs ear every day (raw normally)

He put on 3 kilos with me.


Good luck, I completly understand what you are going through.

__________________


Doglets: Teal, Dylan and Buster

Ponies: Toffee, Samba and Jake

Guinea wiggles: Hector, Herbert and Humphrey

Fishes: Bess, Gerald, Barney and Claus