[Vanilla]

Hello everyone My husband and I have adopted a young female Basset from the city animal shelter. We've named her Ernestine and she's a beautiful sweet girl, but I have a lot of questions/worries.

We got her yesterday morning and took her straight to the vet's to get her checked out and her shots and so forth. He thinks she's between 2 and 4 years old. Whoever owned her before the shelter got her treated her badly- she's very underweight, skittish around loud noises, has a sore spot on her side and her ears are infected. The shelter thought the spot on the side was ringworm but the vet thinks it is just an infected scratch spot, he shined a blacklight on it and all. He gave her her shots and a steroid injection to help with the discomfort from her ears, then prescribed drops and cleanser. He also gave us some puppy Science Diet for her weight and antibiotics for the sore spot on her side. Her teeth are very dirty as well and he told us to push the milk bones and dry dog food to try and get her teeth cleaned. She's due to go back in two weeks to be spayed.

She is supposed to take her antibiotics with meals and last night she ate a couple mouthfuls of dog food after coaxing so I was able to give her her pill. She spent all night in her temporary kennel with only a little barking and whining, I didn't leave her any food or water in there. This morning I tried to get her to eat her dog food but she wasn't interested, she's supposed to take these pills every 8 hours so I pilled her anyway. 10 minutes later she barfed and it was all the grass from the lawn she'd been munching on and probably the pill as well. I just now tempted her with some lunch meat and she wolfed that, so I gave her another pill. Also she hasn't pooped yet, only peed. She has been drinking water.

Since Ernestine ate the lunch meat I can only assume she's just being picky, but as emaciated as she is I'm afraid to try and wait her out on the food issue. Plus there's the fact that she's on these pills and needs food with them. Bassets are supposed to be good eaters, darn it! Help!

 

[Lightning&Stomps]

Poor Ernestine (love the name!), but she's lucky that she wound up with you. One of my dogs (Stomps) was not a big eater, and he always tended to be underweight. At one point he got so that he wouldn't eat much at all. My vet could find nothing wrong with him, so I asked him--what food can a dog not keep himself from eating, and the vet said Mighty Dog. Now I know that Mighty Dog is probably the worst dog food on the planet, but if you absolutely have to get your dog to eat (which, in your situation, you do), I would give her a small can of Mighty Dog with each meal. If you can, keep dry dog food out for her to eat if she feels like it. The Mighty Dog is temporary, of course. Many people on here will tell you that they've never heard of a basset hound starving itself to death, but in this case I agree that you can't wait Ernestine out. Good luck, and thanks for rescuing her. And post pictures!

 

[murraysmom]

Have you tried pushing the pill inside a little piece of hotdog? Putting the pill inside a glob of creamcheese and putting it directly into the mouth also works with mine-

 

[FloppyToby]

toby isn't a big eater either, he's a little bit skinny and i'm trying to get some meat on his bones. i add warm water to his food to soften it up, he seems to like it better. good luck nursing your baby girl back to health!

 

[rootbeerlove]

I really do love the name. Our vet recommended beef baby food. It worked like a charm when Harriet's throat was too sore to eat dry food. We started out with just the baby food, then mixed the dry food in, kept lessening the amount of baby food in there, and now she's back on dry kibble. The only thing to watch out for is onion powder that's in a lot of the "meal" baby food. We bought some accidentally, and had to give it away. The beef stuff has beef, beef broth, and lemon juice.

The best of luck to you and Ernestine!

 

[vb3]

Also they have these things called Greenie pill poppers. They stink and are little wedges of who knows what that you put the pill in and then mold it over the opening. My dogs love them, I could probably get them to eat anything I put into a pill popper.

 

[Mikey T]

He also gave us some puppy Science Diet for her weight

This food is still low in protein fat and calories than many adult maintenance foods on the market Try smallest bag available of a grain free high protein 40% or higher high Fat dog 20% or higher dog food, i,e, Solid gold Barking at the Moon, Canidae, EVO etc The higher protein and fat usually make the food more palatable to dogs as well. In a pinch dry cat food works as well.

 

[hig4s]

Some antibiotics can make a dog loose their appetite, what did he give her?


Also Science Diet is not that good a dog food, and a lot of dogs just don't like it. If you have a Costco near you try Kirkland (made by Diamond) or look for Chicken Soup for the puppy lover dog food. (also made by Diamond I believe) both better quality than Science Diet and dogs seem to like it a lot better. Kirkland is very reasonably priced, and Chicken Soup (if you can find it) is priced no worse than Science Diet.

Other brand that are higher quality and dogs seem to like better are Blue Buffalo, Bil-Jac, Natural Choice, Wellness, and Chef Michael's: but some of these are real expensive.

As far as pills, our last basset was a master of spitting out pills. We would throw her a piece of hot dog with a pill in it and she would gulp it down, not chewing at all, and still spit the pill out afterward. I gave up and would feed her something she liked and then after just push the pill into the back of her throat and hold her mouth up and closed until she swallowed.

 

[Beckadizzle]

hazel got picky for awhile and I was worried because she wouldn't eat her food...the cheap wet food did the trick and slowly mixed it in with the dry until i would just put the "gravy" (if that what you want to call it, ha!) on the dry food. now she wolfs down her food.
and anything left unattended for 2 seconds!

 

[gsally]

Thank you for rescuing Ernestine! Good Luck nursing her back to health! Welcome to Cyberhound!................btw, don't forget to post Ernestine's name story on the thread titled "How did you choose your basset's name"! Thanks!

 

[keltec9mm]

Shiloh, is a real picky eater as well. That and he has a beef allergy. What we started doing is mixing his food with a little bit of water and heating it in a pan on the stove. He has gotten past that, now he just eats as he goes. We fill his bowl every morning, and he eats a little at a time throughout the day. He would much rather have our dinner than his dog food. This is just the case with him, we have tried attleast 5 different brands, and he just picks as he wants.

 

[Vanilla]

Thanks for the responses guys.

I did try wetting the Science Diet dry and she sorta nibbled on it, then when I left her with my mom to go to the store she ate some more of it. I bought some wet SD and some wet Alpo, she's eaten some of the Alpo and really seemed to like it but turned her nose up at the SD. We live in a rural town that's at least an hour and a half one way drive from any place where I could get high quality dog food like Solid Gold or Canidae or anything like that. The best I can get is SD from the feed store and Ernestine seems to think its pretty gross. The ladies at the feed store gave me some samples of Diamond high protein kibble but she turned her nose up at that too. I'd be worried that she's too ill to eat if it wasn't for the fact she goes nuts for lunch meat and other junk, which is probably all her previous owners gave her. She doesn't even seem to want Milk Bones. I'm probably going to have to keep her on the cheaper canned stuff so she stays eating until we can make a trip to get something better.

She's taking Cephalexin 3 times a day. I've not had any problem getting the pills down her, just put it at the back of her throat and hold her mouth shut till she swallows. I then give her a slice or two of lunch meat to try and keep her from having an upset tummy since she doesn't want to accommodate me by eating dog food at medicine time haha.

Ernestine does seem to have issues with separation anxiety, she barks and whines a lot when I have to leave her. Also she's *mostly* housebroken but has had a couple of accidents in the house. She's also terrified of our cat who has been bullying her when given the chance. We've got a crate on order at Walmart that should be here today, and have been trying to make do with keeping her in our bedroom at night and putting her in the backyard when I need to go somewhere. This morning when I took DH to work she got to barking back there, and my neighbors got annoyed. I'll be very glad to get the crate set up!

 

[murraysmom]

When you crate her try giving her a kong( Kong Dog Toys - Dog.com )stuffed with food and treats. This will add to what she's eating, and will make her feel OK about the crate if she's only given the kong when you crate her. I have the black one for heavy chewers- you can stuff alot in them, the dog has to work really hard to get the food out, and it will keep her occupied for hours.

 

[Rcollins]

Love the name! The trick I have for pills is a Cheese slice you can munch it around the pill and they puppy loves it so much that they don’t care. As for trying to get her to eat would wet puppy food help? Its higher in calories and softer on turbulent tummies

I just adopted a Basset puppy this weekend and we are in the process of crate training partly because he’s a puppy and because our mini Dachshund is crate trained. but what we do is give them a Greenie or the nutrident sticks in their crates its the only place they get them and they get one a day helps the teeth gives them something to do and they don’t make a mess like a busy bone or other treats do