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For about the past two weeks, Varda has been inconsistently hungry/interested in her normal meals. She'll go 2-4 days straight "making progress" at eating normally (gradually phasing out the beef/rice mixture that I gave thinking her stomach was upset) and I'll think that she's back to normal...and then she'll show no interest in eating again for a meal. She can be happy and hungry one night, trying to eat more kibble than I'm going to give her, then couldn't-care-less about eating the next morning. For instance, last night I gave her 1.25 cups of kibble and .25 cups of boiled hamburger/rice and she was begging me for more and would have eaten more kibble if I had allowed her to. This morning? Didn't eat a bite.
She's currently on Purina Pro Plan Chicken & Rice Large Breed Puppy and was getting 3 cups a day divided into three meals. I have recently reduced her to two meals a day, as she is now almost 7 months old and I'd like to shift her "natural" elimination schedule in a way that will fit better with my work day and not cause her to have to hold it longer than she should. She had already gone through a phase of not eating before I tried this shift to two meals, so I don't think it is the culprit. Because she is rather small for her age and hasn't gained any weight in the past month, I also was simultaneously trying to increase her food to ~4 cups a day to see if that made a difference, though she hasn't made it close to that amount with the constant "retreat" into boiled beef/rice and re-entrance of kibble these past couple weeks.
Up until about three weeks ago, she was getting a 50/50 mixture of that Purina Pro Plan food and Diamond Naturals Lamb & Rice Large Breed puppy, but when that mixture ran out, I decided to simplify things and just feed her the Pro Plan. The current bag of Purina was nowhere close to its expiration date when I opened it. That original 50/50 mixture had lasted us since the end of September, so over 3 months...so it doesn't feel like a Purina bag that was only a week opened when these issues started cropping up should be stale or something.
Through this all, she has been behaving, playing, and sleeping normally. There's been no vomiting and no itching/scratching/redness/bumps. Her coat is shiny and thick. Her stool has been 95% normal--maybe one night diarrhea but on the whole, normal and fairly regular. She's gotten her normal heartworm medication (InterceptorPlus) per usual and her Frontline flea/tick medication just like every other month. But I can't help but wonder that maybe she's developed an allergy that makes her food less palatable to her now?
She's only 40lbs at 7 months old and hasn't put on weight in a month (though doesn't look skinny), so she really needs to eat at least what she was eating (3 cups a day regularly) and ideally more. Has anybody had a dog develop an allergy or sensitivity? I'm wondering if it could be to chicken and perhaps the switch to purely Purina meant that she's now getting more chicken in her system than before. Except for two episodes--once when she was 3.5 months old and once after a raw bone about 4 weeks ago--she's had a stomach of iron for most of the time I've had her and has eaten plenty of chicken/duck jerky, foods with grains in them, beef and other proteins, high fat foods like pig ears, high protein foods like bullysticks, etc. with essentially no lasting issues.
I have Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Skin & Stomach on the way to try just in case.
She's currently on Purina Pro Plan Chicken & Rice Large Breed Puppy and was getting 3 cups a day divided into three meals. I have recently reduced her to two meals a day, as she is now almost 7 months old and I'd like to shift her "natural" elimination schedule in a way that will fit better with my work day and not cause her to have to hold it longer than she should. She had already gone through a phase of not eating before I tried this shift to two meals, so I don't think it is the culprit. Because she is rather small for her age and hasn't gained any weight in the past month, I also was simultaneously trying to increase her food to ~4 cups a day to see if that made a difference, though she hasn't made it close to that amount with the constant "retreat" into boiled beef/rice and re-entrance of kibble these past couple weeks.
Up until about three weeks ago, she was getting a 50/50 mixture of that Purina Pro Plan food and Diamond Naturals Lamb & Rice Large Breed puppy, but when that mixture ran out, I decided to simplify things and just feed her the Pro Plan. The current bag of Purina was nowhere close to its expiration date when I opened it. That original 50/50 mixture had lasted us since the end of September, so over 3 months...so it doesn't feel like a Purina bag that was only a week opened when these issues started cropping up should be stale or something.
Through this all, she has been behaving, playing, and sleeping normally. There's been no vomiting and no itching/scratching/redness/bumps. Her coat is shiny and thick. Her stool has been 95% normal--maybe one night diarrhea but on the whole, normal and fairly regular. She's gotten her normal heartworm medication (InterceptorPlus) per usual and her Frontline flea/tick medication just like every other month. But I can't help but wonder that maybe she's developed an allergy that makes her food less palatable to her now?
She's only 40lbs at 7 months old and hasn't put on weight in a month (though doesn't look skinny), so she really needs to eat at least what she was eating (3 cups a day regularly) and ideally more. Has anybody had a dog develop an allergy or sensitivity? I'm wondering if it could be to chicken and perhaps the switch to purely Purina meant that she's now getting more chicken in her system than before. Except for two episodes--once when she was 3.5 months old and once after a raw bone about 4 weeks ago--she's had a stomach of iron for most of the time I've had her and has eaten plenty of chicken/duck jerky, foods with grains in them, beef and other proteins, high fat foods like pig ears, high protein foods like bullysticks, etc. with essentially no lasting issues.
I have Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Skin & Stomach on the way to try just in case.
