My dog isn't drinking and she's dropping weight!

[Tasha199111]

Hello,

My dog is a mix breed (Smooth Fox Terrier and pinscher) I've had her for +- 7 years. Does anybody know of something that will make her gain weight fast, she does eat a full bowl of food but she is not gaining weight and I have dewormed her, is there anything you can suggest?

Also, do you maybe have an idea of how I can get her to drink water? This has been going on for a while now and the only way she will take in water is if I mix it with her food, she does not drink water out of her own even if its a hot day and she's panting, I have changed her water bowl twice, I wash her bowls, I've tried bottled water, low sodium broth, tea, fresh carrot juice ect. I have taken her to the vet twice and I have asked at pet stores but they not giving me what I need for her so if anybody has any suggestion or ideas I'll be so grateful.

Thanks in advance

[specialmom]

Hi Tasha!  I'm just seeing this.  How is your dog doing?  By the way, her mixture sounds so pretty!  Post a picture on your home page of her!!  

So, has your dog been sick?  Drinking is much more important than eating if so.  You could use a dropper and put it in her mouth.  You can just sit with her by her bowl. Small amounts are what you should try to get her to drink first.  syringe or dropper to side of her mouth.  Keep monitoring her for dehydration.  If you are worried about dehydration, then you could try Pedialyte for her.  This is something that parents give children who are dehydrated when sick.  You can get it at the grocery story.  If it goes on, this not drinking, for more than 24 hours, then it is really best to take her in to the doctor.

My dogs all have the issue of needing to lose weight (like me) so how to get your dog to gain weight is something to talk to the vet about too.  You can add healthy things to her diet such as lean ground beef you cook up or chicken.  Does she have diarrhea?  Do you feel she had worms? You mention deworming her.

[Tasha199111]

Thank you for your reply. Sorry for taking forever to get back to you.

My dog hasn't been sick, but she has a stubbon streak in her. To be honest, I know sometimes an animal being over weight has it's bad side, but I'd rather have them over weight then under weight with their ribs an hip bones sticking out, there is nothing worse then getting targeted by some people who think that I'm miss treating my dog.

It's been close to a year that she hasn't been drinking water on her own and only drinking it with her food, but I had a breakthrough today, I did what ginger899 told me to try, I boiled chicken  bones and I let it cool, and she went crazy for it!!!! She couldn't stop drinking. I am absolutely happy!!!

[ginger899]

My dog Misty used to have periods of time when it was hard to get her to drink. I could never figure it out !
One thing was for sure -she wasn't going to go even 12 hours without fluids. She got plenty of exercise, and must have needed water!

So I had a little trick I used. I got some extra special tasty food....pieces of her favourite meat. Or sausage would do, cut into small pieces. Then I'd give her a piece, and put the next piece in a small dish of water. Quite a small dish. But she had to get rid of the water before she could get to the treat.
I'd do that maybe 4 or 5 times until she'd drunk half the required amount of water for her weight.
Then I'd do it again later in the day.

It was really quite funny seeing her trying to work out ways to get the treat without the water! She'd look at me with an accusing look as if to say "Why are you making it so hard for me to get that piece of sausage ??"

But at least she got her fluids that way.

I did that apart from mealtimes.

Another thing I did was cook meat or fish in some water, so that it was a meaty stock, and give it to her like soup. She really did like that.

Well....she'd go through a phase of shunning her water, and it would last maybe a week or two, then she'd forget all about it and drink normally for a few more weeks.
I never could understand it.

But the water -sausage pieces trick might not work with a dog who quickly finds out that all they have to do is get one wet foot to paw their treat out of the water! (Misty hated getting her foot wet! haha)