ruby my 5 month cavalier has been sick.

she's been really sleepy all morning, although she's always a lazy little hound, and then i tried to give her her 1st feed of the day at 11.30. SHe ate a couple of mouthfuls and then ran away form it. as she is sometimes a bit of a fussy eater (gets distracted v easily) itempted her back to it once or twice although she didn't eat much more. then she regurgitated what she did eat up onto the carpet.

thing is she did exactly the same thing last friday - we got to training classes on a thursday night and these past two weeks i've used bacon/sausage treats (cooked, cooled and cut into teeny pieces) in the training class instead of the normal bits of cheese/liver i use most of the time at home, as she needs more of the higher value treats to stop her rwanting to nick off to play with the kids who are in the class. as she's a small dog she probably eats a considerable amount of treat in that hour.

last week as ruby was sick on the friday afternoon having eaten nothing and having slept pretty much all day i took her to the vets who thought she might have gastroenteritus, gave her an injection and gave us 4 days of antibiotics which i've given her. she ate nothing last friday and then we reintroduced her to eating with small meals of chicken and rice the next day. herein lies problem #2 - man does she lve proper cooked meat & rice! we started reintroducing her pedigree puppy pouches gradually this week, but she's been picking out and leaving one particular type of meaty chunk. the past couple of days she's really been hard to feed as she's holding out for the chicken & rice.

her poos were fine last week & weekend but have got sloppier through the week. she's still got bowel control so i wouldn't say she has full blown diarrohea (Sp?) but e.g. yesterday she did two poos both which were verging on liquid. she did a v runny one in the night in herr cage too last night. (Bear in mind we do use wholegrain rice here - should i have used the white stuff?)

also she's had a disrupted week this week and has probably been prettty stressed - i'm her main 'mum' in the house (i feed her, train her and am the only one generally at home all day with her)  but i got very ill for a couple of days at the beginning of the week, so i barely interacted with her those days (the rest of the family looked after her fine though, played with her, loved her and walked her etc) and our routine's had to change a little bit.

What should i do? I don't get the feeling that she's ill, i think she's jsut being a fussy madam about her food this weeek, now i've rocked the boat last night with the sausage treats and her digestive system's protesting. I think it would be best to sit it out for a day or so before rushing off to the vet again.

I wondered whether to feed her light chicken & rice again today and then try gradually phasing her puppy pouches in again over the next few days - although i am worried that the lnoger she gets chicken and rice for the harder its going to be to get her back onto a complete diet. On this note can anyone rercommend a good book on dog nutrition? We wouldn't mind feeding her 'proper' food when she's an adult, in terms of the work involved, as lnog as we can make sure she gets a proper balanced diet.

Thanks for any help :)

If she were mine I would buy a whole chicken for her cook it in a lot of water and then cook the rice in that water and serve it for 3 or 4 days before reintroducing her normal food. Also try to calm her down and make her more confident.

Bacon and sausage are very fatty and rich for your puppy and so she was probably sick because of this.  I would stay away from these rich treats.

Her digestive system needs time to settle down and so the introduction of some plain live yoghurt will help repopulate her but with friendly bacteria that will have been stripped by the diarrhoea and the antibiotics.  Anytime you use antibiotics you should feed either live yoghurt, probiotic powder or acidophilus tablets.

Personally I would not feed any food like pedigree pouches; they have humectants and plasticisers in them to keep them moist.  Your puppy may do a lot better on Burns or Naturediet which contain only meat, rice and vegetables.

There are several good books on dog nutrition - Dr Pitcairns book - he advocates home cooked meals with grains; if you want to go the raw route then Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats by Kmythy Schulze would be a good starting point.

As for treats stick to tiny pieces of cheese, liver, tripe bites or beef jerky (lung) that you can buy in the supermarket; the latter have few calories and do not contain fat and will be kinder to your dog's stomach.

HTH

thank you thank you thank you!

that all sounds really sensible and makes a lot of sense to me. [I will have to vary the treats more - she kind of plateaus on one after a few days so i try to change them and we'd run out of liver this week, hence resorting to bacon/sausage. She also loves fruit - mango, grapes, apple, satsuma - we've only ever given her tiny bits of these. are they ok? ALso that was the last pup class - i never give her so many treats as we do in class - i'm not sure that the trainer entirely gets impact of so many treats on a smaller dog's appetite.]

This is our first dog - i am mortified that i have made her sick :( It is all such a minefield isn't it!

I think i shall have a hunt for dr pitcairn's books on amazon......

just wanted to make you aware that grape are harmful to dogs, and you houldnt giv too much fruit as it is not easily digested unless pureed and can give them terrible diarrhea :)

For your training treats try hot dog sausages, use the chilled ones rather than the tinned, not so mushy.  They are not high in fat or as rich as ordinary sausages and most dogs love them.