Hi,

My Cav has Colitis (stools begin solid, end loose and very mucousy streaked with blood), and my vet put him on Natures Best by Hills. It has helped a lot, but he has now started to go off it, and isn't eating enough, and has begun to lose weight again. He is only 4 months old, he is fully wormed and vaccinated.
Is this a common problem in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels?

Is there another food we could try?

Never had any problems with my cavaliers & one of mine can be very very fussy-but he does enjoy chicken all the time

My vet told me not to feed him chicken as it doesn't contain enough nutrients.

He isn't fed only chicken but as part of his organic diet-even when he is being very fussy & not eating anything else he will eat organic chicken llightly cooked

He is a very musclar cavalier weighing 15 lbs(right in the middle of the ideal weight range)& always has a glowing coats & lots of energy

I have been feeding him chicken and rice (homecooked) but still the bleeding persists. If he can't even stomach that lord knows what we will do.

Hello, my parents had a lot of trouble with one of their cavaliers, from day one she would not eat and started to look thin, my parents were so worried they tried hand feeding her but she just would not eat.  My parents took her to the vets every day because something new would happen and they were worried she would not make it.   She had really bad diarrhoea and there would be blood in it as well, which really worried them.  She slept a lot and the worried that one day she would not wake up.  The vets said it could be Colitis but they did not really want to do tests on her they wanted to leave her and see what happened.   So they fed her chicken or anything just to get her to eat, but they would always put dog food down but she never ate it. This went on for ages and they did not enjoy having a puppy because of all of this.  My parents then got another puppy and the other one eventually started to eat her dog food.  She did start to get better but then she lost her hair.  Her hair grew back and she eats well now, and she no longer has diarrhoea.  I wonder if maybe it was all stress related and now she has settled down. 

I also have a cavalier and she always ate her food and never left any.  She would eat anything, as she got older she has got more fussy and sometimes she won't touch her food, she is 10 months now and I hope that she will get better with eating but I think it is just how she feels.  I am not sure if any of this helps but at least you know that you are not alone.  They are lovely dogs.

I think moonmaiden will agree some cavaliers are very fussy eaters especially with loving owners who attend to their every whim ( Like hand feeding etc...) I had one fussy eater once who soon learnt that the other girls would finish off the food unlesss she ate .... hence she ate , as for the hair falling out this could be due to stress for another reason , it's very easy to help them to be fussy by changing foods in hope the dog might eat ...the dog thinks ahh something better is coming if I refuse this meal ...as for the colitis this should be easily sorted by your vet .I love my cavaliers very much and they all enjoy a good diet ...hope yours are ok soon

Cavaliers fall into three camps, the normal, the fussy to point of starvation & the lil porkies that will eat until they burst

LOL I have two of the first, one of the second & third thank god for crates at feeding times ;)

Funny tho' they ALL turn into piggies at shows & will eat anything & everything in sight

LOL your spot on LOL I have 2 normal... one that would eat until fit to burst and one that has learnt eat up or go without !!!! and has learnt it well ..I always feed the pup on her own as she is a little slow and fussy compared to the rest ( yes thank heavens for crates )

My three cavaliers are all fussy eaters, the only way i get them to eat is to out of the same dish. But as Moonmaiden has said at shows they become little pigs.

I find from time to time my little lad has a bad time with his tummy, he has a bad reaction if he eats grass.

I hope you little darling is ok soon.

Lorraine

Hi
Yep, I agree....I have one 14 year old cavalier who gets chronic colitis, and will starve herself if not hand fed. Then I have a 2 year old who would eat her own leg if she could get it off and into a bowl...then a year old cavalier who is getting increasingly fussy, seeing the goodies that the oldie gets, and thinking she'd rather have that too!

A previous cavalier would look at food as if it was poison!

As far as the colitis is concerned, have you tried NatureDiet? It's brilliant, and the Lite or Chicken n Rice stops my cavalier's colitis completely. You don't need to add anything like mixer to it, it's a wet food, in a carton.

Good luck
Sam

Well great news I put charcoal in Charlie's food and we have had solid poops for two days now!