Resting? That's what the vet wanted her to do - and no food. She paced and whined for hours last night. At about 1:00 a.m. I tried scrambling her some eggs, but she didn't want those. I found a can of low fat Vienna-type sausages and gave her three - and you would have thought she was starving. I did get two pain pills in her last night and an anti-inflammatory.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. Poor thing is still woozy and confused. Got her to eat a little bit this morning (using leftover pizza - geesh) and get her pills. She got an antibiotic shot yesterday and is on two weeks of strong antibiotics also. Going to the grocery today to see what I can find for her.

I believe that aging, toothless, skinny critters should get fed whatever they will eat and as much as they will eat. Unlike us, they need the weight.

I've had good luck with mashes for old horses, dogs, and ferrets. The ingredients vary from day to day and critter to critter (one ferret was particularly fond of oatmeal made with beef broth), but all seemed to appreciate having a bit of texture and the vets liked that they were getting extra water in their food.

Good luck, and glad to hear she made it through the night!

I use flat cheese folded and torn in half and hide pills in them...fold in 1/2 again and squeeze the edges together around the pill.

Some people have luck poking them down in a piece of hotdog.

My dog has to have pro-biotics as he gets yeast infections between his toes--I use the flat cheese method that Joker uses. Works very good.

I would think that even when her mouth is healed up you could add broth to her dry kibble, just to give it a little softness.

Poor baby, I hope she is doing better.

Becca - I do agree with you; however Mandy's not skinny. Partly because we give her whatever she wants to eat - and partly because she has an underactive thyroid and has been on medication for that for years.

Truff - I just ordered some of that food to try so hopefully it will be something she likes. Thanks for the suggestion.

Glad she's doing better. I was amazed at how much improvement our girls had after tooth extractions. And even more so, how they can eat with only a few teeth left.

I've found liver sausage is THE BEST thing for giving pills to dogs. It's easy to mash around the med and the smell disguises it even to a scent hound. And it's cheap.

Next time you get a chicken, cook up the neck and innards in a big pot of water. I throw in old carrots and celery too. Then I peel the loose meat off and throw the whole thing in a blender. Usually there's enough to freeze half and use the other on the dogs' dinner kibble over the next few days. Those last few bits of veggies and meat from dinner get scraped into the container too. Makes a mash similar to the dehydrated food if you let the kibble sit in it long enough.

What we do for our animals!

Yep, blendered boiled chicken & rice is also a staple for special-needs fur-babies. At least the carnivorous ones. The herbivores get beet pulp & alfalfa.

We've also found that different dogs are different in their special food needs/requirements. We have an older Aussie girl now and we feed those moist packets of Kibbles that she eats/gums. I think they are called Moist and Meaty. We buy the big box at Sam's and she loves them.

I have bottles of stuff I get a Petsmart or Petsense that we call Bacon Juice or Bacon Gravy that we squirt on top and mix in for any dog that needs an extra "push" to eat. We also have it in Turkey flavor (aka Turkey Juice).

We also feed plain yogurt on food as another type of "push" to eat.

When my Corky was sick we fed a lot of scrambled egg, broth and boiled chicken, canned food and/or any combination of the above that would get her to eat! Heck, I would buy her Rotisserie Chicken from the grocery store and cut it up and hand feed it to my sweetpea.

Most important thing I've found with, as Becca calls them, special needs fur babies, is rotate their food. Change flavors, canned vs kibble, etc. You need to have a few different things to temp them with when they hit a finicky streak. If they only eat one thing and then refuse it, you're in big trouble.

Update - Many seems to be feeling MUCH better. She's not drinking anywhere close to the same amount of water - she's sleeping well and eating well. She goes back for a re-check tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks for everyone's positive thoughts and prayers.

Pawsome news!

That is great to hear!!! Keep us posted on the re-check!

YEAH!!!
Our dogs somehow like their medicine (that they do not know is hiding) in:
Peanut butter
Cream Cheese
Velvita

It's to a point that we cannot make a PB&J sandwich without sharing a teaspoon of food with the dogs spoiled brats

My dog has sensitive skin-he can't have peanut butter. I never thought about cream cheese or velveeta. He just gets a Kraft single with the pill rolled up inside.

Yes, mine is a spoiled brat as well. Last week, he was on my bed when I left for work. He had a pillow under his head, and was covered up. He stayed there until I came home for lunch 5 hours later. What a life!

Our old dog had allergies and had to take Benadryl sometimes. We just kept a can of squeeze cheese handy and squirted a bit on the pill before handing it to her. Worked like a charm!

Our dogs are weird - and her anti-seizure medication is a fairly large capsule. Generally once she starts eating I just kind of put them up to her mouth and she'll take them.

I like this idea. May have to buy a can, and hide it from my son!!

The vet clinic I used to take her to used that trick and I just happened to see one of the techs do it once. When she caught me watching her she kind of laughed and asked me not to pass it around to the other clients because some of them wouldn't be happy about them giving the dogs 'junk food.'

Yeah...because they give you the stink eye if you admit to doling out pizza crust!

I'm telling you...liver sausage. Kids won't touch it. Dogs love it and can't smell anything through it. It molds around the medicine perfectly no matter how big a pill is.

That said, we pull apart the capsules that one of our girls has to get and sprinkle the powder in with her food which is always moistened. She's such a stinker that if you try to get by with just dropping the capsule in her food, it will be sitting in the bottom of the bowl when she's done eating.

I have to do that with my cat that's on kidney medication. Don't know how they expect a 5 pound cat to swallow that capsule - so I mix it in with her wet food.

We've bought so many packets of "Pill Pockets" that we should own stock. I'm a firm believer in those things - well, except for the Duck ones, they are too icky stinky for me to use.

I used to housesit/babysit a dog that would only eat his in Limburger Cheese. I used a clothes pin on my nose when feeding it nightly.

Good visit yesterday. The ulcerations on her tongue appear to be healing - he thinks they were caused by the infection. Got the raw diet food in the mail yesterday that Truff suggested. Didn't know how she would do with it this morning - but she ate it (small victory).

Next we work on getting her off of her pain medication and she may get injections for her arthritis to see if that works.

Thanks everybody!