Malnourished rescue pup

[MichelleB]

Well hello everybody, just wanted to post to say I brought Clarice home today. If you have missed my earlier post about her, three days ago our local pound ran a "Pet of the Week" ad, and it was a fawn 7 m.o. Great Dane puppy. I wasted no time and adopted her the following morning. I was in thier parking lot at opening time sharp, calling them on my cell phone and asking them to unlock the door. ( They probably would have let me sit there all day otherwise...the horrors of this shelter are ones I don't want to go into here ) Yesterday the pound transported her to the vet they use and she was spayed, checked for intestinal worms and heartworms ( none thank goodness ), vaccinated, and microchipped before I could take her today.

She is a joy. She has been completely neglected, and only weighs 61 pounds at 27 inches exactly at the shoulder. But her personality, while frightened because of all of the changes, is so loving. She already follows me from room to room and sleeps at my feet after only being here for 5 hours. Her stool seems very firm even after eating whatever the pound had on hand. Amazing....it almost made my tummy upset just looking at it. :-(
I was planning on transporting her to a rescue in Indiana next week......but after being with her today I am in love. There is a good possibility she will stay with me. She has had no obiedence training but after I make clear what I want she does it very well and remembers the next time. She knows after bumping the glass door going outside that she has to back up to let me open it for her and now she waits for me to open it after only one time of me saying "wait, Clarice". I pointed at the floor while she was sitting and said "Lie down" and as soon ass she figured out what I was asking, she slowly did. But she still can't figure out what I want with "sit". I have to show her that but I don't want to be too grabby with her rear end, until she is a little more adjusted here. She seems to shiver a lot even while sleeping. Is this from the lack of body fat?

I need to work on her confidence. Is there a good book dealing with fearful dogs? I have heard a lot of you suggest "Good Owners, Great Pets" but haven't picked it up yet.

Anyway my question is, she will not eat hard food. As malnourished as she is, it's vital to me that I get her to eat even if we have to do it her way for now. I fed her 2 1/2 cups of Nutro softened in hot water with a 1/4 pound of ground beef to entice her to eat it and she ate most of that but won't touch it now. Tonight I am going to get some canned food ( I have none on hand, I was expecting her to eat kibble ) and wanted to ask everybody's opinion on the best canned food for Danes, and what portion for a starved dog. As underweight as she is I was suprised she wouldn't eat hard food. I will be adding kibble gradually to wean her off of canned. Any suggestions for malnourishment are welcome, this is my first dog that is in this condition. Thanks everyone.

Michelle B.

[jpy]

"Any suggestions for malnourishment are welcome, this is my first dog that is in this condition."
In a word (or two)<G> "Magic Meatloaf." Go check out the recipes in the archives...several that address the problem of underweight and malnourished dogs.
That http://www.greatpets.com/ sight is a good one for help on behavioural problems & http://www.flyingdogpress.com/ has free articles you can download.
good luck with her! regards, jpy

[MichelleB]

Thank you jpy.....I had totally forgotten about the magic meatloaf recipe. The first night I had her home, her condition declined quite a bit. She was very lethargic, wouldn't stand, and wouldn't eat. I was afraid that her starvation was too far gone for us to help her, but the next morning she was up and eating like a horse and acting goofy again. I think it may have been a combo of exhaustion, surgery, and shots. I was disgusted that the animal shelter forced her to undergo spay surgery before releasing her to us in her condition along with her vaccinations on top of it. I understand why, and I agree with thier stance on spaying/neutering all animals before they leave but it could have been the death of her very easily. I'm just glad it worked out ok.

We are still discussing keeping her for ourselves instead of turning her over to rescue. I am terribly attached to her already and she to us. We are concerned about having tooooooo many animals around here. I just worry about where she will wind up after she leaves us. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Thanks again!
Michelle

[Dina]

Michelle,
I would not personally add stuff into her kibble to get her to eat, unless you plan to add it each & every time. What I do when I get a new rescue in is give the kibble twice a day, leave it down for 20 minutes max, and then take it away. Even when they're emaciated. It usually doesn't take more than 2-3 days for them to figure out that they need to eat when the food is offered- this encourages good eating habits, and although for the first few days they aren't eating as much as you'd like them to- they gain weight faster this way because they become consistent eaters. As far as the magic meatloaf, I would give it in between meals, as a treat.
I have one that was very thin & not eating much when I got him. He was my first foster (whom I later adopted). I stressed very much about it, babied him, and begged him to eat, at times. It took MONTHS to put weight on him, and he didn't really start eating constistently for almost a year after I had him. Had I known then I would have done it the easy way and just left him alone.
Dina

[Michele Tupis]

I don't know if this will help but I have a 2 year old golden retreiver that we got when he was 5 months old. He was picked up by the church. He was very skinny and you can tell that he could afford to put on a few pounds. I didn't know that dogs had sensitive stomachs but when he wouldnt eat the food we origanilly bought for him, we went out and kept switching foods to see which one he would like and that made it worse. I finally called the vet and he said to mix 1 cup of dry dog food with a 1/2 can wet dog food. The wet dog food has alot of fat in it so he could gain the weight he needed. Well, we bought Science Diet original dry and turkey flavored of the wet. He just loved it. Then when it was time for him to come off of it he was upset. We gradually had to reduce the wet until he finally got all dry. Well, now you can say that he's a healthy 90 pound "Casey". He's about 15 pounds overweight now. We are working on his diet. He gets one cup in the morning and one cup at night. Try mixing the wet and dry turkey flavor and let me know how that works out for you. Good Luck.

Michele T.

[astridj]

As JPY reminded you : Magic Meatloaf! I recently got a 16-month old GD from our Shelter - tall and long, but skin and bones and I couldn't get him to eat. The first couple of days I couldn't make it to the store, so I tried babyfood, canned food, differend dry foods (Purina, Pedigree and Premium Edge). I cooked chicken and ground liver ... well he ate a little of that, but not nearly enough. He had been free-fed on Purina b4 and also fed with tablescraps. Not a good idea!
Started the magic meatloaf at 2 per meal (4 total) and mixed increasing amounts of Premium Edge into it .. a week later, he's got breakfast & dinnertimes pegged and cleans his bowl. Right now I am at 2 loaves per day. By the time this 2nd batch is used up he'll probably eat straight kibble with some canned and I can use his beloved meatloaf for treats in training...
I'd almost bet he's got some type of parasite - that'll affect the weight, the stool and the appetite. Let us know how things go. Good luck - Astrid & Zoo

[MichelleB]

You know, it wasn't an issue of IF she had worms but how many!! But amazingly, her stool sample came up clear, no parasites. No heartworm either, thank goodness. She is doing better after the weekend, and I am almost sure it was the vaccines that made her sick. Depending on her mood, she'll clean her bowl, ( twice she ate just Nutro kibble, dry ) but at other times ( usually first thing in the morning when she sees us after being banished to the downstairs while we go to bed ) she kind of picks at it and leaves because she wants to be loved and played with, and food takes 2nd place. I think Dina is right about possibly making her picky by begging her to eat, it makes sense. I will have to look up the recipe for Magic Meatloaf to see if I can manage preparing enough to feed her that regularly....should it be just a fattening agent or a full time diet? While I understand what Dina is saying by just feeding kibble if that will be her diet, I keep thinking "eat, skinny girl, eat!! "...it's just my nature! I hate to put kibble in front of her then take it away uneaten even though I know she'll eventually give in and eat it. I just can't stand to be responsible for her losing *more* weight! LOL

Right now I am feeding the Nutro mixed with canned...just enough to make it smell like canned food. ( yuck ) And believe it or not, she has put on weight in a few days, enough that I can see a tiny difference in her frame. She was dehydrated too, so maybe her flesh was somewhat shrunken until we got her rehydrated. That's my theory anyway, be it wrong or right! :-)

We had our first case of zoomies this morning in the living room.... area rugs flying everywhere, and end tables, and feet with that thurrrrump thurrrump thurrrrrump sound like a horse galloping through the house, with me right behind her yelling to stop because I was afraid of her tearing out her stitches. I finally got her clamed down, but it was great to see her feeling so good.

Thanks everyone for your help!

Michelle B.

[Arizona]

No advice, just wanted to offer congratulations on your new rescue. Its a wonderful thing to do.

[MichelleB]

Thank you!!! :-)