Unfortunately for us Maia has never done well with chicken, she loves it and eats it but it gives her diarrhea and seems to mess up her over all health. We did blood work again and her liver enzymes decreased by 30% which is great! Her actual health though is not so good so that is bad. We can get her to eat which is good, but the food control is not great salmon, ham(boiled a few times to remove the salt), breaded cauliflower, Mac and cheese. Whatever we can get her to eat. It’s crazy! We have her booked with a chiropractor to check her nerve function and we are ready to get prednisone going if it is ibd. We are working closely with our vet daily, she currently is on metronidazole and amoxicillin and gabapentin. Thursday I thought we were going to lose her and she has rallied. I hate optimism as I don’t do well with a broken heart but I am hoping for the best right now. She is on 2 billion probiotic per day as well. Every bite of food I can get into her I think, ok 1 more day at least. If I have to spend all day hand feeding her, I will. She is finally sleeping and twitching a little less! She is going up and down stairs ok, not great but ok and she is no longer falling over. We are far from out of the woods but I have seen some small improvements. Thank you all for your words, encouragement, advice and stories of what you have gone through. It is tremendous to me how kind you are. Thank you for taking some time out of your day and trying to help! We so appreciate it. Mai Mai means the entire world to us and every word, suggestion, or story we take into account and thank you so much for being such a loving wonderful community. With lock down and a sick pup we feel quite overwhelmed, so thank you!
Not eating or drinking water
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Pat, thanks for the caution. My vet said the same thing. I am trying to go slow. Small amounts over time. it had been so long since he had any food on his tummy I know I need to go slow.
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Happy news, yeah Cody. I am very relieved to hear the he is doing better..keeping my fingers and toes crossed he will stay on the better front.
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How is Cody doing today? How all is well lets all know. Thanks
Rita Jean
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Great news, hope Cody continues to improve
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You may want to get some NutriCal. It is a high calorie gel. That way he starts to get some calories in him and hopefully starts to feel better. You can get it at places like Petsmart and Petco.
And when it comes to baby foods, I would stick with the meat flavors if you really want to entice them to eat. They have the ones that are only meat and also the ones that are like chicken and sweet potato.
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Ivoss-thanks for the idea about NurtiCal. I hadn't though of that. My main concern is getting calories in him along with water etc. Since cody loves bananas and apples I bought that first to see if he would eat it, but if I have to continue I will get the meat flavors esp. for the protein. I was also looking for a type of can dog food that maybe I can force feed him or get him to eat on his own. Any suggestions. I don't want him to become to comfortable with human food.
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There are some really good can foods that are all meat… Evo, Wysong, Natural Balance to name a few
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Great news that he seems a little more himself. Please keep us posted on his progress…((hugs)) for you, Mom...you must be so stressed!
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I would look for the highest calorie food that you can find. When my cat was going through fatty liver we had to get him to eat 200 calories a day. Not an easy task when they don't want to eat so we searched for the highest calorie foods we could find so he didn't have to eat very much to hit that mark. Canine Caviar had some good high calorie foods at the time.
I would recommend doing some label reading to find which foods are high calorie. Also, we found with our cat that he wouldn't eat the same food for very long after being ill so we had to start rotating his foods.
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I agree with rotating foods - eventually when he finds something he can eat without feeling bad he will eat it. Sounds obvious but in my experience Basenjis have very good reasons for refusing some foods when they are ill. Please try not to force feed him if he's reluctant to eat it.
I had a bitch who had been poisoned and it was many days before she got back to normal (for her) feeds. Don't be frustrated when he eats something once and then refuses it next time. I know it can be expensive and wasteful but there you go!
We eventually found that my bitch would eat fish which she stayed on for many weeks but then went back to her normal food when her body had recovered.
I have watched this thread from the beginning but didn't post as everybody had good advice for you - however I've been praying for your boy's return to health. -
Vet call me at work around 4:00 after discussing his still ongoing issues she asked me to bring in him after work. She re examined him, more x-rays. She is concerned he is still vomiting and agrees with me the force feeding should be a last option. So she hospitalized him overnight and is going to do IV fluids and nutrients. ( he had lost another 1 1/2 lbs in 3 days) Going to do a more intensive blood panel test, urinanalysis and possibly ultra sound in the morning. He had become dehyrdated again.
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Vet call me at work around 4:00 after discussing his still ongoing issues she asked me to bring in him after work. She re examined him, more x-rays. She is concerned he is still vomiting and agrees with me the force feeding should be a last option. So she hospitalized him overnight and is going to do IV fluids and nutrients. ( he had lost another 1 1/2 lbs in 3 days) Going to do a more intensive blood panel test, urinanalysis and possibly ultra sound in the morning. He had become dehyrdated again.
Poor baby.. but you did the right thing… and on fluids... They also make a doggy "ensure" product that you can get at petco or pet smart... once he is home... they are very high in calories
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I can not believe all the things poor Cody has to go through…I hope the will find something concrete to tell you so you don't have to do this wild goose chase.
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I hope Cody is all right I am very happy Cody is at the vet so find what is causing all the problem. Please try to rest and we all be thingking of you and waiting to hear. Take care.
Rita Jean
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Did they ever do the barium swallow to make sure that things are able to move through the digestive tract?
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ivoss-my vet is not strong supporter of barium swallow b/c if they have to surgically open the digestive track open they don't like to have the barium in the system that could leak out.
They will do it but not a first choice option for them. They would rather do an ultra sound and endoscopy first. -
Heard back from the vet this morning. Cody is more active since getting fluids etc. stopped vomiting, but still won't eat. All blood work red/white blood count etc came back normal. Urninanalysis showed a little high on proteins but they think that b/c he's dehydrated. Glucose came back normal. They are now taking the x-rays they took last night to the med-vet I took him to on wed. night to compare the x-rays and get a 2nd opinion. They also want to run a test for Addisions's disease. Has anyone heard of that?, have any experiance, or heard of a basenji having it?
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very sorry to hear about Cody, hopefully the vet will now get to the bottom of it. What a worry for you.:(
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Good news about Cody feeling a little better this morning. I have heard about addison's disease but don't know any about it. Keeping my fingers crossed that today is the day you get some answers.
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ivoss-my vet is not strong supporter of barium swallow b/c if they have to surgically open the digestive track open they don't like to have the barium in the system that could leak out.
They will do it but not a first choice option for them. They would rather do an ultra sound and endoscopy first.I have to agree here… my vets are not fans of the barium either and will do ultrasound and/or endoscopy also....
