You may face a situation where your furry friend may have been stopped eating. In such times there is a long checklist to follow. Still, here in this article, we make it concise: either it is due to excessive feeding of treats, some psychological issue, or a medical problem, we list all possible solutions. My dog isn’t eating but acting normal the immediate thought is some bad behavior mode because, in medical issues, dogs do not look normal. Still, it can be a medical issue that is in its preliminary stage.
Sometimes it challenging and hard to recover the desire to eat. We need to give ample time to our four-legged friends and pamper their noses with tasty dishes.
A very first and quick solution put a bit of hot water on the traditional commercial food. As you know, well warm food smell more and become easy to chew and digest. It works for most dogs, and the problem will be solved with minimum effort, and no additional budget will be required.
Reasons why my Dog isn’t Eating
When your dog is off to his food, there can be several reasons, or he may have partial anorexia. According to vets, the ideas can be grouped into two major categories when your dog refuses to eat. The very first one is psychological reasons, and the second category is Medical reasons. When you are reaching solutions to “My dog isn’t eating but acting normal,” there at first, you need to evaluate that what you changed for your dog.
Psychological Causes
There are multiple reasons in this category when your dog is not eating due to psychological issues. Most of the time, a dog’s environment is responsible for the aspect, and there is no medical problem or disease, and these issues can be addressed with little effort. The most common reasons listed below will make it easy for you to identify the cause, and you can have better solutions once you identified them.
- You bring a new pet at home.
- A new baby in the house
- Unfamiliar company
- Change of place/moving to a new home
- Loud thunderstorm
- Reconstruction/remodeling of the home
- Switched food
These issues are easy to handle like when there is a change in the environment, you need to make that better for your dog, like offering treats and bring new toys to a new home. Give more time to your dog.
Arrange some playful activity sessions if your dog stopped eating because your switched food then, you prefer to switch over a long time, like in two weeks, while offering the new food in small portions.
Your dog may get confused when you change working hours, and instead of going on a job, you stay at home. When some stranger or a relative from out of town stay with you, prefer to introduce to your dog while offering some treats and good to eat. When there is a new baby at home, you usually start spending more time with the newborn baby. Your dog suffers at that time.
Take care of your dog and never make him suffer from such an issue. Always give him the time that he deserves.
Medical Causes
Medical causes of anorexia include many reasons and an extensive list of diseases that cause your dog not to eat. There may be dozens of reasons, but here we list prevalent reasons.
- Gastrointestinal Diseases
- Diseases of the gastrointestinal tract (GI)
- Liver Diseases
- Pancreatic Diseases
- Kidney Diseases
- Airway and Lung Diseases
- Blood Diseases
- Upset stomach
- Poisoning
- Allergies
- Depression
- Infection
- Pain
- Problems with teeth, gums, or tongue
- Tumors
- Parasites
- Autoimmune diseases and neurological diseases
- Problems with internal organs (heart, liver, lungs)
- Recent vaccination
All of the above-listed diseases can be a cause when the psychological remedies are working, or you find a disease in your dog, immediately consult with the vet because it is a time to get proper medication for your pooch—many of the time when dog owners try homemade remedies that worsen the problem.
Suppose you consult the vet at the very start to give you a clear picture my dog isn’t eating but acting normal. The vet can suggest some proper medicine to deal with the disease.
How to Get Your Dog to Start Eating?
You need to take some extraordinary step and care of your dog, under listed some of the tips can work for you, you can try the following:
- Start the same food that he is eating previously, especially when you changed his diet. He stops eating new food and showing some of the above-listed signs, revert to previous food and offer some additional supplements like add some supplement and liquid to make that better to eat.
- Offer to eat meat, can be an effective solution. You may add meat in commercial kibble or move on to the food that offers meat in cooked form. It is a very effective solution, and most of the time, your dog will react to this tip very positively.
- Move on to canned dog food is also the right solution, especially when you are feeding dry commercial food for a long time and facing the problem like my dog isn’t eating but acting normal. At that time, you need to switch the food from dry to canned/wet food.
- Try some extraordinary treats, and it’s not only commercial treats. You can prepare some of the treats at home. Your dog will love homemade food. Homemade dog foods are always good for the dog; they smell fresh and taste great. You can freeze the food to use for the next several days if you put treats on the food. That is also an excellent way to force your dog to start eating again.
- Offer a blended diet, you may offer a mixture of food like mix dry dog food with canned wet dog food containing meat and rice. All of these foods are available commercially; you can buy them with ease. You may make wet food at home.
- Try anything appealing to your dog, like if you remember that any good food that your dog, like in the past, offers to start eating again.
- Invest money and time on training, yes when you have a four-legged friend to company you, at that time, you also need to spend money and devote time for him, especially on the training. Training is a good thing that can make your dog start eating again and keep him active and playful.
- Exercise and Attention, when you changed your routine suddenly, which may bring some behavioral changes to your dog, you need to give ample time to your pooch and arrange exercise sessions for your dog.
- Stay patient and supportive, when your dog is not eating at that time, you need to say calm and not punish your dog for not eating. Support what your dog wants and make efforts to find an effective solution.
- Stop giving table scraps, if you are in routine to offer table scraps in dinner, then stop this practice immediately. It may invite some severe health issues, too, as you offer him something different to eat every day. Offer him a balanced feed to eat.
- Establish a feeding schedule, offer to eat at a particular time, and if you are feeding your dog three times, reduce it to two times and never deviate from your time. When your dog is turning old at that time, he needs fewer calories, and may he naturally reduce eating. When you follow the feeding schedule, you can feed him in a better way.
- Smell nice and taste great food, make your dog’s food pleasant that must smell great and your dog love that taste. Many dog supplements are available in the market that you can use to address your dog’s no eating.
- Avoid foods that can cause a loss in appetite, it is also a real issue here, especially when you picked a cost-effective option and used by-products and no meat in the food. You can address this issue with good food that offers ingredients easy to digest.
- Do not offer excessive treats, sometimes when a dog stops eating, owners start offering more treats as a stand-alone solution. That can make the problem more severe, and it will become hard to recover them from such a situation. Do not offer treats in excessive form when your dog stops eating food. When he stays hungry, he will become more attracted to the smell and taste of food.
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Final Thoughts
You can try these solutions but do not stick to these if not working, and if the problem persists for more than two days, you must consult with the vet for a general checkup and understand the problem in a better way.
In this article, we try to cover all the aspects of my dog isn’t eating but still acting normal. If you have any other idea or technique in mind, please do not hesitate to share with us in the comments.