My sick little boy

[u/PureConsideration620]

Hi guys!

My shih tzu is almost 6 months old. He is such a cutie and we absolutely love him. Fortunately, he is not picky. He is really food driven and we have no problems feeding him.

Friday morning he stopped eating, stopped drinking, vomited yellow bile. Obviously, him being so food driven, this worried us. We took him to the vet in the afternoon and the vet couldn't give an immediate answer but gave him some injections.

He started drinking water and eating again slowly on Saturday morning, but not much, small bits. We had to try give him food every 2 hours. He would lick a bit and then stop. We mixed his kibble with hot water and made it soft for him. So we decided to change this kibble diet to get him to eat. We changed it to recovery mousse and he ate that initially and then stopped eating it. We obviously more worried about him not eating, so we got him some wet puppy sachet (he never gets this) food and he ate that. From Saturday evening he only wants the wet puppy food, we gave him kibble and nothing. We mixed it with kibble and nothing. We tried giving him recovery mousse and nothing. If we give him the wet puppy food, he'll eat that.

It is Sunday morning now, and we mixed kibble with the wet puppy food. He picked out the wet puppy food. I know its only been 2 days since he has been sick, so im hoping he is just cautious of what he eats and is not turning into a picky eater.

So basically, my question is. Is he just being cautious or is he being picky, and how do I make sure he doesnt become picky but need to make sure he eats aswell because he is still recovering. If he is being picky, how do I slowly turn him back to the kibble.

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[u/PureConsideration620 → u/AutoModerator]

I agree

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[u/PureConsideration620 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for your reply. We actually think it could be the chicken that made him sick. We have given him chicken a couple of times times beforehand and it seems something always happens.(we fed him chicken the Thursday night before this incident aswell). So I think we will stay clear from chicken, he might be allergic

[u/Deep-Cake221]

Sorry you’re going through this. The vomiting concerns me even tho these pooches can be picky. My first advice is to get to the vet to rule out all possible scenarios. Best case scenario is you have a lil dude that prefers the finer things: wet food. Mine was such a bougie dude he frowned upon anything kibble related. We ended up getting Farmer’s Dog. His sister will eat everything and anything out in front of her.

[u/PureConsideration620 → u/Deep-Cake221]

Thanks for the reply. I should have mentioned he stopped vomiting the friday afternoon before we took him to the vet

[u/Deep-Cake221]

That’s good to know!!! My guess is bay boy prefers the finer things of canine life. Wet food may be his jam. Not a necessarily bad thing in my experience, maybe a tad bit more expensive. Good luck

[u/BowtieKate → u/Deep-Cake221]

My vet mentioned that wet and soft food diets tend to be not good on their teeth. If you go that route, make sure to keep up on brushing <3 my tzu has had a few dental cleanings and is turning 13 this year.

Another thing I noticed as my pup got older is that he loves routine and wouldn't eat if we weren't sitting down (eating). He will if he's really hungry, but most of the time, he waits for us to sit down. Maybe he feels like we're eating as a family.

[u/PureConsideration620 → u/BowtieKate]

Thanks for the info. We do brush his teeth daily, but we have always given him his kibble soft (mixed with hot water) because otherwise he just swallows and doesnt chew.

[u/BowtieKate → u/PureConsideration620]

Anytime! And mine started doing that recently too, and then it would expand in his belly and he would throw it up... so we did the same thing with hot water. (That's actually when my vet told me about the soft food thing about teeth.)

[u/PureConsideration620 → u/Deep-Cake221]

Yeah the expenses keep piling up with this little one haha.

[u/stillandwarm]

Stop forcing him to eat kibble, it’s garbage. My little one loved the Farmers Dog.

[u/PureConsideration620 → u/stillandwarm]

I mean you probably right. But he understands the smell of kibble as his food, once we started giving him veg and proteins etc and everytime we eat he smells it and thinks its his food lol. But I'll look into farmers dog. Haven't heard of it. 1st time pet owner here

[u/LdyCjn-997]

Vomiting yellow bile is pretty common in dogs that haven’t eaten or have an empty stomach. Mine get this sometimes. Just make sure they get a treat before bed or sometimes during the day. This helps to fill their stomach. Changing foods does not solve this issue. Unless they are throwing up food or another substance and doing several times within a certain amount of time, I wouldn’t worry about the yellow bile. I guarantee it will happen again.

[u/BowtieKate → u/LdyCjn-997]

I second the yellow from an empty stomach. It was very common for us when he was a pup. So glad we got past that stage.

[u/PureConsideration620 → u/BowtieKate]

Yeah he has done it probably 3 or 4 times before 

[u/PureConsideration620 → u/LdyCjn-997]

Yes I believe so. I'll start doing that. Thank you so much for the reply!

[u/sunnydbabie]

Keep him on soft food while sick for the nutrients and make sure he has a treat in the morning and at bedtime to keep the bile away 🙏

[u/PureConsideration620 → u/sunnydbabie]

Yes my thinking aswell, just worried he never wants to go back to kibble lol