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I have had my dog since we got him from the breader. He has always be very thin. Vet told me to watch him after his last set of shots in March 2009, but said I should see 2 ribs with a Boxer. In Oct. he got really thin. I could see his back bone, 4 ribs and his hips and it seemed to happen over night. Took him to the vet. He had a parasite (sp) and put on meds. Rechecked his stool and seemed to see round worm, but they were not sure and still the parasite. So, another round of meds. Started to look a lot better. We moved two weeks ago. Weight feel off really really fast. Took him back to the vet. Stool was good, but now he weighed 10 lbs less than he did the first vet vist. (62lbs in Oct. 56.6 now) They sent his stool off to a lab. Vet called me a few days ago and said nothing was found, but started him on anibiotics in case it was a bug. I want to cry everytime I look at him. Vet is going to take blood if he does not gain ANY weight or loses more weight within the next two week. This dog is my 6 yr old son's best friend. Please let me know if you think there may be something else going on with him that we may be missing. I feed him twice a day, 4-5 cups (total). Vet recommended I take him off Iams puppy and put him on this Iams Active dog food. I have to wrap the pills in cheese to get him to eat them, and even then he eats the cheese and spits the pill out on the floor and walks off. I think I am going to go by the puppy chow you recomended in the other posts tomorrow. We have a border collie that is overweight, so this is new to me and it is breaking my heart. Thank you.
Did they do a blood work up on him? Are there any other symptoms besides the loss of weight? EPI ( Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency) can cause weight loss (it's when the pancreas doesn't put out the enzymes needed to get the nutrition they need from the food that they eat)...The first thing I'd do is get her off Iams...perhaps look into a grain free food (Taste of the Wild, Acana, Evo...there are many of them)...
Take a look at this site, and see if anything here makes a bell go off in your head...there are pictures too...you can see how very thin they get. Sometimes we have to do the research to help our Vets...(I did that with my dog...he has a rare condition called Reflex Dysserggia...I found it, showed it to the Vet...she did more research and put him on the meds he needed...and he's been so much better over the last year!)...It took a while for her to look into it...but she was gracious enough to admit she had been wrong, and I had been right.
http://www.epi4dogs.com/
Definately bring up the subject of EPI to your Vet...
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That is our next step. My vet mentioned the same thing. She is going to take blood the next visit. Thanks for your advice.
How did it all work out?
