old dogs, when is it time?

[bmccasland]

Thanks everyone.

My biggest concern is that Nala has been off her feed. Things she used to like, she barely nibbles at.

Well.... yesterday evening I brought home a roast chicken from the grocery store and she was wiggling her eyebrows. Now most of her life she ate kibble. She was not fed "people" food, and I fussed at her to "GET OUT of the kitchen!" But hey, she's old, and interested in food, so I forgave her for being underfoot in the kitchen. So I pulled out some cooked brown rice, cooked a sweet potato, chopped some of the roast chicken onto a plate, and she ate - trying to pick out the chicken. So when there was rice and potato left over, I added more chicken, cut up even smaller, and mixed it all together. She cleaned her plate. Meanwhile I had some chicken thighs poaching on the stove for future meals....

So this morning, I fixed her a small plate of chopped chicken thighs (in the broth), brown rice, sweet potatoes, with blobs of ricotta cheese on the side - total volumn of about 1 cup. And she ate all of it. So hopefully she'll hold it down (she had been vomiting last week, which was part of the reason we went to the vet), and this evening I'll fix her another plate.

Her life is pretty good, if she'll just eat. She lets me know when she needs to go out, and hasn't had any accidents in the house. My biggest concern was that she wasn't eating, or eating and then throwing up.

I've left a bowl of dry kibble out, just to see if she nibbles on it, but I'm not counting on it. I know she isn't a morning dog any more, and our colder weather isn't helping very much.