It's been a month of ups and downs here . . . September 23rd our Puddles disappeared into thin air as I turned my back for less than a minute while he was outside to potty. We went nuts and searched high and low while posting urgent appeals everywhere possible. After the first week we kept searching but honestly thought the worst.
Yesterday we get a call saying that someone knows where our dog is and wanting to know if there is a reward. It was a crazy few hours but we finally got our hands on our little boy who has been just a couple of miles away the entire time . . . seems he was "rescued" on the 23rd and even though they KNEW who he was and who he belonged to they decided to keep him (and this came from their own mouths) but suddenly had a change of heart. I didn't care why, how, who, or what caused it, I was just happy to have our boy back!
The past 24 hours have shown us some issues however. There are some physical problems surfacing which are issues he's always had but suddenly they're much worse. One of those problems is his ability to eat. Which they let drop in an offhand way when we picked him up . . . that suddenly he wasn't wanting to eat much at all.
When we adopted Puddles 1 and 1/2 years ago he (according to my vet) had the teeth of a 13 year old dog -- and he was only 3. A typical 2lb "teacup" mess of health problems
. A dental was performed that week and they had to pull 7 teeth. We immediately put him on Taste Of The Wild food (hubby's lab was on it and we really liked it -- AND my vet recommends it) and he did "okay". The main problem was that he'd struggle to chew even those small pieces of kibble. We realized about 6 months ago that he was sometimes swallowing pieces whole. We've had to really be creative with his food at times to enable him to eat it, but there was never a huge problem. We had planned on another dental in February of this year, which would have been exactly a year, but his teeth weren't too bad and we're trying to balance the need against the risks of sedation. In late August/early September we noticed they had started to get pretty funky again and we needed to take him in for a dental. His disappearance couldn't have come at a worse time. We immediately took him to my vet yesterday when we picked him up and he's healthy except for those teeth.
Suddenly, after three weeks with these . . .
people . . . and three weeks of Cesar wet food and table scraps, his teeth are absolutely horrible. Two upper fronts are VERY loose and the rest are absolutely funky. Now, suddenly, he won't eat much of anything . . . finally tonight I was able to tempt him with some mashed pieces of bologna. Canned food, funky treats, nothing is appetizing. Cooked, mashed chicken is our next option tomorrow. Thankfully we always keep Nutrical on hand just in case.
I have a dental scheduled for October 21st (next Friday) and I'm expecting another 6 or 7 teeth to be pulled. Brushing his teeth is suddenly a MUST, but I'm afraid that he's to the point that the dry TOTW won't work anymore. I need to know what my options are . . . I know that TOTW has canned food . . . is it as good as the dry? With us brushing his teeth, is it going to reduce the issues associated with canned food? Should I be looking into a homemade diet? I was thinking that cooked chicken/turkey can be slightly fibrous and that might help with his dental issues and the remaining teeth. Or what about the Natural Balance meat rolls? Are there NUTRITIOUS semi-soft foods available? I'm just at a loss . . . help, please?