RavensPack
Active Member
My husband and I got a Mastiff * American Bulldog mix when she was 10 weeks old. Less than two days after we brought her home, she was diagnosed with parvo. She spent a week and a half in the hospital to get her healthy enough to go home from the parvo, kennel cough and dehydration/malnutrition. She was on medication for 3 weeks after.
She came home at 12 weeks old weighing 12 pounds. It has been a long road getting her to eat. When we first came home she wanted nothing to do with wet food or treats. She would eat about 1-2 cups a day of Purina Pro Plan Puppy-focus large breed if we enticed her to eat (we had to turn it into a game to get her to eat… or add chicken broth). She never had a problem with the dry food. She got her appetite back around 13 weeks.
At 15 weeks, we added some wet food because she hasn*t been growing much. We mixed 1/3 of a can of wet food (purina pro plan puppy) with 2 cups of dry food. She loved it. Only problem, is that it didn*t sit well with her stomach to a point where she had diarrhea multiple times a day and was extremely gassy and bloated (she was pretty much potty trained before this… now I feel as if we are starting over). We tried a smaller amount of wet food and the same thing happened. After 4-5 days, the vet told us to go back to just the dry food.
She is currently 16 weeks old, eating around 4 cups of dry food per day. We used to leave the bowl of food down all the time because we wanted her to eat as much as she wanted throughout the day. The vet told us to start leaving it down for 30 min * 1 hour and then picking it up. We did this for a few days and she only ate 2-3 cups. She is slowly eating more, but we are back to enticing her to eat.
Issue is…. She is skin and bone. Currently, she is 16 weeks old, 17.5 inches tall at the shoulder and only 20 pounds. I know parvo can cause havoc for 6+ weeks after… but I*m really worried about how small she is. The vet said he is happy with her progress and says she looks great considering her past.
If anybody has gone through this or has any insight on what we could try to put some weight on her, we would appreciate it. Also, any ideas on what she should be weighing at this point… From the research I*ve done, I think she should be double what she is now.
She came home at 12 weeks old weighing 12 pounds. It has been a long road getting her to eat. When we first came home she wanted nothing to do with wet food or treats. She would eat about 1-2 cups a day of Purina Pro Plan Puppy-focus large breed if we enticed her to eat (we had to turn it into a game to get her to eat… or add chicken broth). She never had a problem with the dry food. She got her appetite back around 13 weeks.
At 15 weeks, we added some wet food because she hasn*t been growing much. We mixed 1/3 of a can of wet food (purina pro plan puppy) with 2 cups of dry food. She loved it. Only problem, is that it didn*t sit well with her stomach to a point where she had diarrhea multiple times a day and was extremely gassy and bloated (she was pretty much potty trained before this… now I feel as if we are starting over). We tried a smaller amount of wet food and the same thing happened. After 4-5 days, the vet told us to go back to just the dry food.
She is currently 16 weeks old, eating around 4 cups of dry food per day. We used to leave the bowl of food down all the time because we wanted her to eat as much as she wanted throughout the day. The vet told us to start leaving it down for 30 min * 1 hour and then picking it up. We did this for a few days and she only ate 2-3 cups. She is slowly eating more, but we are back to enticing her to eat.
Issue is…. She is skin and bone. Currently, she is 16 weeks old, 17.5 inches tall at the shoulder and only 20 pounds. I know parvo can cause havoc for 6+ weeks after… but I*m really worried about how small she is. The vet said he is happy with her progress and says she looks great considering her past.
If anybody has gone through this or has any insight on what we could try to put some weight on her, we would appreciate it. Also, any ideas on what she should be weighing at this point… From the research I*ve done, I think she should be double what she is now.
