Q: My pet won't eat - what should I do?

A: Very quick answer here - go and see you vet as soon as possible. Not eating can be caused by simple things such as a minor viral disease that will resolve in a few days to bad teeth/gums that can be treated quite quickly and effectively by your vet to something serious like kidney or liver disease, an intestinal obstruction or even something terrible like cancer. There are just too many things that could cause loss of appetite to go into here in any detail.

Your vet will want to know how long your pet's appetite is gone, if your pet is drinking more or less water than usual and if your pet has lost weight (at Blacklion Pet Hospital we weigh all pets at every visit so we can spot weight loss or gain early). Depending on you answers and on the results of a full physical examination you vet may decide to run some blood and urine tests, take some x-rays or even perform an ultrasound examination of your pet's abdomen or chest. All of these will help to come to an accurate diagnosis of the problem and armed with this diagnosis a treatment plan can be formulated. Sometimes your vet may decide to place you pet on intravenous fluids, special foods and other medications. It all really depends on how your pet presents but not eating is a serious problem and as such should be treated seriously by your vet.