Why are we so focused on getting our pets to eat, instead of fixing the reason they don't want to? My dad and Shelby.

This is a story about how perspectives shape and influence decisions. How one small characteristic, a clinical sign, (as a veterinarian would label it), changes the quest of a pet parent and their companions’ journey. This is a story about my dad and his care of my recently deceased mom’s dog; Shelby. Shelby is 15 years old. A rat terrier by mine own expertly amassed breed-i-pedia visual inspection, a mystery by means of the trucking couple who sold her to my parents at a rest stop. 

She is short, squat, compact and spunky. She walks with a high step and a butt wiggle. A tiny stub of a tail to mark her cadence. She has always been stubbornly independent, and loyally devoted, singularly to my mom. My dad, on occasion cuddles her, but she remained the apple of my mom’s eye and the shadowed sidekick to her every move. 

My mom passed away in May. It had been a 5-month journey of surprise, horror and decline. Shelby, like all of the pets who live beside seriously sick, and/or, dying parents got left by the wayside. She was, short of the essentials of eating breakfast and dinner and the obligatory bathroom breaks, forgotten. When life gets reduced to impending imminent death the periphery gets pushed into the corners.

While my mom was struggling with her cancer and our lives were filled with obstacles and medical silent policemen causing you to halt, hinder and ponder, Shelby lost her advocate, parent and support system. She was still with us, but her needs took second place. She was still able to eat, walk, and maintain her bathroom schedule. There wasn’t anything to alert us she needed more, and we had a very sick, incapable and frightened mom to care for.

While my mom declined my sister and I began to increase our focus on Shelby. For all we could no longer do for our mom we refocused our time and attention to Shelby. It was what we knew she would want from us, and, it was most certainly what Shelby needed as my mom could no longer think, call for, or even provide any affection for her. Seeing my mom pull away from all of us, in succession of our ability to provide for her was heartbreaking. Within two weeks of her passing my mom stopped asking about Shelby. Within a week she stopped asking for anyone. As she withdrew, we refocused. It was a tiny way for us to still be taking care of her when she could no longer see anything outside of her immediate ability to breathe or stay comfortable. The moments of dying color you in a way that makes the world a murky vat of misery. There is no sky outside, and there is no future to dream of. We were all a part of the vacuum it created.

The other side of life will find you. There is an after after death. Shelby was on the other side. My dad had a two-week recession. A place he retreated to and couldn’t speak from. We all deal with grief in our own way. Shelby has become the soul we covet. The last piece of a person we all long to find, and resurrect and yet cannot. 

I see her looking for my mom, as I do too. This quest to find the thing you lost, misplaced and yet believe to be hiding. Waiting to be found again. 

Shelby is what I would call the last piece of a life I try to desperately to fan from a smoldering pile of ashes, life back into. She is the last piece of my mom that is alive. The houseplant you over water in desperate hope to grow with additional vigor, only to drown from good intentions. My dad, well, to be honest, I’m not sure how he sees her? An obligation to a promise no one can provide consequence for? A left-over piece to a chapter already finished? A companion when a couple has only one half? A broken piece from an engine with too many accessories? 

He called, texted and complained for weeks before and after my moms passing that “she was getting picky,” or, “wasn’t eating well.” All with a hint of responsibility that I, as the resident family veterinarian, had to fix. That her eating was my fault, my obligation, my responsibility to figure out. I had to have the answer to what the ‘right’ food option would be. He, left on his own, had decided that she ate the high-protein unlabeled dollar store options best. The kind of canned crap, that I seriously call ‘crap’. The stuff with gelatinous goo at both the top and the bottom, as if suspending the only product scantily considered ‘food’ in the middle section. Shelby, as I mentioned at the beginning, is 15 years old. She literally is these days, only as good as what she eats. She was eating sodium suspended protein (from yet to be determined sources) in a can, at the bargain price of 69 cents. No matter how hard I tried to argue about the short-term losses of his small victories of her eating, the long-term costs were further kidney damage. But, in the tragedy of a loved one passing, whose first true sign of demise is food refusal, the small gains are often enough to appease the immediate fears of loss.

The veterinarian inside of me has a problem separating perspectives here. I see all food refusal, “the picky eaters” the “poor eaters,” the pets who just start to eat less, select options with greater care and scrutiny as the beginning whispers for help. For many of my clients, and my dad now, the eating is a frustration met by compromises that delays our abilities to diagnose and treat. Sure, some dogs are given the latitude to become connoisseurs, choosing as a sign of stature and liberty, but, most become inappetant, hyporexic, because disease is telling them to do so. For many clients not eating is a slap in the face sign of failure. People fixate on eating as much as they do on having normal poops. It is, in absence of all other meaningful signs, the most important request from a pet parent. They don’t care why they aren’t eating, or pooping at less than desirable frequency or consistency, they just want it to be normal. Preferably, right now. (The request to the vet is; cause be damned, just fix it!).

In Shelby’s case the cause was not so clear. Shelby had bad teeth, (as every small dog over 8 does). She had needed a dental for about the last two years. Fear kept that from happening. Fear that her heart murmur would result in heart failure under general anesthesia, and death at a time of ombre dying transitions was too much for us to manage. We couldn’t risk Shelby while my mom surrendered. Shelby had her dental about one month after my mom passed away. It was overwhelmingly frightening for me to perform. I knew it would be a long procedure. I knew she wasn’t an ideal surgical candidate, and, I knew it had to be done. I knew that she would require extractions of numerous teeth, yet through the procedure there was this quiet calming peace around me. Peace that she was being watched over. That she would be safe and better on the other side of waking up. For as much as I was petrified to put her under anesthesia, pull all of those rotten teeth, get too cold, stay under just a little too long, and lose her ability to wake up, during the procedure I knew she would be ok. She was carried by mom, and I could feel her all around me, taking care of her, and me in the process to get through this last long surgical procedure to be benefited on the other side. For my dad he firmly believed that the excision of the bad teeth held the answer to her persnickety food denials. 

It turned out that this wasn’t so simple. Shelby woke up from her dental, slept for a few days a little more than she had before, and went back to turning her nose up at the offerings he proposed. Rotisserie chicken was nibbled at for about a week, maybe two. Then sliced turkey was plated, about a week there. To canned cat food, then hamburger or steak, but, only if it was freshly prepared. All the while, all these weeks, my dad texted requests for food options to save her.

Shelby had a thorough exam, a full blood work panel and every other diagnostic I could provide. X-rays, x-ray evaluations, blood, urine, fecal and every possible ancillary test from these. All were normal, or at least very close to perfect for a 15-year-old. There wasn’t a medical explanation for the inappetence. As each test was taken and passed, I tried to remind my dad that there was more to her health than bleeding and numbers. As with so many cases I see people forget, or omit to admit that we are all our own beings. That Shelby is more than a being with a mouth and an ability to urinate and defecate... they the ways in which we measure her, and her abilities are much more than our observations. Shelby was a soul who was confused and now grieving. Her world although still geographically located in the same place was no longer her own in the way that matters to her. It was upside down, inside out and missing its most imperatives pieces. She, just like me, was lost in the searching for the foundation of who defined us. With out my mom we had a tough time realizing who we still are. 

Shelby came to stay at my home for about a week last week. My dad, as he has been consumed with, was so worried about her poor appetite while away from home. Shelby, like all dogs, is resilient. She is capable of so much more than many of us give them credit for. My dad arrived early the morning of his departure with her in hand. He dropped off cans of food, the ones he had most recently had success with, her bed, a leash and her harness. He fretted, as my mom had always done also, about leaving her here, in my pack of three much larger dogs, and the four opinionated and bossy cats. 

“Just put her down dad, she will be fine. She knows where she is.” I said. She had been here for weeks when my dad was in the hospital about 8 months ago. She quickly adapted to our routine. Embedded herself in the pack that is our home. After a few days of adjusting she followed step on the daily walks. She took pride in being fed in her own space on her own time. She did very well with all of the activity a full house brings. 

“She’s suffering from boredom.” My words falling on deaf ears as he sorted through his own grief.

While my dad was away, she fell right back into our routine. Walks, bedtimes, carried to our bedroom to be sleeping next to all of the others. There is life here. She ate full bowls twice a day. Had long walks where she, like the rest, can smell the diet. Process the scents of the world she lives in. there are not the quick ins-and-outs of rushed bathroom breaks. She gets to explore, find questions in her head and answers in her feet, nose and sounds. She gets to be a dog, a family member and a companion again.

Here’s where my dad forgot what the life of a dog is about. 

Shelby, like all of us, needs, and thrives on being acknowledged at every single interaction. Her vision is failing, but she knows there are people around her. We always approach slowly, kindly and with a “hello.” She will lower her ears, bow her head, stand still, and we always (always!) take a moment to stop and pet her. Where she used o fear footsteps, fear being in the way, too close underfoot, she now revels in the affection. 

Your pets want to be your pets. Loved, cherished and acknowledged. 

This has to be the basis for everything that follows. It was the simple reason Shelby isn’t eating. She is bored, she is lonely and she is lost.

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