Brian, if he was hospitalized for pancreatitis, the vet really needs to continue to work with you to get him back to a safe, normal diet that he will actually eat. What was the suspected cause of the pancreatitis and should your dog now be on a low-fat diet?
Keep a very close eye on him and report any changes to the vet ASAP. My now 12-year-old dog recently recovered from a very nasty bout of pancreatitis following abdominal surgery. I was told that hydration was actually quite key to his recovery (in our case, the vet recommended daily sub-Q fluids). Full recovery took a very long time (and was complicated by his needing to be treated for another medical condition), and he did not eat normally for months. My normally lean dog who was a great eater suddenly was not interested in food. He was at risk for needing a feeding tube. He is now back to his normal chow-hound ways and has regained all of the weight that he lost…but that was after months of picky eating (NOT normal for him), near relapse, feeding him almost anything I could get him to eat just to keep weight on him (vet did not believe he actually would need a low-fat diet long term, as his pancreatitis seemed to have been brought on by surgery), learning to administer sub-Q fluids at home and doing it daily as instructed by the vet, and SLOWLY guiding him back to normal food.
It is very important to follow your vet’s recommendations about diet. Our dog did not need a particularly low-fat diet, but yours might. At one point, our dog ate scrambled eggs and at our low point – refused anything but chicken nuggets (so we found a very healthy chicken nugget and fed that for a while). We tried human pureed chicken baby food, wet dog food, rubbing the food bowl with a piece of salami before adding the food we wanted him to eat, adding sliced low-fat turkey to his meals…it was a long, slow road. But he did recover and now loves to eat once again…and we are so happy that we still have him here with us!!! I hope that your dog recovers very quickly!
