Need Advice on Hydrating Kaiya

brittk

Kaiya got really ill wednesday over night diarrhea and vomiting so we went to the vet yesterday as I was worried about all the fluids she was losing. Its a good thing I took her as they have one dog who has been hospitalized a couple of days for IV that had the same symptoms (plus a fever) and would not eat or drink. I guess there is something going around here in the dog population. Anyways, Kaiya was a little dehydrated. The vet attempted to get subcutaneous fluids into her, but wasnt able to get as much as she wanted as Kaiya flipped out and was screaming and they still had to administer another shot of an anti nausea med.
When we got home, I tried a few different methods to get some water into her (we were told no pedialite for now) but I still dont think its good enough. Shes still a little dry in the gums. Here are the methods we tried since she wont drink from her bowl: ice (takes a few licks and wont have any more), water off our fingertips, soaking a washcloth to let her suck/lick, bottle, ladel. Is there anything that you have done in the past that we haven't tried yet?
We get to feed her a little later, so she'll get some rice that we will add a little extra water to which should also help with the water intake.
Thanks all! Please keep my little one in your thoughts, I really dont want her in the hospital!

Yandharr

This JUST happened to me. I finally tricked them into eating their food but watered way down, like 1/4 normal serving + 2 cups of water- kinda like soggy cereal. they would not drink before but i just got both to do it that way. Mine are greedy though so they saw drinking the water as a way to get to their food.

Zinja

My cat had a UTI and he was not drinking or eating. He had to be hospitalized for a week. When we took him home, we had to squirt processed wet food from a syringe to his mouth and force feed him twice a day. It was not fun but we had to do it.

Now Sushi is slightly overweight and eating on his own.

lindsayt

Low sodium beef broth.

WrylyBrindle

We keep a stock of homemade chicken stock (no salt) ice cubes for cooking- but they are handy for dog intake as well. Dont tell my husband I feed his valuable chicken cubes to the dogs, okay?

Zinja

That's a really good idea!

brittk

Thanks for the suggesions! And dont worry @WrylyBrindle, your secret is safe with me!

dlroberts

And the rest of the interwebs. :-)

tjbart17

I do organic chicken broth as well without sodium.

Mei had something like this in December. I felt so bad for her. I'd never seen her so sick. It broke my heart. I hope Kaiya feels better soon.

Saya

Hope Kaiya doing better soon.

sukoshi_mom

This may sound odd, but you might want to try slightly diluted V8 juice. Many dogs like the taste of tomatoes and will eat tomato paste, etc. The V8 juice is a good source of electrolytes. Sukoshi likes V8 juice and so she gets it on especially hot days when I know she's probably been losing electrolytes.

brittk

Thanks all. Kaiya is feeling quite a bit better. I have never seen her so drained. I wound up drowning the heck out of her chicken and rice (she doesnt seem to care for rice) and she drank with her meal and then added some organic no sodium chicken broth to her water and she drank a little of that. Her gums are MUCH more moist and she even wanted to do a little walk around the complex this morning. Thanks again for all the suggesions. Hopefully by the end of the weekend she is at 100%. I may try the V8 trick when her tummy isn't upset any more. Thats a nifty little tip!