Day 1 Dinner

Dinner time on Day 1 was unlike anything I had ever seen before. One would think that a dog as emaciated as Ruby would be eager to eat however this could not have been farther from the truth. At the shelter, Ruby was on a diet of Science Diet Advanced Fitness Original. According to her feeding charts, she never ate more than half her portion of food. I am not certain if the food quantities distributed were according to portions suggested by Science Diet, but if so this means that Ruby could not have ate more than 1 cup of food per day. Going into this we thought that being in a safe environment would garner interest in the food and Ruby would start gaining weight instantly. We decided to make things as easy as possible we gave Ruby 2 cups of food and 5oz of canned wet food. Ruby looked at the food, back at us, and began walking away. She had no interest in the food. Jackie sat on the kitchen floor encouraging Ruby to eat, no success. After a few minutes, Jackie lifted the food bowl to Ruby's mouth. She sniffed the food but did not eat. Knowing Ruby had not yet eaten today, we did not know what else to do. Finally Jackie took a handful of the wet food and pushed it towards Ruby's mouth. I don't know how Jackie did it, but Ruby ate 3oz of wet food.

Jackie and I could not figure out what we did wrong. Why was Ruby not eating? What could we do to fatten her up?

Finally we caved and did the only thing we could think of, boil some chicken. The chicken breast was eaten before we new it. So for the day a small chicken breast and 3oz of wet food.