As we sat on the floor, Diana tenderly held Buffy. I finally was able to catch my breath and quietly mournfully said, “I can’t get her to eat.”
Food is one of the ways I show love to people in my life. I love making food for people, serving it to them, and seeing them have a physical, cultural, and emotional experience with my food. I have no problem spending an entire day in the kitchen cooking meals for people, and I love the challenge of figuring out new recipes and cooking techniques. I probably get this from my mom. I loved watching her in the kitchen growing up and felt her love and care for me through the food she cooked.
Buffy was never a food-motivated dog. She was a dainty and picker eater. We got her high-quality Fromm kibble when she was a puppy, and sometimes she wouldn’t eat or skip meals. We would make her food tastier by mixing in some wet food. While it seemed she wasn’t eating her full meals at times, she did and grew up strong and healthy.
I made food for her when Buffy had some digestive issues a couple of years ago, and we weren’t sure what to feed her. I’d cook batches of chicken and rice and cook them down into a soup, which she seemed to enjoy. I was willing to do that for her for the long haul, but we found Farmer’s Dog, which provides a more balanced meal, so we went with this service.
Then about a year ago, she lost interest in this food. I would mix in some dog-safe food from our meals, like chicken breasts, or crunch some treats into her food, which seemed to work.
I noticed that she wasn’t coming over to eat when I called her, which may have been due to some hearing loss. So I got into the routine of picking her up and placing her in front of her dog bowl during meal times. Buffy would eat pretty consistently this way, though she left a mess, picking through the food and only selecting the morsels she wanted to eat, leaving the rest of the food spread out in the front of the dish.
In the past couple of months started noticing that Buffy started eating less and less food. I would put her in front of her bowl; she would pick at it and then walk away. I didn’t overthink it. I figured she would come back later and eat some more, but then dinner would come, and her food from breakfast had not been touched. I tried mixing other food into her meals, but nothing seemed to help.
Then came the day I broke down with Diana. This was after four days of her not eating her meals at all, which was probably part of a trend I didn’t admit; I got desperate. I had made Buffy breakfast and carried her over to her bowl. She drank some water and then walked away.
I added some chicken meat to her food and tried, and she just walked away again. I grabbed a piece of chicken from her food bowl, walked over to her lying in her bed, and put it right in front of her nose, and she just turned her head away from the food.
I took a piece of salmon that was leftover from dinner the night before, put it in my palm, and held it in front of her nose. She shifted her weight and turned her head away. I ran back to the kitchen, stuck a spoon in a jar of peanut butter, and pushed that toward Buffy’s nose, and she just lay motionless, not reacting at all to one of her favorite treats.
I sat back on the floor next to Buffy and lay in her bed, feeling defeated. I reached down and held her, looked into her eyes, and pleaded, “Buffy, you have to eat something.” She looked at me calmly, with a knowing look, and I felt the weight of her head as she relaxed into my hands. I sat back to look at her silently, scared and unsure of what to do.
That’s how Diana found me when she came down the stairs. When I could finally tell her what was going on, the path before us became apparent. This was Buffy’s way of telling us that she was ready.
Buffy’s entire life, I had shown her love through food, and her rejection of my food was not her saying she didn't need my love. It was saying she needed me to show her love another way.
This was Wednesday afternoon, and that night we scheduled her transition for Friday.
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