Also called · not eating after moving house · appetite loss after hospitalisation · won’t eat in a new place
What it looks like
- Stops eating after a move, a vet stay or visitors
- Stops eating after the bowl is moved
- Spends more time hiding
Why it happens
A dog eating nothing means look elsewhere
Dogs rarely stop eating completely from temporary stress. If a dog eats nothing at all, it is usually illness or pain, or a genuinely unstable mental state such as stereotypy or a phobia.
Not eating is itself partly a defence
Infection and stress increase signalling molecules in the brain that directly suppress the feeding centre. It is thought to conserve energy for the immune response.
What to do
Go back to the familiar food
Trying a new food under stress works against you. Restore eating with what they already know.
Find what triggered it
Retrace what happened where they eat. Noise, another animal, a slippery floor, or a bowl placed too close to the litter tray are common causes.
Give them somewhere that feels safe
Move the feeding spot and make sure they have a place to hide, so the underlying anxiety drops.
Consider a calming supplement
α-S1 tryptic casein (alpha-casozepine), L-theanine and GABA are used for anxiety. In a trial with cats showing signs of anxiety, aversion to contact, fear responses and displacement behaviour fell significantly; in dogs the effect was comparable to an anti-anxiety drug. No effect on aggression was found. (Beata et al., J Vet Behav 2, 2007)
See a vet if
If a dog continues to eat nothing at all, do not treat it as stress. See a vet.
Common questions
There is reason to think it can help to some degree, and it is worth trying. But it works as a support alongside changes to the environment and behaviour, not instead of them.
Related behaviors
Was this useful?
General behaviour and nutrition information. It does not replace diagnosis or prescription. Similar behaviour does not always have the same cause, and the cause is not necessarily diet or environment — have a vet rule out illness first, and consult a behaviour specialist where needed.