Not eating, which needs a vet rather than time

What this tends to look like

• Walks to the bowl and away again, or ignores it entirely
• Refusing food they would normally never turn down
• Sometimes drinking normally, sometimes not, which matters
• Often hiding, quiet, or curled tight rather than sprawled
• Weight loss becoming noticeable over the ribs and spine within days in a cat
• Occasionally the change followed a household loss, which makes it easy to explain away

What is usually going on

There are two separate reasons this page sends you to a vet rather than to a remedy. The first is physical and specific to cats. A cat in negative energy balance mobilizes fat into a liver that is not equipped to process it, which produces hepatic lipidosis. It becomes self-sustaining, in that the sicker the cat feels the less it eats, and it is genuinely dangerous. The treatment is assisted feeding, and it works far better started early than late.

The second reason is diagnostic. Grief is a real and well-documented response in dogs and cats, and survey work after the loss of a companion animal consistently reports reduced appetite among the commonest changes. But complete refusal of food is at the severe end of what grief produces and at the ordinary end of what pain, dental disease, kidney disease, nausea and a dozen other physical problems produce. A household loss creates a ready-made explanation that makes it very easy to wait a week, and that week is the cost of being wrong.

The right order is to have them examined, have the obvious physical causes ruled out, and then treat what is left as grief with confidence. That is one appointment. Doing it the other way round can be considerably more expensive, and in a cat it can be worse than expensive.

What you can do at home

• Get a cat seen within 24 hours of eating nothing, and a dog within 48. Do not wait past that on the assumption it is sadness
• Note exactly when they last ate properly, and how much. Vets ask, and most owners realize it is longer than they thought
• Offer something warmed and strongly aromatic in the meantime: a plain meat baby food with no onion or garlic, or a favorite wet food warmed slightly
• Do not force food into the mouth or use a syringe unless you have been shown how. It causes food aversion and risks aspiration
• Check whether they are drinking, and mention it either way
• Look in the mouth if they will let you. Dental pain is a common and very treatable cause of sudden refusal

What progress should look like

How long to give this before you conclude it is not working.

• NowBook the appointment. In a cat this is a 24-hour clock, not a wait-and-see.
• At the visitExpect a mouth examination and probably blood tests. Ask specifically about pain and about the teeth.
• First 48 hours after treatmentAppetite often returns quickly once nausea or pain is addressed, which is itself informative.
• Once clearedIf nothing physical is found, the other patterns on this page apply and you can treat it as grief properly.

When to stop and call your vet

• A cat that has eaten nothing for 24 hours, which is the line
• Vomiting, drooling, or pawing at the mouth
• Yellow tinge to the gums, the eyes, or the skin inside the ears
• Continued weight loss despite eating something