How long can our dog go without water?

Factual Questions
1

For rather mundane reasons, we need to switch the pooches over to water bottles. The full size dog gets it; the little dog is not participating. Eventually the water bowls are going to completely disappear, leaving him with no choice but the bottle. Will he make it?

He’s running Win XP Pro SP2 with 2 GB of… oh, wait, wrong kind of thread.

Ahem. He’s a fifteen-pound miniature pinscher. He tends to take a common breed description, “willful,” to the extreme — he knows how to use it, knows what’s in there, but just won’t drink from it.[sup]*[/sup] For the time being, we’re giving him water from his dish in the morning and at night, but he’s clearly thirsty during the day. We figure as long as he’s getting water like this, he’ll never make the full transition to the bottle, hence the OP. We didn’t give him any water this morning. We may not give him any later tonight. Will his survival instinct kick in before he croaks? If not, how long do we wait before caving and giving him water?

Thanks,

Rhythm

[sup]* What makes us think he knows what to do? Few things. Perhaps most telling is that when we put beef broth in the bottle, he has no problem drinking it. We can go as far as giving him the soup bottle (an identical, second water bottle) for a bit, then taking him out of the room while switching the bottle, and letting him go. He’ll trot down the hall, make a beeline for the bottle, actually take a couple drinks (i.e., find out it’s just water), and then start looking around for the soup.

Also, given that he’s so observant in things like snack-stealing, morsel finding, and toy thievery, his seeing, hearing, witnessing, etc., his brother’s modeling how to use it seems quite suggestive. [/sup]

2

This cite says, depending on the weather, a dog can last between a day and a week without water. I would guess it’s closer to a day than a week. Maybe 2 or 3 days depending on the size of the dog. If you want him to drink from a water bottle, you can try showing him the dog some food they enjoy, then smear the food on the tip of the water bottle so that when he goes to lick the food off, he’ll see the water comes out.

3

I would take the bowls away completely for at least a day. I can’t imagine a living animal willingly allowing itself to suffer and die from dehydration.

If he’s thirsty, why not drip feed him from the water bottle?

4

For the rest of his life?

5

For humans it is roughly three days without water. I expect a dog would be similar.

Of course there are a lot of variables such as temperature, activity, how much fat you have, what you eat (if you eat) and so on. People have lived longer without water but I’d say after three days you are moving into the realm of asking for serious trouble.

Again, that is for humans and perhaps a dog is quite different but it seems a reasonable line to draw. Call you vet and ask to be sure.

That said I’d think there are other ways to encourage the dog to use its new water bottle than hoping dehydration will force the issue.

6

:smiley: and we’ve got enough money to retire on…

As for brickbacon’s suggestion of smearing food on the tip of the water bottle, that’s pretty much all it took for the larger pooch to get it – we used peanut butter. Worf (the little dog) ate up the peanut butter, ended up with watery peanut butter, but never went past that. That’s what made us put broth in the bottle. To get the broth, he wasn’t just licking the end, he had to actually drink from the bottle, just like there was water inside. He gets it, seeks it out if he thinks there’s soup in it, and actually takes a few swigs of water before disappointedly leaving it be.

As for drip feeding him from the water bottle, I’m not sure if that would work – we’re moving away from standing water in the bowls, and given their proclivities, any drip would eventually add up. Good thought though – it’s not that we didn’t look into it, we just couldn’t find something that would work.

We’d like to think Whack-a-Mole’s suggestion that there are “other ways to encourage the dog to use its new water bottle than hoping dehydration will force the issue” is correct, but we’re out of ideas. Again, he knows how to get water out of it, and he knows water is in there. He’s all sorts of happy to drink soup out of it. He just … doesn’t.

It’s not so much that we’re hoping dehydration will take care of training for us. Rather, it’s coming down to the proverbial next step, e.g., kicking him out of the nest, removing the crutches, and taking the bowls away. We think his survival instinct will make him give up expectation of getting water in the bowl, but we don’t want him to croak.
Anybody want a minpin?

7

We wait with bated breath. I’ll take 4 days in the pool.

8

How long can our dog go without water?

The answer depends a lot on whether the dog is on fire.

9

I watering your dog!

10

How long he can last without water also depends on whether he’s getting dry food or wet. When I switched my dog over from wet canned food to dry kibble, her water needs roughly tripled.

If it were me, I’d take the water dish away in the morning, and leave Worf to figure it out. And then check him the following morning for symptoms of dehydration:

And if he looks okay, I’d check him again at lunchtime, and again at supper. And basically just keep checking him.

And if he starts looking dehydrated, I’d give him a few sips of water from the water bottle, not from the dish, because he needs to understand that the bottle is the new water source (“This is it, kiddo–march or die”), and if you just respond by putting out his water bowl again, he’ll learn that eventually you’ll put the water bowl out, and he’ll continue to sit tight until it appears, and he never will start using the bottle.

Those Lixit bottles are basically just a big hamster water drinker–you can get them to dispense water by squeezing them, it squirts right out.

If I had to guess why he’s refusing to use the bottle, “plain laziness” would be high on my list, not “stupidity”. He knows perfectly well that there’s water in there, but it takes work, man, to get at it. Not everybody has time to sit there and lick a friggin’ ball bearing, yanno. We got squirrels to chase, mailmen to bite, hey, it’s busy-busy-busy. :smiley:

11

An empty pool?

12

And your breath is bated with hydrogen hydroxide?

13

He may look for an alternate source. So keep your toilet lids closed. :slight_smile:

14

If he doesn’t like the Hamster watering route why not get him one of these? Seems you’d all be happier. Owner gets same result and dog gets his bowl back.

15

We’d looked into various tank-like set-ups before settling on the hamster solution. Unfortunately, all of the self-filling bowls we’ve seen don’t have limiting the flow in mind — which is the crux of why we have to switch.

The decision to move to bottles was based on the older pooch’s development of a drinking problem. In short, he drinks and drinks and drinks too fast, gulping up water to the point where about five minutes later he spits it up on the floor. He’s always had the tendency to do this, but it used to be three to five times a week, mostly when he was excited or nervous – not a big deal. But as time wore on, it became not uncommon to have ten to fifteen glurps on the floor every day. Oh, and “on the floor” is a generalization. It could be on a shoe, over the coffee table, on someone’s lap… he wasn’t too discriminating.

So, after lots of bloodwork we switched to the hamster bottles, the give-backs are gone, and he gets – and keeps down – between 40 and 50 ounces a day. This is an absolute miracle, if you can imagine what it was like beforehand, so going back is not in the cards. The wee dog (who our vet affectionately nicknamed “the little chicken-shit”) is NOT going to be mollycoddled for long… which brings us back to the reason for the OP. (I’m pretty sure DDG really “got” his mindset, and this thread is all about whether or not he’ll kick the bucket before hitting the bottle).

don’t ask has four days in the pool. Anyone else want in? Please note: the winner of the pool gets the dog.

Rhythm

16

I’ll take 5793 days in the pool. (I am SO not getting that dog!)

I’ll second what DDG said. Pull the bowls and check him frequently to be sure he’s not getting dehydrated, if he’s an indoor air-conditioned pooch. DO NOT try this if he’s out in the heat.

Also, ask your vet!

Good luck with the new regime.

17

I’d be really, really surprised to see him die of dehydration out of simple stubbornness. As long as you’re keeping tabs on his condition, and he’s not out running laps in 90 degree heat or something, so he’s not going to incur catastrophically sudden dehydration, I see no reason why you shouldn’t let nature take its course. When he gets thirsty enough, he’ll cave.

18

You might consider changing what you feed him - if his food is more moist, he may get all his liquid needs from that (or, enough that you can give him water when you’re home?).

We feed our dog (38kg Rhodesian Ridgeback) one patty in the morning and one in the evening, and she barely drinks water at all (maybe one slurp a week?). Not sure if you folks in the US have these, they are about one pound each, and minced up meat, bones, and vegtables, designed by an aussie vet dr Ian Billinghurst - it’s called BARF. You buy them in a pack of 13, and keep them in the freezer. Top stuff - dogs love them, and it keeps them supremely healthy.

19

I’m gonna put in my vote for just taking away the bowl for a while. You said the dog knows how to use the bottle. I think at this point you just need to wayt for him to need to use the bottle and not find the bowl.
I assume these dogs are caged while you are gone…in the same cage? (Otherwise you could put the bottle in one cage and the bowl in the other.

20

An excellent point that bears repeating - make sure he’s not getting a drink from anywhere else. Not just a toilet bowl - leaky faucets, puddles, etc.