My old dog won't eat; is she dying?

This isn't mine. I stole this search term from a friend, whose blog is largely focused on parenting and knitting (Google--could we have a word about your discernment process?) As she so aptly pointed out, a dog who doesn't eat WILL die, even if the loss of appetite wasn't a symptom of impending death. Thus, it's not something to be ignored.

She also pointed out that when her old dog wouldn't eat, the vet suggested that she change up her diet a bit, and lo and behold--home cooked meals did the trick. But loss of appetite can also indicate serious medical issues, and your vet is really the best source of information about this.

That said, I want to add a word about searching the Internet. Even if the Internet was the best source of this information, this search string was doomed to fail. Remember, Google returns search results in large part based on a match-up of the words you typed into the search box with the words on the page it returns (excluding "stop words" like "the"). It's common for people searching for information on the web to type in questions like the one above, but it's generally not very effective: if you were writing a veterinary information site, would you write "my old dog won't eat, is she dying?" on the page? Probably not--unless you were a savvy search engine marketer.

Thus, the question above turns up a knitting / parenting blog where the author has talked a bit about her concerns about her old dog, while a search for: dog symptoms loss of appetite turns up pages of veterinary information about various medical conditions that can cause dogs to lose their appetites, warning signs, and what you should do. In short, when you're looking for information on the Internet, don't type in the question you want answered--type in the key words you'd expect to find in the answer, or that you'd put in a heading if you were writing the answer.