Excessive Hunger in Dogs: What If Your Dog Acts Like They’re Starving?

Where is the line between a healthy appetite and excessive hunger? How can you tell, and should you worry?

A healthy appetite is considered a sign of a healthy dog. As a general rule, it is. Conversely, an ill dog will likely eat less, become finicky about their food, or stop eating altogether.

Even a ravenous appetite can be normal, depending on the dog and their activity level.

Excessive Hunger in Dogs: What If Your Dog Acts Like They're Starving?

So what constitutes excessive hunger?

I would like to believe that you’d know it if you saw it. It is essential to understand what is normal for your dog–how much they usually eat. If their appetite changes dramatically without anything else having had changed, something is up.

Seeking more food versus trying to eat everything within reach

Is your dog so hungry, or are they trying to put out a fire? A friend’s dog would behave this way. She would eat anything that wasn’t nailed down. As well as she was frequently sick without a diagnosis. The veterinarians treated her symptomatically, which wasn’t working. It wasn’t until a family vacation, when a different vet saw her, that her problem finally got a name–chronic pancreatitis.

Jasmine was always hungry when she was on steroids for her bad neck, but that was nothing compared to another friend’s dog, who was on high-dose steroids for brain inflammation. That poor girl, too, would ingest everything she could get her mouth on, including her diapers and carpets. In this case, it was caused by the high cortisol levels in their blood from their treatment.

I would be cautious before concluding my dog had pica, which is considered a behavioral issue. Is it really? Sometimes maybe.

Whether your dog is putting out a fire or being so hungry they could eat nails–literally sometimes–I’d want to rule out a physiological reason foremost.

You can read my thoughts about pica here.

Excessive hunger with weight loss

If your dog keeps eating and eating and yet losing weight, this is serious. Often, they will suffer from diarrhea as well. Their body is not getting the nutrients it needs no matter how hard they try. Either their body cannot use the nutrients, or somebody is literally stealing them- yes, intestinal parasites.

Problems within the digestive tract or outside of it can cause this.

Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI)

This complicated term stands for your dog’s inability to digest their food. The pancreas has two big jobs– the production of insulin and the production of digestive enzymes. When the pancreas fails to provide these enzymes, your dog’s body cannot break food down to usable nutrients. In other words, the food goes through untouched. This is when your dog can literally starve to death while eating like there was no tomorrow.

To learn more about this condition, check out my EPI article. Dogs having problems with the digestion of nutrients will also nearly always have abnormal stools.

Other symptoms of EPI include:

  • chronic diarrhea
  • pale, greasy stools

Bowel disease

Simplified, food gets broken down into nutrients in the stomach and absorbed by the intestine. However, infections, inflammatory conditions, or cancer can mess up the function of the intestinal walls, making them unable to absorb nutrients. This can result in excessive hunger though in many cases, such as with Jasmine, it can cause the opposite–refusing food.

Other bowel disease symptoms can include diarrhea, vomiting, and other changes.

Hyperthyroidism

Hyperthyroidism is rare in dogs, but it can happen. Excessive thyroid hormone levels push your dog’s metabolism into overdrive, keeping your dog constantly hungry.

Other symptoms of hyperthyroidism can include the following:

  • excessive weight loss
  • increased thirst and urination
  • vomiting
  • diarrhea
  • lethargy
  • weakness
  • changes in behavior/hyperactivity
  • rapid breathing or difficulty breathing
  • lump on the neck

Excessive hunger with weight gain

Diabetes

What everybody seems to know about insulin is that it removes excess blood sugar (glucose) from the blood. Which is kind of true, but it’s not the whole story. The job of insulin is, indeed, to regulate blood sugar levels and put the excess away for storage. However, it is also insulin’s job to deliver glucose to all the cells in the body, where it is used as an energy source. In other words, cells need glucose to function. So your dog’s cells are starving, and your dog keeps eating, trying to provide the energy they need, but it’s not getting to them.

Other symptoms of diabetes include:

  • increased drinking and urination
  • vomiting
  • skin and coat changes
  • lethargy
  • depression
  • weakness
  • cloudy eyes
  • weight loss (I know I’m listing it under weight gain, but it can be either)

Cushing’s disease

I already mentioned drug-induced high levels of cortisol above. However, it can also happen naturally when your dog is producing excessive levels of the hormone. With Cushing’s disease, the perceived weight gain might be just that–perceived as it can have to do more with changes in organs and tissues rather than an increase in fat tissues.

Other symptoms of Cushing’s disease include:

  • increased thirst and urination
  • increased panting
  • potty accidents
  • pot-bellied appearance
  • skin and coat changes
  • lack of energy
  • weakness
  • unexplained bruising

Nutritional deficiencies

Could it be just the food? Why indeed. If the food doesn’t provide sufficient levels of needed nutrients, your dog will keep eating until their body gets what it needs. Jasmine’s vet always pointed out that dogs eat to the limiting ingredient. This could be a vitamin, a mineral, or an amino acid. Your dog’s food might offer it at levels that are too low or not at all.

This should not be very common these days, but it absolutely is a possibility. Since other, usually, calorie-rich nutrients are abundant in almost every food, your dog will be crazy hungry and getting fat while missing something important their body needs.

Nutritional deficiencies, too, can lead to eating non-food items, such as dirt or feces.

Related articles:
Weight Loss, Brittle Fur, Starving All The Time … Beaner’s Story

Further reading:
5 Reasons Your Dog is Extremely Hungry

Categories: Excessive hunger • Symptoms

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Jana Rade edited by Dr. Joanna Paul BSc BVSc

I am a graphic designer, dog health advocate, writer, and author. Jasmine, the Rottweiler of my life, was the largest female from her litter. We thought we were getting a healthy dog. Getting a puppy from a backyard breeder was our first mistake. Countless veterinary visits without a diagnosis or useful treatment later, I realized that I had to take Jasmine's health care in my own hands. I learned the hard way that merely seeing a vet is not always enough. There is more to finding a good vet than finding the closest clinic down the street. And, sadly, there is more to advocating for your dog's health than visiting a veterinarian. It should be enough, but it often is not. With Jasmine, it took five years to get a diagnosis. Unfortunately, other problems had snowballed for that in the meantime. Jasmine's health challenges became a crash course in understanding dog health issues and how to go about getting a proper diagnosis and treatment. I had to learn, and I had to learn fast. Helping others through my challenges and experience has become my mission and Jasmine's legacy. I now try to help people how to recognize and understand signs of illness in their dogs, how to work with their veterinarian, and when to seek a second opinion. My goal is to save others the steep curve of having to learn things the hard way as I did. That is the mission behind my blog and behind my writing. That is why I wrote Symptoms to Watch for in Your Dog, which has turned out being an award-winning guide to dog owners. What I'm trying to share encompasses 20 years of experience. Dr. Joanna Paul BSc BVSc is our wonderful sponsor and has been kind to edit and fact-check my important articles.

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