UPDATE - Sophie's Weight Loss Program
Here is an update on Sophie's weight reduction program. As of this morning, Saturday October 9, 2010 she weighed in at 31.0. She is down .7 of a pound and she looks better all the time. I continue with the same program - lite dog food, frozen green beans finely chopped and a spoonful of canned pumpkin. She gets a few light treats during the day and a plain organic brown rice cake for her bedtime snack. I am so pleased with her progress! Adding photo taken yesterday and last night.
FIRST POST SEPT 25, 2009
Sophie is 2 years old. In Feb 2010 I found she is overweight and she has hip dysplasia. In February she weighed 35 pounds, I put her on a doggie diet and in two months she had gained another 1.5 pound - was up to 36.5 pounds. AHHHH! It is so important I get her weight down to help with her hips. The Vet told me
that 1 extra pound on a dog is equal to 5 pounds on a person.
It has taken me months of trial and error. I find every bite counts! I have had to try 3 different brands of food before I found one that worked. She now weighs 32 lbs (UPDATE - as of Sun 9/26 she weighs 31.7 lbs). She already feels so much better and can once again jump up on the bed and on the couch. Sophie is a long corgi and she may be able to carry a little more weight then the "standard". My goal is to get her to 30 lbs, see how she is doing and go from there.
For Breakfast I have been giving her 3/4C Science Diet Light Small Bites, adding some warm water to soften it, then I add 1/4C finely chopped green beans and recently began adding a spoonful of canned pumpkin (both of these to had bulk and fiber and few calories). I realize 3/4C may sound like a lot of food - but the Science Diet Lite is low in fat and high in fiber and it is designed so the dog can get a bigger portion. She also gets a little cooked egg white (1 TBL) and sometimes a tiny bit of non-fat ground turkey breast meat (1 TBL).
She always wants dinner, so for dinner I give her 1/4C dog food and smaller portions of the other ingredients.
I limit her treats. My dog trainer suggested I give her a rice cake at night for her bedtime treat - she likes them, and I give her one every night. She gets a few low cal dog treats during the day along with her Dasuguin glucosamine chews.
Since I began adding the green beans and pumpkin she has been loosing .1 to .2. This past week she was much more active and lost .3! :)
I bought a new home scale and now weigh her by weighing myself then holding her. It isn't the most accurate I am sure but it is a way to gauge how she is doing.
I would really appreciate any objective suggestions as to how to go about getting the weight off of her. Is this fast enough? Should I make her bite the bullet and not have dinner?
Sophie a few days ago:
Here is her before photo at her highest 36.5
FIRST POST SEPT 25, 2009
Sophie is 2 years old. In Feb 2010 I found she is overweight and she has hip dysplasia. In February she weighed 35 pounds, I put her on a doggie diet and in two months she had gained another 1.5 pound - was up to 36.5 pounds. AHHHH! It is so important I get her weight down to help with her hips. The Vet told me
that 1 extra pound on a dog is equal to 5 pounds on a person.
It has taken me months of trial and error. I find every bite counts! I have had to try 3 different brands of food before I found one that worked. She now weighs 32 lbs (UPDATE - as of Sun 9/26 she weighs 31.7 lbs). She already feels so much better and can once again jump up on the bed and on the couch. Sophie is a long corgi and she may be able to carry a little more weight then the "standard". My goal is to get her to 30 lbs, see how she is doing and go from there.
For Breakfast I have been giving her 3/4C Science Diet Light Small Bites, adding some warm water to soften it, then I add 1/4C finely chopped green beans and recently began adding a spoonful of canned pumpkin (both of these to had bulk and fiber and few calories). I realize 3/4C may sound like a lot of food - but the Science Diet Lite is low in fat and high in fiber and it is designed so the dog can get a bigger portion. She also gets a little cooked egg white (1 TBL) and sometimes a tiny bit of non-fat ground turkey breast meat (1 TBL).
She always wants dinner, so for dinner I give her 1/4C dog food and smaller portions of the other ingredients.
I limit her treats. My dog trainer suggested I give her a rice cake at night for her bedtime treat - she likes them, and I give her one every night. She gets a few low cal dog treats during the day along with her Dasuguin glucosamine chews.
Since I began adding the green beans and pumpkin she has been loosing .1 to .2. This past week she was much more active and lost .3! :)
I bought a new home scale and now weigh her by weighing myself then holding her. It isn't the most accurate I am sure but it is a way to gauge how she is doing.
I would really appreciate any objective suggestions as to how to go about getting the weight off of her. Is this fast enough? Should I make her bite the bullet and not have dinner?
Sophie a few days ago:
Here is her before photo at her highest 36.5
Comment
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Comment by John Wolff on September 27, 2010 at 12:52pm
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She's a beautiful dog. I love to see pems with tails, and I don't get to see many sables.
By our crude scale (I stand on it, holding the dog) Gwynn is 22 and Al 26. Last winter, Al faked a vet call; the kickback was the vet would tell us he was underweight at 24. So we cranked up the rations a bit, but I don't think he needs to be any heavier than 26.
Hard to judge. A neighbor's corgi seems quite overweight to me, but he's also a heavier-boned animal. A hard call. You should be able to feel her ribs easily. Sophie does not look that obviously fat in the photos; she may be a bigger frame than Al or Gwynn
You have to ruthlessly restrict their caloric intake. Yes, you'll be starving her. Training treats and handouts can be kept tiny, tiny, tiny. It's amazing how little we feed these animals. I think it's just over half a cup? or is it 2/3 c? of Darwin's raw meat dog food plus a little kibble 2x daily.
I think some daily aerobic exercise helps, that's why we sneak out onto the playground with the soccer ball and get them running and panting. Long fast walks, of course, are good for them and me.
What a pretty dog.
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Comment by Pat Grissett on September 26, 2010 at 9:34pm
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Hi Carol, thanks for the compliment... Your Sophie is precious..I LOVE her tail! I just read your diet regimen and I am going to follow it! We are also giving our dogs finely chopped green beans but I think they are getting too much food at their "dinner" meal. My husband doesn't agree with me, but I am going to show him the pics of your Sophie and how good she looks! The pumpkin is a great idea..never occured to me. About the dysplasia, are you going to let your Sophie have hip replacement?
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Comment by Judi, Dawn, Soffie & Griffyn on September 26, 2010 at 6:07pm
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Carole, Good for you and for Sophie too! It is so very hard to look at those big brown eyes staring up at you and say no. But from what I have read on your blog you're doing the right thing! And seeing the photo of Sophie on that rock is testimony to that!!
Our Soffie suffered a partial tear of her acl 1 year ago July. And the major factor to her recovery was losing weight. I'm happy to report that at a vet visit yesterday she weighed 27.6 pounds, down from 39!! We feed her Wellness dry. For the past year we fed the Wellness Simple mix weight control. But recently we switched to Wellness Core Reduced fat. (Personally I'm not a fan of Science diet, I don't believe it's a good quality food.) And I supplement with frozen green beans. Both Soffie and Griffyn LOVE them!! I think they gobble through the kibble to get to the green bean "bonus"!! For their night time treat we stuff a kong with either green beans or canned pumpkin. When we stuff with the pumpkin we freeze them before giving them.
I recently posted a blog about weight control. Here's a link to it http://www.mycorgi.com/profiles/blogs/weight-control if you have time, give it a look.
Keep up your good work with Sophie, she's beautiful!!
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Comment by Gromit, Sparkle, and Doug on September 26, 2010 at 3:09pm
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I think one of the difficult things with having a dog on a diet is being patient. We want our little friends to be and have the best and worry endlessly about them so we wish for quick results. Any of us humans that have dieted know that the weight doesn't come off quickly and in fact it's not good for us to lose to quickly. Same with our little furry friends. The other hard part is for us to really buy into how little food the dogs need to live and be healthy -- same with humans -- so an extra bit here or there can't hurt...but it does and slows the progress.
Debbie and I have really forced ourselves to be strict with food for Gromit and Holly, resisting the temptation to make the food cup heaping instead of level, and cutting back on biscuits which we love to give them. Slowly the weight has come off them and both are looking really good now. Patience and discipline are key and of course, never look them right in the eyes because as John Wolff noted "That's how they control your mind."
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Comment by Carole and Sophie on September 26, 2010 at 11:59am
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Weigh-in at home on my scale (where I weigh myself then hold Sophie - which isn't real accurate but gives me a good idea of how she is doing) shows she lost another .3 lb, down to 31.7! I believe adding the big spoonful of canned pumpkin may be making a difference. As long as she continues loosing slowly I will keep her on her current program. As for Science Diet - I would rather not have her on it - but she likes it, she has a beautiful coat, is healthy and she can have a bigger portion then if I was giving her regular or just older adult dog food. Once she reaches her goal weight I will switch to something more holistic. Thank you again for all your sweet comments and suggestions - we appreciate them. Having a corgi that needs to loose some weight is quite a challenge.
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Comment by Carol Rea on September 26, 2010 at 9:26am
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she's beautiful! I admire the fact that you got her to lose so much weight, also. Our Sonny, also a rescue, is gaining weight on his weight loss diet - he goes out and finds his own extra food! My husband remarked yesterday as he was bathing him, that usually a wet dog is smaller than normal, but not Sonny! Well...Chepstow might share his green beans with Sophie, but Sonny would eat them all!!! LOL
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Comment by Jane Christensen on September 25, 2010 at 10:34pm
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She is beautiful and I love her tail:) Personally I would not use the science diet (you can check out some of the previous food discussions and I think there are some on diet vs non diet food as well) It is very good just like us people to lose weight slowely.The amount seems reasonable without reading the label...mine get 3 handfuls per day which is about 11/4 -11/2 cups but they get alot of exercise. Most veggies are great and green beans and pumpkin are wonderful! Also a good way to check for overweight is to feel her ribs...there should be a very thin layer over her ribs but you should be able to feel them easily.
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Comment by Roger/Laurie on September 25, 2010 at 6:01pm
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Our Chepstow agrees with Gromit..............she is a fine looking girl. Chepstow says he will share his green beans with her anytime!
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Gromit and Doug - I have always felt like Sophie is larger then the typical Corgi. I haven't been able to find the standard measurements - just the height 11-12" and if I measure her right she is 12. Her length however, I measured from her shoulder to where her tail starts and it's 20 inches. My goal is to get her down to 30 lbs and see how she looks. And then thee is a matter of her tail. She has a big tail and that must add some extra weight to her too! Sophie to Gromit - YARROOOFFF!
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Comment by Heather and Ella on September 25, 2010 at 4:42pm
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To me that sounds like a lot of food and treats for a corgi. However the kibble is "diet" so I'm sure it has a lot less calories than regular food. We just switched Ella to taste of the wild this summer and she packed on 1/2 lb already, since the grain free has more calories and protein. Instead of a two 1/2 cup meals, she now is only gettin 1/4 cup in the morning. She doesn't seem any more hungry this week, even with 1/4 cup less food a day. Green beans are so awesome, they would eat them forever and be totally happy.
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