Weight Loss Tips
What should you look for when buying a food to help your dog lose weight? Low fat, low calories, high fiber? Do diet dog foods lack in other nutrition? As far as feeding goes, what are some good tips to help your dog lose weight?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jane Christensen on
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Yup...Kerry and Bev said it all! Do you feed Finn more than once a day? I would feed him twice at least that way he will feel like he's getting a little more even though he isn't!
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Permalink Reply by Alice on
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We do feed him twice a day. He gets half a cup in the am and half a cup in the pm. We cut him back from the 3/4 cup twice a day he was getting a couple months ago when I asked the vet if his weight was right and he said he's fine but for the sake of his hips, he'd be better off dropping a couple pounds. Even after cutting back his food for two months, he still managed to gain almost a pound! I don't know how that can be. The vet said it's ok to reduce his food a little bit more but I'm wondering if there is a better food option. When they say higher fiber will help, how much are we talking? Same goes for fat, how much is too much in a food. Does protein play a part in it? I'd like to get a better understanding of foods and I'm sure we have some food experts on here. :)
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Permalink Reply by Joanna Kimball on
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I definitely don't like the "lite" foods because you're absolutely right, they cut the calories by cutting the good stuff that dogs need.
I think the key is to stop feeling bad for him. You feed him whatever it takes for him to lose the weight and don't worry if that seems like a tiny amount. When I was feeding kibble, Clue was alternating between 1/3 cup and 1/2 cup per day, and she got fed once. You can also feed things that are satisfying to chew but are not high calorie, like knuckle bones (not marrow bones). So, for example, a couple days a week he doesn't get any kibble at all (which is perfectly safe for dogs; they're built to fast) and instead gets a knuckle bone or a chicken or turkey neck (you can find them at your grocery store or use the giblets inside a whole chicken or turkey). Necks have no skin or fat so they tend to keep dogs slim.
Some dogs lose weight when they are put on grain-free kibbles; others seem to do the opposite (mine all gain like crazy on grain-free food, so I just feed a lot less). It's all about figuring out what works, and sticking to it even though it feels like it is tiny and restrictive. They're not primates and they are not designed to eat a lot or eat all day long. They do just fine with infrequent meals and empty stomachs, and it's a LOT safer to have a hungry dog than an overweight one.
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Thank you Joanna,
I don't feel bad cutting back his food, I just don't want to cut it back to an extreme if that could cause him to not get enough nutrition. Can a one year old's food safely be cut back to 1/2 cup a day?
When you mentioned knuckle bone, are thinking raw from the butcher or are the cured ones from the pet supply store ok? I know many people give them the cured knuckles but wasn’t sure if they will splinter as other bones can.
Finn used to throw up in the morning if he went to bed with nothing in his tummy which is why we break his meal into two so the stomach acids wouldn't build up and make him sick. I don't know if he still has that problem or not. It's been a long time since we've tested it. Like I've said before, nothing is ever easy with Finnigan. :)
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No, I am definitely thinking raw from the butcher. You want him to actually be able to EAT them, not just chew on them.
I have been able to eliminate that yellow-foam vomit (which is because the stomach starts producing acid in anticipation of a meal and then no meal is forthcoming) by feeding at random times during the day. So they get fed "at night," but that could mean anything from 8 PM to 3 AM (I work at night, so I'm generally up until 4 or 5). If their stomachs don't know when a meal is coming they don't do that big acid dump that then makes them throw up.
I've cut dogs WAY back at many times in my dog-owning and dog-rescuing life, including fasting them every other day if they really need to lose a lot, and I've never seen one display any symptoms of malnutrition. In fact, since I am usually switching them to raw, they bloom and look fabulous as they are losing. As long as the food is nutrient-rich, they do fine on whatever the appropriate amount is for their metabolism.
Dogs vary HUGELY. One of my Cardis gets three times (literally) what the other one does in order to stay fit and thin. When I had Danes I had one adult girl - active and very fit at 140 lb - who couldn't have more than a pound of food a day, meaning .6% of her body weight. The normal amount you feed (of raw) is 2%-3% of their adult weight. When she was pregnant and nursing her metabolism would go nuts and I'd be feeding her six and seven pounds a day, but as soon as it was just her she'd get pudgy INSTANTLY.
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Permalink Reply by MollyJo on
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My corgi is only 4 and is already limping, he's built a little down hill and his hips are weak (we ended up putting our bed closer to the floor so he doesn't jump so high when we're not home...). I'm trying to get him to lose some weight, too, and have him doing more exercise and fed a no grain food. I only feed HALF what it says to on the package and he's starting to lose a little... :-/ Corgi's don't have a very good metabolism....
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We have not tried a raw diet at all. Honestly, it's because I get so easily disgusted I've never had the stomach to buy anything raw. I am so terribly easy to gross out that I would be the one who ends up losing weight since I would never have an appetite after looking at his food. :)
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Permalink Reply by John Wolff on
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You've got a corgi, and you can still be grossed-out? C'mon. These are animals who snack out of the cat box. :-)
Al & Gwynn each get 1/3c. of raw meat (shredded, packed) twice daily, plus a wee bit of kibble (softens stool). We get this stuff delivered frozen to our door by a local company (Darwin's). It's no more gross than canned wet food, but there are sanitation considerations. It's allegedly human-grade (sure...). I try to rigidly segregate the dog-stuff from the people-stuff. We go through a lot of soap.
Their treats are TINY.
I admit, I give them "heaping" helpings. But they're sleek and we can feel their ribs easily.
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I guess I'm lucky that there's nothing gross for Finn to get into in our house. :) We don't feed canned food so that's not an issue either. I don't even like to see meat that I'm going to have for dinner raw. I'm very lucky my husband loves cooking so I never really have to deal with the raw meats. :) We may try it one day. We have a little pet supply place near us that has a large selection of raw.
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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My male only gets 3/3 of a cup total, divided into two feedings.
I don't know that fat necessarily has the impact on dogs it has on us. If you look at our evolutionary history (and I realize that for some reason in some circles it is controversial to mention "evolution" and "humans" in the same sentence, but there you have it) we were primarily eaters of vegetation, roots, berries, etc supplemented with small amounts of meat, until the Ice Age hit and we shifted to mostly meat. Our bodies have trouble burning fat and tend to store it. I think that dogs, with an evolutionary history of being carnivores, most likely process fat a bit differently than we do.
That being said, calories are calories so you may want to look at the calorie count of your food too. We had the exact same situation with Jack, where he was fine til he was almost two, actually, on a cup and a quarter a day. He hit two and his activity level changed, but we didn't really notice because he was walking as much as ever. But he went from being on the move every second he was awake, to actually hanging out sometimes and lounging around. And he started gaining. We cut him back to one cup, and he still gained. So we switched to a different food that had a similar nutrient profile but about 80 calories fewer per cup, and cut him back to 1/3 AM and 1/3 PM.
He gets a third of a cup less than my female and weighs 10 pounds more (even though he plays a lot more than she does), so I think that like people, they all have different metabolisms.
And even with the reduced ration, if we are doing a lot of training (treats) or he gets a teeth-cleaning treat, I cut back even further for two or three meals.
We also switched to Charlie Bear treats for most things.
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Thank you Beth, that is helpful. Since I've been looking at different foods I have found a few foods that have fewer calories, some with less fat, some with higher fiber and some are a combination of two of those but none have all of those things without being an actual diet food which I don't think sound like they have much to offer as far as other nutrition. So, I'm trying to figure out what is most important to them losing weight. It's good to know that reducing calories worked best for Jack.
Finn's food is:
Protein:21
Fat: 10
Fiber: 3
Calories: 427
It seems pretty average though I have a couple foods in mind that contain fewer calories and still use an unusual protein since he doesn't seem to tolerate chicken.
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Permalink Reply by Marion and Vern on
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Very good question! I don't have any info on food BUT do have some information for the bad hips. I highly recommend Hip + Joint from PetNaturals of Vermont. We get them at PetCo. Our first corgi had a bad shoulder and these were amazing in helping him. The Glucosamine & Chondroitin did wonders for him. Good luck.
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