Obese Dog...what to do?

[FarmerChick]

We have a sheltie and he is about 8 yrs old. He has seemed increasingly pudgy over the last couple of years. We took him to the groomer and had him shaved yesterday....Oh My... he is OBESE!

We are going to start walking him 1-2 x a day (starting out with very short walks and building up to longer walks) and I am going to trim back on his food.

I am wondering if it would be healthier (and hopefully more economical) to feed him home cooked food. I have read that dogs his age need very little, if any meat, and eggs, cheese & yogurt can be used instead, along with cooked whole grains and veggies.

Just wondered if anyone here has any first hand experience with 1) putting a dog on a diet and 2) home cooked meals for dogs

I never give any animal continuous feed. Especially dogs.

Pets are getting obese definitely in this society. No one needs all day food...even people..HA HA HA

Exercise and good food. Read what nutrition dogs require for a healthy body....that is a good website listed in the posts.

I never had fat pets....yea my one horses got chunky and I cut her back and she was fine, and some of my goats got chunky cause I fed too much but I make sure I catch it fast. Fat critters is just unhealthy as in a person. Plus they live longer and happier being leaner as intended by nature.

Exercise is also key. Move that pooch! Being an older dog and heavy, moving isn't as easy for it and being leaner will improve the quality of life definitely.

good luck and let us know how the progress goes!!

 

[Dace]

Thanks for all the feedback....I am finding the BARF diet interesting but gotta be honest in that I don't have time to add that to my schedule. I will look into some of the kibble mentioned in the thread.

Our schedule has been that he gets fed twice a day, and I think I will keep to that but find a better food and up his exercise. If I feed him at 8 he will have some kibble left in his bowl until 12/1, then I give him more at about 4.
I think a big part of the problem is that we let it get so advanced! If we had not had him shaved we would have kept on assuming that it was just old age pudge, but he is outright FAT! Poor guy.

 

[Wifezilla]

Two of our cats are old and had no interest in raw food. They had being eating cheap crunchies for too long. They really like Taste of the Wild cat food. Of course, so do the ducks and will sneak in the house to steal it given the chance!

 

[TanksHill]

Dace, when feeding him twice a day. How many cups of kibble does he get? Just wondering? G

 

[savingdogs]

Many dog foods are designed for dog diets. There will be a graph on the bag showing what your dog should weigh and how much to feed to attain it. These foods are designed to help the dog feel full while losing weight. I have worked for three veterinary clinics and worked with ten different vets. Not one of them recommends the BARF diet, in fact, they all were concerned their patients would be fed this diet. I have also known people who fed it successfully. But I like to follow veterinary advice. They were especially concerned about feeding the BARF diet to any dog with a compromised immune system.

Dog foods are balanced diets and when people create their own food they may not be as successful creating balance. That being said, things I've heard recommended to add to a dog's diet by veterinarians are these things:
Lean meat especially chicken, rice, carrots, green beans, yogurt, cottage cheese, pumpkin and cooked eggs. Adding carrots, pumpkin and green beans is especially helpful for overweight dogs as it adds bulk without adding calories.

We like to give our dogs "light" kibble mixed with pumpkin and green beans as their "diet". This has worked great for us, as long as we can keep the dogs away from other things!

 

[hwillm1977]

Thanks for all the feedback....I am finding the BARF diet interesting but gotta be honest in that I don't have time to add that to my schedule. I will look into some of the kibble mentioned in the thread.

Our schedule has been that he gets fed twice a day, and I think I will keep to that but find a better food and up his exercise. If I feed him at 8 he will have some kibble left in his bowl until 12/1, then I give him more at about 4.
I think a big part of the problem is that we let it get so advanced! If we had not had him shaved we would have kept on assuming that it was just old age pudge, but he is outright FAT! Poor guy.

If you have a Costco near you, their Kirkland Signature food is relatively cheap (in Canada it's $26 for 40 pounds) and it doesn't contain grains... since we go through 100-140 pounds of dog food a month, we can't afford to spend $80 for some of the fancy brands

Upping his exercise will help a lot... a little bit at a time.

Barf doesn't have to be difficult either, once you have a balanced diet worked out you can prepare say a month's worth of meals, pack them in bags and freeze them. A small dog really wouldn't need that much to eat if it's eating raw.

I also don't follow the recommendations on the sides of the dog food bags... ours says that our pit bull (60 pounds) should be eating 5.5-6 cups of food a day... we were trying to get him to eat that much and our vet warned us he was getting fat, so we cut his food by 10% every 2 weeks until we found a maintenance level for him. He eats 2 cups of food a day, broken up into three meals.

I would never free feed a dog... I do free feed my cat, but the cat has enough sense to stop when he's full... the dogs would keep eating until they ended up with bloat.

 

[sylvie]

My young Golden Retriever began putting on some weight. As it turned out she was in false pregnancy.
Then I noticed her putting it on again. I took her on my runs with me, cut back slightly on her food: no effect.

Then I found the culprit- secret SNACKS!!!!!
Husband was giving her high calorie snacks from the feedmill that he kept in a special bag for her in his desk. I asked him to not give her those or leftovers from his plate, especially while I was at work. He had some whacko blood chemistry related mental problems that really affected his judgment (never underestimate the adverse power of low sodium!) and continued to excessively feed her snacks. Long story short, we got his condition corrected and my dog's weight was automatically corrected. She is again slim and proper weight. So it isn't always the dogfood; what else are they getting?

 

[Wifezilla]

Dog foods are balanced diets

No they aren't. Corn and soy are not "balanced" at all. Dogs did not evolve to process these grains.

As for vets, their nutrition training consists of about an hour...often sponsored by pet food companies.

Walk in to a vet's office and you will often see a display case filled with Science Diet or Hill's brand dog food. It is corn based and they make a very nice profit off of each bag they sell. Of COURSE they wouldn't recommend a BARF diet or other evolutionary-based eating plan. It cuts in to their profits.

Dogs and cats feed grains can often be healthy for years. A young animal's body can fight off the damage to their blood vessels, livers, pancreas, and heart for a time. But as they age, damage accumulates. Arthritis, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, skin issues...all this gets blamed on them getting older or "environmental toxins" while the real cause is the food they eat every day.

Another point is that all of those diseases I listed require long term treatment and frequent office visits. By "prescribing" expensive dog foods that cause damage to the internal organs, they are really creating a rather nice income for themselves. I am being a bit cynical because I really don't believe they aren't doing it on purpose. These vets honestly think they are helping their patients. They just really have no clue they are slowly harming pets and causing more health problems because they were trained by the people who made the poison.

 

[tortoise]

"Yes...restricting food is a guaranteed way to make your pet a neurotic, food obsessed mess. "

This is not true. I've used starvation diets for extremely obese dogs. The dogs had zero interest in food until after losing 10% or more of their body weight.

 

[tortoise]

"No they aren't. Corn and soy are not "balanced" at all. Dogs did not evolve to process these grains."

I agree with the grain points and I'm a raw-feeder.


HOWEVER, the processed foods do have a balance of the macrominerals and other nutrients, which most home diets fail at.

It's totally possible, but difficult for a beginner to get right without a lot of computing.