foody dog

[puffinnuffin]

My King Charles Cavalier is constantly asking for food. He is regularly wormed/deflead etc and is fed morning and night (1/3 of a Natures Diet carton). He doesn't have treats (only on his birthday or Christmas!)

Over the wet winter he became a little tubby. He hates the rain and just point blank refuses to walk in the rain- very much a fair weather dog. He also keeps pinching the cat food so we now feed the cat up high He has 2/3 short walks a day.

He is not obese but needs to lose a couple of pounds after being weighed at the vets. We have cut down his portion sizes but he is constantly asking for food and will growl or woof if he can see any but not allowed to eat it
. He has now taken to rifling through rubbish bins and trying to eat tissues or anything he can find which tastes nice! The vet says we musn't feed him any more. We have been following the advice but he is still abit tubby and asking for food.

Does anyone have any other tips to try please? Thank you.

Something here isn't right.

How much does your dog weigh? 8 ish kg?

And are you feeding literally just 2/3 of a carton of nature diet a day? That is very little food indeed.

3% of 8kg is 240grams.
3% or 7kg is 210grams

A carton seems to be 390grams (is that right?) so he should be getting over half a carton a day not a 1/3 IF he's 8kgs.

Hope this helps

My 8kg Border Terrier is whippet thin and during my brief flirtation with nature diet I fed a full tray daily!

I know you are trying to cut his weight but could that be down to the stealing? Also, I know you say 2 - 3 walks but how short is short? It is just that most of the real exercise my dog gets is on the long walk where he can have a proper belt around. If yours is not getting that then maybe it is exercise that also needs looking at?

I feed raw now and feed 250g a day. Dog is like a whippet still but gets a good hour and a half as a minimum most days.

I found that our young springer put on weight whilst on enforced no exercise for 4 weeks recently. I did reduce his food, but trained his a lot to compensate, so he probably got lots of treats.

Honestly, now that he back up to full speed again, the weight has dropped off and he's a wee rake again.

What I am trying to say, is that I think it's the exercise that does it! To get off the weight, I have done lots of throwing/retrieving, chucking treats into the undergrowth so he has to ferret them out etc, rather than a potter round the field.

So walks are fun and exciting and the best part of the day iyswim?

Good luck

Don't forget that some of the naturediet menus have a massive dry matter fat content. Which are you feeding him?

Thanks for the replies. He has 2/3rd of a carton a day. The packet says to feed between 1/2-a whole carton a day. It's the one with meat, rice and vegetables. We used to give him some dry biscuits with it but were told to cut them out by the vet and she assured it was enough for a dog of his size.

During the week he walks about 20 minutes 3 x a day with longer walks at the weekends lasting 45 minutes- 1 hour 2 x day. He does get funny though and doesn't like going out early in the morning, in the dark or even light rain! He literally plants his feet firm in the ground and will not walk.

I think now the weather is better he will be more willing to walk more though. I think maybe more exercise is the key. Thanks for the advice.

Perhaps you could change him onto a good quality kibble and feed it from a treat ball ,that way it will take him a lot longer to eat his meals and be exercising at the same time .

Good idea. I will try that.

He's getting about 9 hours exercise a week - is that on lead or running about? About average for a CKS I'd guess.

And he is hungry - hungry enough to scavenge. Naturediet is very high fat food - and hasn't much in the way of carb or protein. I suggest trying him on a sample of Burns high oats burnspet.co.uk/products/burns-for-dogs/burns-weight-control-dog-food.html . It is designed to keep a hungry dog fuller for longer and help with weight loss. It might suit him well.

The first part and last of his walks are on a lead. He runs about in the middle when we are safely off the road and in the fields.
Good tip about burns food- we'll give that a go. Thanks.