Overweight dog

[Janus]

Went to the vets today as our 12 year old lab has become very stiff. The vet has given me a very hard time about her being overweight. She is 38 kilos and 6 months ago she was 35 kilos. She has become very stiff the last 6 months and has taken to just wanting to roam in our large garden and have very small walks of about 15 minutes just a few times a week. If I try and take her any further she lays down and is obviously not happy, So I understand that she has put on weight as she has become less active.

Anyway, she is already on reduced calorie food and it recommends that a 30kg dog has 265g minimum and a 40kg has 330g. I've just weighed her food and she gets 260g a day. So she's really on what I would think is the bare minimum but I've reduced her cup size so she will get around 230g a day and start at that. I've also enrolled in their weight management class.

She's always been large, even as a puppy I bought home a barrel! Does anyone else have a dog that just seems to be overweight but doesn't actually eat that much? We have 2 other dogs that are very slim so it can't be just that I'm a totally useless owner that just happily overfeeds her dog.

The vet made me feel awful and at one stage she actually hugged my dog and said 'I could cry when I see what some owners do to their dogs'. I've never felt so shit.

Any ideas what else I can do?

The special food has lots of joint supplements added, I thought this would be the best food for her because of that and being reduced calorie.

Wow, I never knew ' vet food' could be such bad quality, I'm furious they recommended it and then give me a blasting about her being overweight if it's full of shit. I've got 2 bags arriving today, wonder if I can send it back? Going to go and look at all the different options now. Thank you so much, I honestly thought I was giving her the best, looks like I'm not 😢

Don't be upset Janus.
What you were feeding was still miles better than a lot of foods - so many dogs are on Bakers and Pedigree and Beta and their owners swear by them as their dog "lived to 15 and was perfectly healthy thank-you-very-much".
I generally countered with the fact that my grandfather smoked from the age of 7 and worked in an environment filled with asbestos dust for 40 years and is now in his 90s - long life does not equal good!

Try and get a refund and check out the raw feeding UK facebook group for some tips in switching over if you're interested. You can feed whole chicken wings, mince, offal etc from the supermarket at first if you don't want to spend a lot on an order from a raw food company (just make sure you get a mixture of meat, offal and bones).

Or check the all about dog food website for the highly rated dry foods if you prefer to feed kibble, just check the ingredients carefully.

Don't worry too much about being suckered in by the vets - we've all been there!

Its the vets fault and the fault of these companies not yours OP every pet owner wakes up to the truth at some point these days and its a horrible truth at that. But times are changing for the better thanks to investigations and probing

I reccomend following dr karen becker and dr mercola OP and joining a few raw/holistic dog groups on Facebook they'll point you in the right direction

We've had the same with our lab, she put weight on following cruciate surgery. She went from 32 to 38kg, we got her down to 34kg but then had to have another cruciate surgery on other leg which has sadly failed. We've cut her food drastically, she has Millie's Wolfheart low fat, quarter of recommended amount and a quarter tray of Wainwright's light wet food (about pack of cards size). We bulk out her food with cooked veg including cauli, broccoli, BNS, sprouts. She now at 32kg again and apart from her meals and a daily dental stick, that's all she gets. We also give her a Sunday roast but it's instead of one of her meals and is only plain veg and meat. She doesnt get potatoes or any of the fatty bits of meat.

If you really want her to lose weight then cut everything that isn't her meals or give her in place of her meals. She doesnt need toast crusts, throw them out for the birds instead, clear the kids leftovers before they get chance to get into the dog.

Oh and Synoquin EFA tabs have made such a difference with our dog

Thank you everyone, that's a good website allaboutdogfood. I can see the Millie's dog food and Eden dog food and Legacy which say 80:20 with no wheat at all, in fact there are so many I can't even decide but it appears that all of these would be a huge bloody improvement.
I'm rather looking forward to the weight clinic with the nurse tomorrow as I'm going to give them a piece of my mind about the vet telling me to get the Hills Joint food as it would be the best food when it clearly is not. I'm sure there's worse but there's also much better and these vets should be giving us the TRUTH about dog food.
Thank you all, truly appreciated.

Sorry to keep coming back with questions!
Can someone talk me through what raw food is? I'm looking at the Luna and Me on the allaboutdogfood website and seems to get really good reviews and has nothing but meat in it.
Does raw food come frozen? Do I therefore have to remember to defrost the night before? Does it smell? Is it good for sensitive stomachs (thinking of transferring them all over to it and one is a bit sensitive)? I am worried I will forget to defrost and therefore end up with 3 hungry dogs in the morning!

We are switching to raw. It's a new world to me. There appears to be a world of difference. Some are nuggets with fruit and veg and rice in. Other people literally feed raw meat and bone.
We have a separate freezer. I get the breakfast out at lunchtime the day before. Leave it out until bedtime (in a covered container) then pop it in the fridge overnight.
I do have kibble if I forget. Can't put raw in the microwave to defrost.

I'd really recommend fish oil daily for joints (cheapest I've found is Food warehouse/Iceland at £2 for 100 - human quality but nothing I can see that harms dogs.). Both me and my dog have it and while he can't comment I really notice If I go without for a week or two.

The other thing you could try is Tramadol. I had to sign something as its not licensed for dogs but we took one of mine, age 14, in crippled and expected the discussion to be "call us when it's time to say goodbye". Instead we tried tramadol and he had another six months and went back to running and jumping. One of my favourite pics of him is from that summer, jumping in the long grass.... Anyway, I don't know if it reduces life Sloan but it made a MASSIVE difference to him.

Hope all goes well.

Life expectancy*

I see, I'm worried as I'm not the best organised person and can see me frequently forgetting to get out the food to defrost!
She has been given pain killers and the weight clinic are going to look at the dog food I have at the moment to check with supplements but I may just ask to start Yumove anyway and then we are free to choose any food and not worry about whether it has the necessary supplements.
Thanks.

I would suggest getting bloods run to check her thyroid.

I was about to recommend Yumove as a supplement - it has made a phenomenal difference to my older dogs.

You can feed raw food frozen or partially frozen - especially good if they eat too quickly as it slows them down, or for days when it's really hot. Like having a chicken wing ice lolly

Dogs don't need veg strictly speaking so meat/bone/offal forms a complete diet for them in the right ratios. If you look on companies such as Durham Animal Feeds, Nutriment, Paleo Ridge, Natural Dogs Direct etc and search for the 'complete' foods, they usually come in 500g packs and you can defrost them in the fridge or feed frozen. An adult dog needs 2-3% of their total body weight per day in raw food (probably closer to 2% for weight loss). Our 12 week old puppy gets about 400-450g per day which is about 8% of his weight because he's growing.

Just be careful with the tramadol, our dog was prescribed it and went absolutely loopy, it was scary. She's now on Pardale and Previcox (paracetamol and ibuprofen) and doing really well. She also has salmon oil which has been brilliant for her coat and nails.

My lab will eat anything, including her own poo, apart from raw food - I ended up cooking it for her so didn't continue down that route. The Millie's is great though, she's thriving on it

You're right Kinky, I wasn't suggesting tramadol as a cureall just that sometimes there are other options out there. If you can improve the pain it may increase mobility.

All under a vet direction though and I have to say yours' sound useless - one suggesting kick back food and another over emoting despite seeing a lifetime of good care.

Oh defo mipmipmip every dog (like every human) is different. It might have helped if my vet had warned me about possible side effects to give me a head's up!

Janus I wouldn't be too hard on your vet.
Vets do not get a huge amount of species specific nutritional training, and what they do get has been known to come from representatives of the food companies themselves - obviously they are going to state the benefit of their own brands.
Vets have enough on their plates with having to know medical information in relation to a wide variety of species, from budgies and chinchillas to cats and dogs, that having such a specialist knowledge of canine nutrition is rare - think of a vet like a GP. You'd expect your GP to know how the heart works, but not how to do a triple heart bypass.
Similarly the best person to ask about canine nutrition is a canine nutritionist.

Fairfax, I see your point but as obesity is a HUGE problem you would think they would start educating themselves or at least make it very clear when they are giving you the advice that they are in no way experts. I took my vet to be the expert when they recommended the food, if they'd told me to go and research I would have done. She's been on it for about 6 years so thats a lot of money spent over the years due to their poor advice.

Never to late to change though. Dad's 9 year old lab was on Bakers. Eventually (after four years of pushing) persuaded him to change and chose Skinners as was best possible food for the same price as a bag of Bakers (£22) as I knew he wouldn't swap of it cost him more.
She looked more like 14 a year ago but now is a lot bouncier (though at 10 she still has creaky moments)

My eldest is classed as overweight and has been ever since he was a pup. However he's fed well on a great food that we spent a lot of time researching. Gets fantastic exercise. One or two treats a day. You can feel his ribs and he has a visible waist line. So when the vets say anything I just nod and smile.

The weight charts they use for dogs are just like BMI for humans - generally quite useless in individual cases. I would focus on helping with their joints and getting a good food.

Hope your pooch is feeling more like themselves soon!

Our porky hound lost 7 kg on Millie's wolf heart food. He loves it.. however he is a hoover! Definitely worth having a look, costs £48 for 15kg which lasts us about three months.