what does your dog weigh ?

[thefootofourstairs]

and how much food do you give in a day ?

Also you can soak dry food to make it look more (and technically weigh more), which is what happens in the dogs stomach anyway.

I'm not 100% but i think 6kg might be more like the weight he should be . He has homemade fishcakes , made from tuna and mackerel . i just give him tiny bits in the afternoon when we do a bit of training . He has about an hour a day walking .
I'd hate to think hes starving ! The vet said he was a bit portly and to watch his weight , other than that she didn't help much .

37 kg 3 year old Lab is from show line rather than working so more solid look and is tall .Vet is happy with his weight if anything feels we could add a bit and still be ok

He eats about 800-900g of raw a day .
I do switch it up and down depending on needs
varies on treat amounts but is very active 3-4hrs at least of walking normal day but can be as much as 7-8hrs and at least half his walks are of lead

Ok. So if you think he should be nearer 6kg. Then 60g doesn't sound like a small amount tbh - quality of food dependent - 60g for 6kg, is pretty much equally to 75g for 7.5kg my dog has on the 80/20 food (on other foods my dog couldn't keep weight on with far more gram wise though).

You need to further reduce his meals, to account for any of the fish he is having - it doesn't take much fish (or other treats) to add a huge percentage of extra calories to a small dogs diet.

Is his walk on or off lead? If on-lead is there somewhere secure you can go to let him off or can you use a long line to let him run about more (my dog must do at least 2-3 times the distance I walk with him, with all the back and forth and side to side running he does off lead - I appreciate I'm very lucky to live somewhere I can do vast majority of all walks off lead though).

At the moment i'm keeping him on the lead as hes a bit nervous and unreliable but we've started some sessions with a trainer so hopefully he will get off lead eventually .
why doesn't dog food give the calories on the packs ?
according to barking heads he should have 1 -1.5 small tins of wet food per day . maybe that would be better ?

I think the food companies always seem to recommend much more than is needed to keep a dog at the correct weight . I have a patterdale x ( prob JRT) , he is on predominantly Millie's Wolfheart Ranger mix and I feed about 20g less than is recommended for his weight ( 13kg) . He actually weighs about 1.5kg too much at the moment due to some illness at home but is back on light exercise now and will be off lead and up to 1.5/2 hours a day within a few weeks . He has 2 meals a day . A small breakfast of about 1/3 of his kibble and then in the evening he has 2/3 of the kibble with either cold cooked meat ( mainly turkey) , sardines or a scrambled egg . He also gets leftovers if appropriate . I tend to increase exercise ( when possible) , than decrease food . I raw fed him for about 6/8 months a few years ago but it seriously affected his teeth and he also was too picky about what he would eat . We've never diagnosed an issue with his teeth but he does have SLO so that may be a reason but it's not documented to be . He also has Joint supplements , coatex spray on his food and Nicotinamide tablets for his SLO / dodgy knees.

Op, the wet food would only be better in the sense that it would look physically more to you, in his bowl. As I think it was cornflake said a brand she'd looked at had half the nutritional values in the wet compared to the dry, gram for gram, despite the food being the same - just one wet the other with water removed (so effectively half the weight of wet comes from the water - which a kibble fed dog drinks more of to compensate for anyway).

I don't often feed my dogs out of bowls - they get scatter fed a lot and I use/make various treat dispensers and games for them. I also use about 1/2 a daily ration as treats during training and on their walks (helped adult dog with his recall and puppy obviously has a lot to learn on walks) It's good for them mentally and I think can help humans not get so hung up on how much food there looks to be in a bowl.

I assure you, you cannot be starving your dog. He would loose weight very fast if he was being starved.

8kg, 4 month old springer gets 100g raw for brekkie, 45g kibble (Eden, Akela, Millies or something of that sort) for lunch, 100g raw for dinner plus loads of training treats.