Doggy diet club

[8DaysAWeek]

I've had a look and I can't see any current threads for dog weight loss, though happy to be directed to them.

Anyone want to join? Just started transitioning my two onto their new diet food so set to start properly in the new year.

Let me know if you're interested!

My just 5 year old lab is on a long term diet as she has elbow dysplasia and 2 TPLO's so isn't as active/mobile as she should be. She's been as high as 42kg following surgery but we've got her down to 33kg, 30kg will be ideal. She's on Millie's Wolfheart tracker mix which is low fat, mixed with Wainwright's light meat. She also has veg with and between meals, cooked and raw - mostly broccoli, sprouts and green beans

Joining in here with a lab who needs to lose 3-5kgs.

Hey guys!

I have two shelties. One who needs to lose 1-2kg and the other who needs to lose 1kg.

Just bought some Royal Canin Satiety food which I'm currently mixing with their old stuff (James Wellbeloved Light).

They don't get many treats at all but the fatter one is the quickest at catching the toddlers food off the high chair. Working on separating them at dinner but the dogs hate being locked out the room.

Glad to have you both on board

Kinky I've read loads about how useful green beans are for dog weight loss. Filling and low in fat. Might give it a go if this new diet still isn't filling them - though the name on the bag suggests it really should!!

I give my Puggle carrots, she loves them, as a healthy treat. Might try green beans as well now.

The amount of actual food doesn't satisfy her so I like to fill her up with veg

I was advised against carrots by the doggy dietician as they have high sugar content, ok occasionally but not every day. She advised green veg is best so green beans, broccoli, sprouts all cooked. Dog also likes raw red peppers and the stalks from the raw broccoli

Our lab has recently lost 4kgs after a knee injury/surgery. He dropped it really quickly (10 weeks) even though he was and is still on strict rest.

We simply changed his food from Millie’s wolfheart countryside mix to highland mix (less calories) and reduced and weighed it every day to make sure we were giving the correct amount (10% less than min on their chart for the weight we wanted him to be). Any treats he had (pickings from roast chicken, raw mince, cows ears, training treats etc he has never been allowed to eat anything from the table) we counted the calories and deducted from his food allowance. It was much easier than expected and after a few days stopped he expecting his daily cows ear (which was around 100 calories).

Wings how did you know how many calories were in everything? Did you sit and work it all out one day? For example, do I find out how many calories are in a tea biscuit, milky bone, markie etc then record accordingly? And when you deducted from food did you do this that evening after the treats or the next day?

Calories were on the millies wolfheart site for each of their recipes. (countryside mix 348cal per 100g, highland mix 317cal per 100g). Feeding guideline for his original weight was 405g - 460g, for his target weight was 295g - 400g. As he was on strict rest and not burning off any calories we immediately reduced his food from around 380g of countryside mix to 250g of highland mix and reduced his treats to 2 small (8cm long & thin) venison sausages a day (cut up in his treat toy or used for training).

the cows ears I found on line as 95cal per ear, so if he was going to get an ear he would usually get roughly 30g less food, mince/chicken calories available online, if there were a lot of chicken scraps he'd get that and whatever veg we had as scraps instead of his night-time meal. I emailed Innocent hound to find out the calories in his treats. Ive never fed him anything else, although dh did admit to feeding him crusts off ds's sandwiches and ham from the fridge, this has now been stopped.

He dropped from 38kg to 34kg, vet is happy with his weight/shape now and says dont lose anymore so we are trying to work out what he needs to keep it steady, it will probably stay low until he can start exercising again (probably not until after easter).

I don't understand how owners can say their dog isn't satisfied or still hungry? Ours is a Labrador so he will ALWAYS eat more, is always at the kitchen door or would be at the table if allowed even when he was being fed too much that he was overweight.

Cool, thanks for the details!

Hmm I know what you mean but it's kind of a given that labs are always happy to eat. They're notorious for it so it's easier to accept it as a lab thing and assume (most likely correctly) that they're not actually hungry.

I do think dogs show different actions depending on if they're hungry or just greedy. One of my two (the fatter of them) acts like she's never fed, and I regard her as the greedy one - will eat anything, begs constantly, quick as lightning if something's dropped. The other will sometimes lie next to her food bowl and bark even after her dinner, and because I know she's not overly enthusiastic about her dry food I perceive it as still being hungry. We'll never really know I guess, until I try out different food and she stops doing that.

How often do you weigh your dogs to check for weight loss? I don't tend to weigh them at all and just go by sight. The vet is 30 minutes away and not really a very convenient location.

I'm gonna go for every 2 weeks, but mine are around the 10kg mark so I just hold them while I stand on the bathroom scales

Ours only normally gets weighed during his annual health check/boosters and the weight has just been creeping on as he passed the adolescent stage into fully grown dog.

Recently, due to a leg injury/operation/problems with recovery we've had a lot of (expensive) vet visits so he has been weighed at least twice a month and we can see the weight loss now and visually we know how he should look/feel (boney!).

Yeah how they feel is certainly as important as how they look. Particularly if you have fluffy dogs! That's great the number is going down wings.

Well as an update for us... I measured out their daily food based on the back of the pack. I realise it's only a guide but it looked like a lot to me. Nevertheless I did it to the gram and within a week one of the dogs had put on 0.2g! So that's getting drastically cut down...

On the plus side, they love their new food. Although they're still learning how to digest it properly, even after me gradually introducing it. Will just take a bit of time :)