Vegetables

[BiteyShark]

BiteyDog needs to lose a couple of kg and apart from the obvious thing of cutting his food/treats down I need to fill him up with healthy stuff.

He loves raw carrots and steamed broccoli. Sometimes the raw crunch part of cabbage and occasionally a bit of apple.

He spits out cauliflower and won't eat pears, celery or cucumber.

Racking my brains to think of something else to give him that won't put weight on.

Any ideas?

Mine love blueberries, mango, melon, banana

Also I roast a whole squash or pumpkin and share that out between them . If there is any potato left over they love that too but obviously not with butter added (although they would love that!)

My DDog is on medication which makes her very hungry and won't eat raw veg so I add cooked carrots and sweet potato to her meals to fill them out a bit.

Ostrich bones, antlers etc for chewing without high calories. They don't need to eat all day surely, do you have set dog meal times?

If you're talking about meals, I wouldn't worry about veg, have a good look at protein content to keep them feeling fuller for longer, like humans.

Forgot to say he doesn't like bananas but haven't tried the others.

Squash and sweet potato would also be worth a try as well.

Thanks for the suggestions - just adding a couple to the food delivery 😁

The reason for needing veg is that DH is a sucker for sad spaniel eyes and tends to throw lots of treats his way so I need to be armed with healthy treats for him to give otherwise I have no hope

Blueberries are great for random chucking along with frozen mango and frozen strawberries no prep required

Mine loves cooked green beans, carrot and broccoli. He also loves peas. Cooked or frozen. If you cube sweet potato and cook it for a long time in a low oven, they make good treats.

Thanks everyone some really good ideas.

@PollyRoulson - oh yes mine loves mango. Great idea to give it frozen! Much less messy.
Also mine loves to nibble watermelon. But it's got to be a piece we are eating. He won't eat his own

No to carrots, they're high in sugars as are some of the fruits mentioned here! Green veg, watermelon, cucumber OK but no the rest if you want your dog to lose weight. They don't need any treats really. For successful weight loss you need to weigh out his food to the gram and feed for his ideal weight, ideally his treats would come out of that but if you really must feed treats you need to work out the calories involved and deduct from his main food. (Im a vet nurse and run obesity clinics)

I've no idea if this helped but I added oatmeal to my dogs food when he was losing weight... having used it on Dukan diet, I knew it helped fill me up, create soft poos and few calories absorbed... I checked with vet first and he thought it was fine to do.

Little fellow is now back to his perfect weight of 5kg having been up at 6kg..... now the challenge is to make sure he keeps it off!

Mine had to go on a diet last year

We cut down his food and swapped most of his treats for fruit and veg - he loves apple, cucumber, tomatoes, peas and sweetcorn! He still got the occasional treat but we did try and make them healthier - so things like empty cows hooves or raw bones instead of pigs ears, for example.

He lost the weight over three months so now it's just a case of trying to maintain it.

What food do you use? We use Canagan, which has a far higher proportion of good stuff than most commercial feeds. When we put our cat onto it he went from massive scavenger to not being bothered overnight.

I give billypup half a cup for breakfast and dinner then the rest of the day she gets more or less unlimited treats from the regular kibble, which adds up to the full quota. It means I don’t have to police DH and she is perfect weight.

The problem with giving them treats (even healthier ones) all the time is that it will damage their teeth. You DH just needs to stop. It's not fair on your dog. Your poor pup will end up fat and toothless. Not a good look and causes pain and early death.

If on kibble can just put some of the daily allowance into a pot for treats/training. My dog will eat anything. I used some chopped green beans to help pad her meals out as frozen was quite economical. She has raw carrots to chew on but it comes out much the same so not sure how much of the sugars they digest in that form.

Would also look at enrichment ways of eating it so that takes them longer & burn off bit more energy. Trickle feeders, Snuffle mats, scattering ( i combine with the all the delivery packaging before recycling to hunt through).

He's on wet food as he doesn't tolerate kibble. The issue is that we spent the first 2 years with him so unwell and underweight that DH, and I to some extent, have been over compensating for that and hadn't stopped when he hit a normal weight and is now 2kg over.

He also needs frequent meals due to a chronic condition and he really struggles with acid if he goes for long periods without food. Vet checked so we know that is the case.

He has lots of exercise, so much he is very muscular for his breed. Therefore I anticipate some healthy swops would be enough to get that amount off. DH is now on board reluctantly

The only veg my dog likes is peas!!

Now peas fresh from the pod he loves.

Frozen or lightly cooked peas he doesn't.

Unfortunately for him peas in the pod aren't in the shops for long 🤣