Wieght gain question - Page 2

i will say i use fromm duck dry kibble and if i dont watch how much i give her, she puts on weight pretty fast.
thats what you need to find a good food that can put some weight.on

fromm is a very tasty food, they love the duck four star.

 lol dog's don't look good on a raw diet? If you don't understand the balance over time and feed just chicken than you have a point there. If you dog has health issue (poor breeding) you have a point there, but take a healthy dog and go on raw with different kind of protein source and kiss your kibble good bye. Dry food never will replace RAW. Diamonds good quality food shit if you say so lol. I would not touch it, dog food companies are in it for profit not your dog health lol. 

And I never seen a dog doing bad on RAW. So if your statment is correct you hang around people that don't know shit about RAW or their dogs are just poor example of the genetic pool.  

Hello everyone. Thank you for all the tips.

I will go and pick up some Vit. B tomorrow and add that to her diet.

I did not have any tuna on hand (husband loves tuna sandwiches) but do have some deer meat. I browned it on both sides  in oil and shook some garlic power on it . I added it to her dinner again she a small portion of it .

As for the hamburger and rice tried that and again not a big eater that was my first thought too :) 

Snaiper69 normally I would with hold until she was good and hungry but I don't need her loosing any more weight, she is pretty boney already.

She came from a kennel setting and they were all feed at once side by side. Since she is in the house She is not by anyone except the cats. Tonight I got argghhh with the situration and let her watch the cat eat her food . I was not going to let the deer meat go to waste.


I hate the waiting (wieghting)  game :(

Hi-  There is a recipe called "Satin Balls" online. I had some poodle friends who would use it to keep weight on. If you do a search you will find it. It worked great for them. I know it has raw ground beef, molasses, wheat germ and not sure what else. You could give them a try. Good luck.

I believe I can solve this problem for you quite easily. Feed the normal food you already are feeding. Add approximately 1/4 cup of pure lard each day. You can either melt this and pour it over the food and either feed right away or re-store it, or you can just use an ice cream scoop, warmed in hot water, to put a dollop right into the food. Or, you can smear it on a piece of bread and give it to her like that. It's all the same.

I would not give more than 1/4 cup (approx) per day, and if you are having problems with pancreatic insufficiency or pancreatitis, you should talk with a veterinarian. Overfeeding of fat can cause pancreatic problems / damage, so don't think that more is better. Be patient, and you should see a noticeable improvement in a week.. in two weeks, she should really be filling in. The lard also gives a nice, glossy coat and will help to solve dry coat problems usually associated with emaciation.

Some of our dogs are fence runners and their weight must be carefully monitored and managed. Anyone who has had a lot of kennel dogs, or worked in a kennel has seen this problem. These dogs often ignore food (preferring to keep running / pacing) and no amount of food you offer them, no matter what type, will solve the problem, unless you give them periods of forced rest, every day. You should have a crate in a quiet place, preferably inside and away from other animals. If your dog is real bad, she'll spin in the crate. But the crating for several hours a day will still help, and is in fact necessary for these dogs. I had one many years ago who would run the perimeter of a large yard all day, and she did that before I got her. In a kennel, she ran up and down and in a large circle in the square kennel. She looked as if I never fed her, but she was the only one who looked like that. She would not eat enough, she was so busy running around. I finally bench chained her into the corner in front of her feeder, and then she gained weight. Allowed to go on without intervention, these dogs will use up every bit of their body fat and finally begin to consume their muscle.. resulting in something called "exertional myopathy". They look like overtrained marathon runners, and are very unhealthy. You simply must intervene by limiting exertion / forcing rest, and by increasing caloric intake via fats.

Why do some of our dogs do this? It seems to be a genetically based behavior related to the original herding function of these dogs, in the "continental" or "tending" style of herding, in which two dogs run up and down two "legs" of a pasture, forming a "living fence" and thus keeping the sheep inside their alloted grazing area (and out of the crops in the adjacent field). I had the GSDs for many,  many years, before fully understanding this aspect of the breed. These behaviors have to be inborn.. They cannot really be trained, but they can be molded, if the instinct and genetic basis for the behavior is already there. If you had sheep to tend, you'd thank your lucky stars for a dog like this, but most of us hate the occasional dog in our kennel which exhibits this behavior, and they eventually are retired to private life or euthanized. This is NOT a useful behavior for most modern applications of our breed in a working capacity, but we need to remember that ours is a herding breed!

I have tried corn oil to increase the caloric intake of these dogs, and corn oil is a very good source of linoleic acid and thus good for coat and skin. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to offer enough caloric fuel and the right kind of fat for hyper-exertional dogs like yours. The lard works! And, I only discovered this within the last twelve months. You have to keep in mind that lard is extremely low in natural anti-oxidants and will turn rancid very fast. So, buy small quantities and / or keep it in the refriger

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I have tried corn oil to increase the caloric intake of these dogs, and corn oil is a very good source of linoleic acid and thus good for coat and skin. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to offer enough caloric fuel and the right kind of fat for hyper-exertional dogs like yours. The lard works! And, I only discovered this within the last twelve months. You have to keep in mind that lard is extremely low in natural anti-oxidants and will turn rancid very fast. So, buy small quantities and / or keep it in the refrigerator or freezer, unless you have a lot of dogs and trouble keeping them conditioned.

Fat has gotten a bad rap, and maybe this is why dog food manufacturers tend to keep our dog food lean, but dogs have a much different metabolism and digestive tract, and you cannot compare them to humans. They NEED fat! ..ANIMAL FAT!!

Try this and then get back to us to let us know how it worked for you. It's been a sure shot solution for one problem bitch who is also a fence runner and difficult to keep in condition.

By the way, noted dog writer, Dr. Leon Whitney, DVM, said that the dog, more than any other animal, can gain and lose weight in a relatively short time period, and this is normal, to a degree.. It seems that they use their body fat reserves in this manner, to tide them over in lean times, probably a carry over from their old hunting / scavenging days, when their ancestors were wild and many environmental variables affected food supply. A dog can be very lean and be perfectly healthy.. but if a dog keeps losing over time, it can present a dangerous situation, and intervention is needed in some manner, so that they either get more caloric intake or don't burn as many calories. Just feeding more food won't really help. You'll probably get incomplete digestion and stools that look like cow patties!

You cannot really supply a dog's full caloric requirements via corn syrup and carbohydrates. Unlike us, they cannot convert starchy carbs very well, and in fact, I think it is bad for them to get too much sugars, unless perhaps they are a breed that tends towards hypoglycemia (like some small breeds).

Here is a up date on my girl 

Well ,She has eaten three times today !!!! I think the cat trick did it !! LOL  now every time the cats come by she looks at her food dish (NOT KINDING )

But also I think it has to do with she is starting to seattling in and getting used to the house. IN fact she does not want to stay out side!! I think I have another full time house doggie:) Good for me bad for my husband lol

Thank you everyone that posted It was a great help!

When I brought Star home as a puppy, I had trouble getitng her to eat. The breeder said to feed her in her crate, and feed my other dog close enough to the crate that she could see him. That did the trick! She was afraid he'd get her food, so she scarfed it down!

Stress does greatly affect the appetite. My male rescue lost a HUGE amount of weight in the first month I had him. Mind you, he was a bit overweight to start with, so he wound up looking lean and fit, and not bony. He'd been kept on a chain with just about zero exercise before.

I have had great luck getting weight on my dogs with Taste of the Wild, and I have used plain yogurt, pumpkin, cottage cheese, or a few tablespoons of canned food blended with water as additives to get dogs to eat.  No treats during the day, and follow snajper's suggestion regarding mealtimes.

When can we see pics?