15 month Samoyed not gaining weight.

mickmcl09

I've read alot of the weight related posts already and I've probably gone over and above in terms of trying to put some weight on him.
You can feel his breast bone, spine and ribs.
He also got big eyes for a samoyed and it reminds me of a person with an over active thyroid, is this possible, has anybody come across anything like this?
To the naked untrained eye, he's perfectly healthy in every other way. Lots of energy, good coat etc. He's very, very agile and quick and for a while I put the lack of weight down to his high level of activity. I've cut done on the long walks and I've even cut down on playing fetch and the frisbee.
My concerns are doubled by the fact that my 8 month old is almost the same height, but much heavier already.
Food wise, he's fed 3 times daily. Predominantly puppy dry food - purina.
Breakfast could be whisked egg, warm milk and an actimel mixed together maybe 3 times a week. The other 4 would be shreddies x1, scrambled egg x2 and weetabix x1. All the rest are dry meals with something mixed in...sardines or tuna or salmon. Wet food mixed in maybe 4 to 5 meals / week and I use Butchers or else it's mince, stew or tripe fresh from the butchers.
He also gets one Bonio going to bed.
I'm bringing him to the vet later in the week and I'm tempted to bring a poo sample with me. Any opinions?
The vet did comment on his weight in early November when he was in for his shots, but that he was healthy in every other way. Should I ask for a blood test to be done? Could it reveal anything? Opinions welcome, or even what should I be asking the Vet?
He's worming is up to date as well.

tk123

I would call ahead to the vets and ask their advice - eg for bloods they might want him to fast? Or they might want a urine sample etc - again he may need to fast for these depending on heat they want to test.

EDIT - just to add I skimmed thru the post earlier and missed the parts about shreddies and actimels etc - I'd echo what the others are saying about getting his diet sorted.

andreac

Firstly, please stop feeding your dog Milk, Actimels and Shreddies etc :eek:, these are not designed for dogs and dogs are actually lactose intolerant so shouldnt be fed dairy of any sort.

If you want your dog to gain weight and be healthy, you need to either pick a good quality dry complete food, or look into sourcing meat for his diet. Purina wouldnt be the best food to be honest so try changing to something of higher quality.

The raw diet is very good for dogs if thats the route you want to go down, but please stop feeding your dog Actimels and human cereals as they are of no benefit for your dog at all.

Have you tried increasing how much the dog is fed on a daily basis?

It might be worth getting your vet to do some tests if you are genuinely concerned, but the diet you are feeding really wouldnt be the best at the moment so i would change that for a start. A good quality dry food with some raw meat, mince, sardines etc is the way to go, but dont be feeding Weetabix, Shreddies, and Actimels.

are you serious

I for one would definitely cut out the milk and actimel.

Ive several friends who are personal trainers/fitness instructors and they never recommend these, they say any of these drinks replace your natural ability to produce certain *"things" *(i cant for the life of me think of the word)
I'd cut out the cereal aswel.

Squall19

Good quality beef mince is only 3 euro a kg in Lidl, kg of chicken thighs, legs etc 2.50.

What weight is he, height etc?

Any pics?

I have a similar size dog as your Samoyed.Like your Samoyed he is very hyper and active.

My fella is a 2 year old Husky/Mal mix, about 40kg and he eats beta purina nuts and meat ( I boil the meat).

His diet costs me about 20 -25 euro a week , he does love it.

I have been giving him 2-3 cups of nuts with a 1kg pack of chicken thighs, legs etc ( boiled and bones removed, I peel off all the meat off the bone for him ) with all the bones removed there is maybe 700g of meat or 1kg of Beef Mince.It's usually a mince week and a chicken week, 't gso he doesn't get bored

I feed him that daily and if there is good deal, like reduced price on lamb, beef steaks in the supermarkets I give him that instead of chicken, but its mostly chicken and mince.

If I add in veg, eggs, rice etc he wont touch the food, only reason he eats the nuts is for the meat.

He's fairly picky, meat and nuts, that's all he wants.

I sometimes add mash potatoes or pasta instead of the nuts, he loves the potatoes but not overly gone on the pasta.

Purina Beta nuts seem to be good, I have tried a few and think they are good for the price, my mothers Labrador and friends Retrievers get on great with them.

mickmcl09

Thanks for the advice guys. The thing is, I hadn't been feeding milk with the cereals mentioned or the mix of whisked egg, milk and egg yoke until early December and his condition improved slightly either by design or as luck may have it since, but not enough, so they're not having a detrimental effect on him.
The younger dog arrived in early December and this was a typical breakfast routine for him and he's built like a brick literally. The lady who bred him, told me that the milk thing was a myth, for Samoyeds anyhow and her dogs and pups were living testament to it. In fact she was just putting a load of empty Actimels in the bin when I arrived to collect him.
I'm not for a minute saying that you are wrong, just questioning it. I understand that most dogs are definitely intolerant to this, no question, but I can remember feeding springer spaniel pups cereal + milk years ago and having no issues.
What other dry foods could I try instead of Purina, what's Brillys like? I met a rep last week trying to sell it to me. Protein was 28%. I'll try anything, as you can see.
Good suggestion on ringing the vet in advance as well, thanks, will do it in the morning.
I'll post a picture of him if I can.

are you serious

Try if you can go to your local pat store and see if they have free samples for you to try him out on, find out which one he loves and thats the one to keep him on!

DBB

Other than saying that most yogurts are lactose free, and as such perfectly okay and healthy to give a dog, I would avoid highly sweetened yogurt drinks. I'd go for natural and low-sugar yogurts. Also, get rid of the wheat-based cereals. I'm lactose intolerant and sensitive to wheat, so have done a fair bit of research on these things!
Aside from that, I think people are advising you the wrong way around here. I think it is simply critical that you get your dog in for bloods asap. Everything you describe is indicative of a number of health problems, and you simply must eliminate these before tinkering around with his diet. Thyroid problems, other endocrine problems, cardiac problems and many other conditions cause lack of thriving. Grab the bull by the horns here, no more faffing around the edges!

Tripe!!. Get it from somewhere I got mine from a butcher I know.

It worked wonders on my Vizsla when I had her. She was stick thin when I got her and it got her up to a lovely weight. It smells bad but it's great for them.

Vince32

I could be wrong on this, but I was under the impression that dogs reach their adult size and weight at around 16 months ?

You could just have a smaller than average dog, but I would immediately stop giving milk and actimel, these products are designed around a human dietary requirements, ask your vet what's good and bad for your dog, s/he will never lie to you.

DBB

Vince32 wrote: »

ask your vet what's good and bad for your dog, s/he will never lie to you.

Whilst I seriously urge the OP to bypass all nutritional/food advice being given here until you have eliminated health problems, neither would I rely on any vet to give sound nutritional advice, because they receive the same amount of training in dog nutrition as an accountant does. Precisely none.
So whilst they may not lie to you, the vast majority of vets are simply not in a position to give good food advice. But because they have to say something, they're likely to tell you something based on highly biased information from their dog food rep.
Never be afraid to question your vet... They're not infallible!

Squall19

DBB wrote: »

Whilst I seriously urge the OP to bypass all nutritional/food advice being given here until you have eliminated health problems, neither would I rely on any vet to give sound nutritional advice, because they receive the same amount of training in dog nutrition as an accountant does. Precisely none.
So whilst they may not lie to you, the vast majority of vets are simply not in a position to give good food advice. But because they have to say something, they're likely to tell you something based on highly biased information from their dog food rep.
Never be afraid to question your vet... They're not infallible!

+1000

My Vet swears by Pedigree tin food and nuts.Its what he recommends to all his clients and its what he has been giving to his 2 Labradors for years.

When I told him I feed mine meat, like chicken, beef etc he told me stop it straight away, all wrong he said:rolleyes:

He said to feed only nuts and with tin food food, if he goes off the nuts.

When I told him tin food was 80% water, he said, who knows better, all the scientists working at Pedigree or a 25 year old with a Husky.

Arrogant prick.

andreac

Vets are usually clueless when it comes to dog nutrition. Most of them will just recommend the food they sell in their practice.

Most of them are dead against the Raw/barf diet and say how bad or dangerous it is to feed raw meat and bones, when this is actually the best thing you can feed your dog, just goes to show you what some of them dont know :rolleyes:.

DBB

andreac wrote: »

Vets are usually clueless when it comes to dog nutrition. Most of them will just recommend the food they sell in their practice.

Most of them are dead against the Raw/barf diet and say how bad or dangerous it is to feed raw meat and bones, when this is actually the best thing you can feed your dog, just goes to show you what some of them dont know :rolleyes:.

So true.
I think there will be an outcry about commercial dog foods in years to come, and many professionals will realise they got it badly wrong when it comes to recommending one over the other, no matter how high quality various foods are purported to be.
I think that most (all?) dry foods do not cater for dog's needs in the long term: I am sure at this stage that commercial diets are causing health conditions that cause early death in dogs: but not such early death that anyone makes the connection... I know so, so many dogs who have died aged around 10, when you'd expect them to keep going quite a bit longer, every single one of them died of liver or kidney problems. Cause? We'll see, but I have strong suspicions!
Most worryingly of all, I see various foods being recommended which at one stage were quite good, but since having been taken over by multinational companies, have gone seriously downhill and although are no better now than the cheapest of the cheap, are just as expensive as ever and still enjoy their old reputation, which they no longer deserve.

tk123

If the vet is any good they'll be looking at the dogs weight when they come in having commented on it in Nov without the OP raising it - know my vet would! I would def call ahead though - I had thyroid disease myself and for some of the bloods you need to fast. Also they might want to check his wee so start practicing your collection skills OP lol

mickmcl09

I weighed both of them last night.
15 month old - 21 kg Height 55 cm
8 month old - 22.2 kg Height 53 cm

Read a few American blogs on Samoyeds last night and there seems to be hugh variances in height and weight in the breed, which offers some comfort that he may simply be a smaller, thinner dog.
Additionally, last week, I met a couple with 2 Sammies, who came from the same breeder and they were fine specimens in size and weight. Haven spoken to them, we suspect that they are half brothers to my fella, not confirmed as they were not fully sure of the parents names only that the fathers name sounded familiar, so a little cause for concern there if he is in fact related because he's a much smaller, thinner dog.

are you serious

Mick every dog will not grow to the same height weight with a difference of just a kg or so, if you google samoyed weight scale you will find a weight scale with a general average weight on it, I found this site http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/samoyed.htm and as you see there is almost a 10kg difference in weights in just the male weight scale!! I'm sure if you took the 2cm off the 15mth old in height he would be that bit heavier and closer in weight to the pup!

Like me and you we would both be different height/weight, dogs are the same. Different genetics means all these different height/weight differences in dogs. Although you have two samoyeds I bet you can tell the differences in just their faces only, everything about each dog is individual. I personally would not be worrying about it with a weight difference like that.

My Rottie male is currently between 47/48kg varying each week, some times I think he looks skinny some weeks he eats more and I notice it. My advice if you are worried though is take him to the vets.

Zapperzy

I wouldn't be going by what he should be according to websites, books etc. If you run your hands down him and can feel his ribs without putting much pressure on, if he's got a very prominent waistline and spine he is underweight, he's probably got a very heavy thick coat so try to picture him without the coat and you'l get an idea as to how underweight he truly is. As others have said I would be bringing him to a vet to rule out medical issues before messing around with different foods.

mickmcl09

Picture of Yoshi yesterday

Yoshi 03.01.12.JPG

are you serious

Fine looking dog there mick.

Squall19

No harm in a blood test Mick.

He looks great to me, little bit thin, but don't they say its better for a dog to be a little thin, than fat.

My friend had an Irish Wolfhound when I was a kid and he was the skinniest, lankiest thing you could ever see and he lived to 14 years, friends father said he would beat a greyhound over a football pitch:) Saw it himself.

mickmcl09

Yoshi is looking a good bit better.
He has put on almost 0.5kg in 9 days.
The bulgy eye look is almost gone completely.

What happened?
The vets didn't show up anything. Bloods are fine. Poos were fine. No worms.
I was worried there might be a giant tape worm in him which some to the wormers don't eradicate.
There were a few things discussed.

Weight.
Hard to keep weight on older samoyed pups - they need a high calorie diet as pups.
He may have an acid imbalance in his stomach, which could be caused by a number of things, high protein diet being one of them.
The weight issue was confirmed for me at a show at the weekend. I got to examine a 16 month old samoyed. He looked in superb condition, but upon feeling him, he was only slightly fatter than yoshi. He just had a lusher, heavier coat.

Bulgy eyes.
One of or a combination of 2 things. Dehydration or high thyroid activity.
Must lightly dehydration caused by acid imbalance in the stomach.

What have I been doing?
The dogs were separated for feeding times.
Feeding times were stretched. 8am, 2pm and 8pm.
Quantities consumed have increased slightly and while I can't monitor water intake exactly, I suspect they have increased as well.
Milk and cereals have been removed from the diet.
Mix of adult dry food being mixed into puppy food to reduce the protein levels.
Raw diet introduced into one feed per day and he loves it.
Foods with higher fat and carbohydrate to be introduced gradually.

Anything else.
Besides having gained a bit of condition, Yoshi has got noticeably stronger and happier in the week.
As a consequence of it all, I've never spent so much time reading the ingredients and the various levels of protein, ash, fat etc on all the different foods available.

What would be my advice to other dog owners with dogs not gaining weight?
1. Go to your vet, first. Eliminate the most basic issues immediately. Do this no matter how much you think you know. Diet changes will not address a host of health issues that could easily be eliminated by the vet.
2. Don't be afraid to ask fellow breed owners what they're doing. Go to dog shows, exhibitors are great for information specific to the breed.
3. Be patient. I refer to diet changes.
4. One diet works for one dog and doesn't for the next.
5. You can't change diets overnight in most instances or you could have a very sick doggy on your hands.

mickmcl09

Just an up date on Yoshi and his weight.
There seems to be more and more weight related threads lately.
Had him at the Vets today for a check up.

22.5 kg that's 1.5kg in 5 weeks.

Clinically he's in great health. Can still feel a few bones on spine and ribs but not as much and the bulgy eye look is almost unnoticeable now.

Diet is predominantly raw.
4 to 5 full days of raw.
2 to 3 dry nuts with fish (sardines etc.)

I do full days of raw or else full day of dry, I don't mix them.
800/900g of food per day approx.

The raw diet is a god send. He loves it and price wise its not much more expensive. Maybe €5/6 a month more at most for 2 dogs.

slookie

By raw diet, what do you mean? Is it proper mince from a butchers, and give it straigh to them?