Fat Staffie?

Seaneh

Right, the family dog at home is a just about the most well behaved, loving, funny staffie on the planet, her name is Lola and she is about 3 years old.

Untill last year she was just a normal little staffie, but in the space of about 6 months she put on tons of weight. Her regime didn't change, and she gets walked every day and plenty of play time in the back yard through out the day.

She's as full of life as ever (even if she does take longer naps) and totally happy but she's really over weight.

We changed her to a dry food recommend by a vet and upped her to two walks a day (one long one in the morning and a quicker one in evenings) but she's not really shifting the weight after a few months.

Any advice from any staffie owners?

Pics of her at 1, 2 and 3 years old.







It's really annoying because my brother has a male (a lot taller) who has pretty much the same regime as Lola and he's whip thin and ripped while our little girl is really tubby.

I just don't want her developing bad joints from the extra weight.
If the extra weight isn't an issue for her health then I'm not too bothered about it but I just can't imagine it being good or her.

DBB

What food is she on? Two things occur to me. I have met many an overweight dog on the proper amount of dry food, but I think this excess weight may be due to an allergy to the food. I could be talking out my hat on this, but i've just met so many now that I have to wonder.
Secondly, some foods overstate the amount you need to feed. Royal Canin, for example. When I used to feed it to my dogs at the recommended amount for their size, they all got tubby. In fact, two-thirds of the amount recommended was fine.
Are you giving her treats or chew treats between meals? Pigs ears and many artificial chew treats are very calorific and are often the chief culprit in weight gain. There are calorie tables for different breeds/sizes available online, and you can often also find out the caloric content of different brands of foods and chew treats, so look them up and do the maths... A couple of bonio, for example, could make up to a quarter of a staffie's caloric daily recommended intake.
Her joints will likely suffer damage in years to come, but other nasties like diabetes are a bigger problem for overweight dogs, so certainly keeping the weight down is a good idea.
I'm assuming her vet has ruled out any medical causes of weight gain?

DamagedTrax

definitly far too overweight. she'll suffer with her joints if you're not careful. staffies are bulky enough for their short legs without adding extra weight.

cut back the food a good bit because (as stated above) the recommended amounts are far to over the top.

here's a friends similiar aged (and looking) dog and this is the condition your staffy should be in at her age.





also how much do you exercise her? i do 2 hours hard walking a day with my girl to get her in this condition.





i think its time to cut back on the food and get the walking trainers on. there is no magic cure with a staffy except some hard work im afraid.

Seaneh

Don't know the brand (I live in Galway, family live in Athlone) but it's a dry food dseigned for overweight dogs or older less active dogs prone to putting on weight and was recommended by the vet. Before that she was on canned food, which is probably why she gained so much weight.

I know she only gets about a cup of food a day though, maybe a little more, and lots of water.

Have a bit of a feeling the mother might be throwing her a few too many doggie treats when there's nobody home though!

Zapperzy

Seaneh wrote: »

Have a bit of a feeling the mother might be throwing her a few too many doggie treats when there's nobody home though!

There's your problem so! Remember someone telling me they couldn't understand why their dog wasn't losing weight despite decreased food and increased exercise until they looked further into the treats he was getting, think it was something like the pedigree dentastix or joint sticks or something similar that was something crazy like half or quarter the dog's calorie requirements for the day.

Perhaps a chat with your mother might be in order! If she really has to give the dog titbits and treats replace them with pieces of carrot! Most dogs love carrot, quite good for their teeth too.

kylith

I second the carrots! Especially frozen ones.

It might be helpful if your mum sees the human equivalent of how many treats the dog's getting. This convertor* might help you work it out. According to it a 10kg dog needs about 750cal per day. Pedigree's site doesn't have any nutritition information for treats that I can see, but I think a small dentastix has 50cal so treats can certainly add up very quickly.

Some people find it hard to say no if a dog is looking at them eat. My pair would have been like barrels if my ex's mum had her way; she was convinced I was starving them because they'd stare at her eating. She was always trying to sneak them little bits. Luckily she was too scared to cross me when I got serious about it.

*It seems to be on a cocker site, but is hopefully good enough for rough estimates.

DamagedTrax

i've cut out treats completely. she gets a rawhide stick after each meal and usually gets the corner off my lunch sandwich. other than that i dont bother. it does take a while to be able to say no to staffy eyes though

Whispered

+1 to all of the above. I'd also recommend you try get her off the diet food, if you feed her the correct amount and exercise her enough then in my opinion a diet food shouldn't be necessary.

Granted this is just an opinion, so stick with what your vet says, but I wouldn't be happy having a young and able dog on a diet food.

2qk4u

As said above, I would cut down the food and cut out all treats and leftovers.
My baby is almost 1 and and still has some puppy fat around her neck but nothing like your dog, she loves carrots too and eats everything. I would be careful with the walking until some of that weight falls off. Weigh her every week and increase the walks as the weight comes down.
Have you been to the vet to check if there is an underlying problem causing the weight problem ?

My Baby Sasha at 11 months.

Latatian

Another thing- if you know exactly how much she gets, and everyone else knows too, it makes things a lot easier. Measuring cups work well, because you can just fill it to the same line every time. Weighing can be more accurate though, if you're really having trouble.

I've found my own cups had a lot of variation even though I thought I was putting out the same amount every day.

Weight loss on a diet should be about 1-2% of her weight per week, not more. If you measure out the food and weigh her once a week or so, it'll mean you know when she's losing the right amount, and when you need to increase or decrease the amount of food.

Walking won't do much for the weight, but it does wonders for their health. Could you do any swimming? It might be easier on her joints until she comes down a bit.

Good luck! I find apple slices help with the begging.

DBB

Latatian wrote: »

Another thing- if you know exactly how much she gets, and everyone else knows too, it makes things a lot easier. Measuring cups work well, because you can just fill it to the same line every time. Weighing can be more accurate though, if you're really having trouble.

Great advice! Weighing is much more effective than using a measuring cup. Indeed, this very aspect of obesity in dogs has been officially measured, and owners can vary up to 20% in how much they feed their dog daily when using a measuring cup! You can see how quickly this could lead to weight gain!
And as you've said OP, your suspicion is that your mum is using treats to find her way to the dog's heart , so try to encourage your mum to play and pet the dog instead. She's doing her no favours at the moment:(