low fat dog food?

Penny Tration

So Lola has to go on a diet.Apparently she's 2kg overweight (jack Russel terrier, at 7kg), because people keep giving her treats!

AFAIK royal canin do low fat dry food? If I'm correct, does anyone know anywhere around the coolock, santry, artane, donaghmede area selling it?

Thanks

cocker5

Royal Canin is an expensive brand with little quality OP personally i wouldn't feed my guy RC.

What are you currently feeding her?

have you considered mixing half her food up with cooked veg?
so half her current nuts with some boiled carrots, peas etc?

Its the treats that are causing her to be overweight changing her nuts wont really help that... get rid of all normal dog treat and give her carrots, sugar snap peas etc as a treat

if you fill her up on veg - very less carbs and calories she will loose weight without be starving.

OUTDOORLASS

Pedigree do a low fat dog food. Put our lab on it, and she is in great shape.

Penny Tration

That's a brilliant idea. she won't eat a lot of veg (i do try to feed her chicken and veg), but I can try make some other types and see if she'll eat them.

The mother feeds her pedigree dry food :rolleyes: when I'm there, it's plain chicken breast and veg mostly. she ignores the veg usually :pac:

Treats have stopped, naturally. The treats were pieces of ham or bacon rather than dog treats because she doesn't like most dog treats :pac:

I'll try bulk her food out with veg. Just don't want her going hungry. Thanks for that

andreac

Personally i wouldnt feed Pedigree if any form. Its full of cheap poor quality fillers. I would just cut right back on the normal food you have and cut out any treats of any form, they dont need them. If you want to give her something, give her a raw carrot or some of her daily food allowance.

Get in to the habit of measuring out her daily allowance and just stick with that and dont anymore of anything.

cocker5

Penny Tration wrote: »

That's a brilliant idea. she won't eat a lot of veg (i do try to feed her chicken and veg), but I can try make some other types and see if she'll eat them.

The mother feeds her pedigree dry food :rolleyes: when I'm there, it's plain chicken breast and veg mostly. she ignores the veg usually :pac:

Treats have stopped, naturally. The treats were pieces of ham or bacon rather than dog treats because she doesn't like most dog treats :pac:

I'll try bulk her food out with veg. Just don't want her going hungry. Thanks for that

God stay away from Pedigree wet or dry it really is just muck...

Its all about persistance with dogs.. after a few days she will eat the veg - better to be cruel to be kind.

Dawney

I weigh out my dog's daily food allowance and portion some off to give him as treats during the day. It helps that he loves his dry food (James Wellbeloved) and I know that he's not getting excess food.

He was looking a little portly recently as he was getting quite a few treats throughout the day as we've been doing a lot of training. Now he's already looking more trim after a couple of weeks.

Penny Tration

Thank you all, I really appreciate the posts.


As a result of the thread, I've convinced the mother to let me switch lola's food to that wellbeloved stuff (four stockists near me, yay).

As for Lola, she must have been starving because she milled down the veggies I gave her without hesitation for the first time :pac:

Latatian

She might actually like the vegetables, just have been on the look-out for something better.

It's like dessert, you have stuff that's tempting so you can eat more even though you've had enough and shouldn't actually want it. I know my dog loves lots of foods now that she'd turn her nose up at when she was overweight. Not because she's hungry now, but because she was stuffed to the point of going off her food before!

Any kind of food, low fat or not, will make a dog overweight in the wrong quantities. Weigh out what it says on the bag for her ideal weight- not her current weight- and then weigh her regularly as well. If she's not losing weight, reduce it and check no-one's feeding her. Sometimes what the bag says is just too much- dogs are individuals, and it's not in the company's interests for you to feed your dog less of their product! 2% of the body weight per week is the recommended amount to lose (max). I would consider cutting out the chicken breasts- or down the chicken breasts- too. It's a big amount of meat for a small dog and they can be very high in salt.

One thing I found helped was showing members of the family that the dog went just as mad for apple, green beans, or kale as she did for the ham and bacon (and turkey, in our house!). Your dog's preferences will be different, this is just what mine liked. Sometimes it's also about what the human thinks is a treat for the dog- she doesn't know kale is 'healthy', so she doesn't have the prejudice against it. I only fed her one bit as a kind of joke, now I have to keep it up high or she'll go through the shopping bags.

Also if anyone else in the family is feeding the dog at some times, get one of those measuring cups for dog food (the clear ones) and draw a line in permanent marker at the side for how much she should get, it's not as accurate but might help the humans stick to it. Check the calories in any treats, or chicken breast etc vs the dog's calorie needs for the day- it can be really surprising!

Madisonmenece

Would you consider a prepared raw diet over dry or tinned, we feed from an irish raw dog food which comes in a chub form and find maintaining weight on raw very easy even at this time of year when they walked a little less, cost for a jack russel size dog would be small

VonVix

I have heard good things about Barking Heads Fat Dog Slim.

Penny Tration

I'll look into a raw diet

At the moment, she's eating that Wellbeloved stuff recommended earlier in the thread.

She's also decided her favourite food is raw carrot :pac: so she's happily munching on veg (not just carrot, also peas, cauliflower, sweet corn and whatever else happens to be in the house) and is looking more trim already

VonVix

That's brilliant. My boys have lost 5kg each, the last kg or two has been the toughest to get off.