Kassidy Posted July 3, 2013 Report Share Posted July 3, 2013 Chloe is about 5 pounds or so overweight. She gets a fair amount of physical and mental exercise (not an excessive amount, as I don't want to create a dog who requires tons and tons of excercise). She was eating 2-3 cups of food, twice a day. Since then, we have switched her from the Purina junk (sorry, I'm not a huge fan of most of Purina's kibbles) that she was on at that time, to Evo. We have worked her down to now getting 1/2 cup twice a day, with a big spoonful of 100 percent pumpkin so as to make her a bit more full. When we train, I deduct the amount of treats from the amount of food she is getting, so she gets the same calorie intake. We have been doing all of this for about 3 or 4 months, and she has only lost 1 pound. Is this a normal speed for losing weight? Since she is getting 4 or 5 cups of food less a day than she was a few months ago, I would have thought she would be losing weight a lot faster than that! Although I am glad she is making any progress at all, if you think that she is losing weight slower than she ought to, any tips would be appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gideon's girl Posted July 3, 2013 Report Share Posted July 3, 2013 Evo is more calorie dense than Purina so you have to take that into consideration too. For a dog the size of a BC, 1 lb a month is a good rate for weight loss. Generally speaking the recommended rate is 2-5% per month. For a dog that weighs 50 lbs, 1 lb is 2%. If they lose weight too fast then they are losing muscle mass, not just fat. And if you have upped her exercise, she has likely added some muscle to her frame so she has lost a little more body fat than you think. The good news is muscle burns more calories than fat, so any muscle she adds helps her to stay fitter in the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diane allen Posted July 3, 2013 Report Share Posted July 3, 2013 One fairly easy and cheap solution: Take away about half her normal food. Substitute (mashed if she doesn't like them) canned green beans (I used to rinse them to reduce the salt), twice the amount of the food that you have removed. I took 15 pounds off an 80+ pound mixed breed dog using this. He wasn't especially fond of the beans at first...but when he got hungry enough, and I mixed them well with the kibble he was eating - he seemed to like them! And yeah, it took almost a year to get those 15 pounds off! Evo is definitely higher calorie, as mentioned. Good luck! diane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy Coyote Posted July 3, 2013 Report Share Posted July 3, 2013 One of my resucues was really heavy when I got her. I just took her up to the lake where it is wide open and just let her run. We went about once or twice a week. She just ran with the other dogs for an hour or so. She slimmed right down and didn't take very long at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary_and_Karen Posted July 4, 2013 Report Share Posted July 4, 2013 .......just kidding .....actually the idea about green beans sounds good, my dog likes green beans and would also eat baby carrots. Be careful with the baby carrots if your dog is prone to swallow things whole, our dog would hold the raw baby carrot between her paws and chew it up though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassidy Posted July 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 Thanks for all the ideas guys, I'll try some out, and let you know how things go! If anyone else has any more ideas I am still open to ideas! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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