Let me just start off by saying that I love my dog to death. He's a 25 lb black pug and he's 14 y/o. He doesn't look fat because he is "big boned" lol but he is a little overweight. I'm afraid he is going to get more overweight because of my husband: he likes to spoil him by giving him 1/2 can of wet food along with his dry food per day. We feed him very healthy (and expensive! ) dog food: Wellness Weight Control dry and either Innova Evo, Wellness or Natural Balance wet food. The vet said if we want to give him wet food, to only give him about 1 small scoop up to twice a day. Both my husband and I are overweight and it seems he wants to make our pug overweight, too! He won't listen to me, either. I try to tell him that Bubba will have a harder time breathing in the summer because he is heavy. I tell him what the vet said. Nothing works, he is set on spoiling this darn dog. At least we have him on low calorie dry food. Anyone have any suggestions? Should I just bop my husband over the head and call it a day???

Take him with you to Bubba's next vet appointment. Call ahead and let the vet know what is going on, maybe he can scare him into stopping.

If you get rid of the dry food totally, your dog will lose weight. My mom had a jack russell that was up over 20 pounds!! He was only supposed to weigh 12

We switched her dog over to all canned food, and the weight just fell off. Her dog is now totally on canned food and maintains a healthy weight -- no starvation, no measuring anything out...just eating canned food.

The same worked for my overweight cat. She was up to 19 pounds. I started her on an all canned diet last year and now she is a svelte 13 pounds.

Switching to all canned food works. All the obesity is gone from all the family pets.

actually dry food will make him feel fuller so stick to the dry i think the problem is people don't know how much to feed their pet...but what i will tell you is the simple thing i tell all my clients (i'm a vet)....studies show that animals that are normal wt or below wt live longer lives. If he truely wants his (and your dog) around as long as possible, get the weight off the dog. So if dh wants the dog around as long as possible..get the wt off and do it now. You can talk to him about diabetes, heart disease etc...but it boils down to this...the less he weighs..the longer he will be around. And i bet you and DH want your pup around for a long time (:

dry food makes them feel fuller because it is filled with carbs ... the very things that cause weight gain in people and pets.

If you want your pets to lose weight, switch to all canned food...you will be amazed at the results. If you are not sure...just try it for 6 weeks.

I know firsthand that it works. My vet told me -- just cut back on the dry food. Well, I can tell you that never worked for mom's dog or my kitty (and yes, I measured amounts). The thing that worked was getting them off a carb-filled diet and onto canned food.

This has also worked for my neighbor's overweight lab.

Our cat has a bit of a "spayed cat" tummy, though isn't obese like my MIL's cat (poor thing must weigh 25 - 30 lbs). I don't know if cat food and dog food are similar, but our vet also recommended that we either cut our cat's dry food portion in half, or switch to a wet food. She said wet food was lower in calorie for the volume, so the cat might "complain less" with a switch to wet food. We tried both, but instead of losing weight, she just begged alot more and moved a lot less, increasing her sleeping from most of the day, to nearly all of it. On a "diet," she became a complete couch potato, not even wanting to sit on the window and watch birds.

We now feed her dry daily, and wet occasionally. My husband (also a sucker for over indulging pets) refused to give up treating her. I convinced him to stop giving her treats when she begged and put her on a treat "schedule." It's worked pretty well (training both hubby and cat - I think the cat learned faster). At 9:00 pm (within five minutes either way) she knows to go to him and remind him of her bedtime snack (she sits quietly in front of him, just looking at him until he remembers, because if she meows or paws at his legs -her old begging behavior - she doesn't get any until she's sat quietly for five minutes). I also convinced hubby to use a regular cat food for treats (it's a different brand than her daily food, but it's still cat food for adult cats, not cat treats).

Surprisingly, her diet seems to have had a lot less impact on her weight than her activity level. (although I can't be sure my husband wasn't sneaking her more treats when she was begging more), because she only started losing weight when we began playing with her more (with string and toys and such). This winter, hubby and I were sick alot and slacked off on her (and our) exercise, and her weight has creeped back up a little.

You know, one of the things that probably doesn't help is that we leave his food out all day and fill up his bowl when it's empty...he scratches on the bowl when it's empty. I think what I will start doing is putting the bowl up and only putting it down twice a day. We put 1/2 c of dry food in his bowl twice a day (and sometimes more throughout the day, but usually he bugs us about an empty bowl one additional time) and then on top of that, my hubby does the wet food thing. I think I will tell him what you said about dogs living longer and I will also tell him about diabetes and heart disease because I bet he never thought of that as a possibility (I never did!). Oh, definitely we want that pup around as long as possible.

Great idea, Zenor! I will do that...maybe he needs a scare, like what they do to unruly teenagers when they put them in jail for a day to see what it is like.

Geez, I know about that begging. Bubba will come up to you and scratch on your leg if you are eating. My hubby says that Bubba was already doing that when he met me, but I'm telling you that it is getting a lot worse since my hubby came around! You know why? Because when we are done eating, and this may sound gross to some of you (and don't tell my dinner guests!), he lets him lick his bowl (unless it is something spicy or with onions or something bad for him)! As for exercise, forgetta about it! Unfortunately, Bubs is so old that he doesn't like to do much walking. I try to take him on short walks, which he hates. He'd rather lay on the couch. Maybe I should step up the number of short walks.

So, what I am going to do is this: 1) take my hubby to the vets with me next checkup (which will be within the next 2 months) to get a reality check. 2) talk to him right now about diabetes and heart disease 3) keep him on 1/2 cup of dry food twice a day and take the bowl up when it is empty.

Thanks a lot!

trooworld- you definately need to stop free feeding!!!!! that is the biggest cause of obeisty. Measure out his food...really you should start thinking about feeding a weight control food. Have your vet help you calculate his amount of daily food needed (based on his wt and him metabolic requirement) then use a measured amount daily (split twice daily). And as for begging...you need to ignore it...your dog has you trained. I know its annoying..but the only way to get him to stop begging is to ignore him!!!! If you ignore him...eventually it will stop...however if you keep feeding him a treat every time he begs for it...he has won. If you truely love you dog and want him around a long long time...get the wt off now. I think it would help to have DH come to the vet next time (and have the vet give him the lecture they have given you). Good luck...you can do it for your dog's health!!!!

i wish i had a copy of the recent journal article about overwt and shorter life spans but here's some good articles you might want to show dh....good luck!

http://www.seespotlivelonger.com/articles/fat.html
http://www.petclubuk.com/view/page.do?id=411
http://www.professorshouse.com/pets/...ight-dogs.aspx
http://factsvault.com/pets/6138.php

also...you may want to start feeding your dog using a "puzzle ball" type toy. It dispenses food slowly...the dog has to work for his food. It will also keep him occupied.

We measure out the food for our chihuahua/terrier mix. He gets 1/4 cup of dry food 3 times during the day (we were told chi's can have blood sugar issues and to feed less more frequently.) We have also been told by several vets that dry food is best (at least for our dog) because it helps keep their teeth clean.

He does get treats occasionally, but not all the time. We put natural Peanut butter in his kong. Our dog has never had wet food and he's the ideal weight for his breed.

If you are concerned about carbs, I believe the higher quality dry dog foods contain more meat/less grain. At least this is what we've been told.

Another thought, check with your vet first, a friend of mine has a German short hair that always acts hungry. ALWAYS! Even though he is on a premium high protein food that is heavy on the calories. So, in between meals they give him carrots to munch on. Their vet told them to do this.

I think I scared him straight. Yesterday (before I read your helpful posts), I found some things on the internet telling about the dangers of obesity and I e-mailed him a serious e-mail requesting that he help by not overfeeding the wet food, not giving him table scraps, helping me exercise him more and only feeding him twice a day. He stuck with that last night, I noticed. I will ask the vet when we see him for his checkup next month about it. I will definitely bring hubby too.

I don't think Bubba would go for this...he's old (14) and not interested in toys anymore. He just likes to lay on laps and sleep. But maybe I will try it, I suppose putting peanut butter in it would be a bad idea? He loves peanut butter (of course). What do you think of Zenor's idea of carrots as a snack?

I think that's a good idea to feed him 3 times a day, maybe I will try this, but he seems to only eat twice a day, even though we leave food down for him...he just likes to binge when he does eat (like mother like dog ). I'm not really concerned about carbs, but Innova has Evo which I believe is all meat. I did have him on Innova (not the Evo) for a while...the weight control stuff...but he actually gained weight. The vet said that they have a lot of dogs gain weight on Innova, it's higher in fat. Bubba loves carrots, that's a good idea. Maybe I will cut up little bits of carrots for him.

I do feed him weight control, it's Wellness brand. The wet food, however, is not weight control. My husband claims Bubba doesn't like the weight control we food (although I think he likes it just fine). Hopefully we are off to a good start and we can get some of this weight off him. I walked him further yesterday than I usually do, three times. Today I will do the same.

Definitely ditch the free feeding. It's hard to get a pet accustomed to a schedule, and they can be a real pain in the rear during the transition, but it's much easier to control how much you feed when you feed on a schedule.

A dry diet food is full of carbohydrates. And like some people, some pets will pack on the pounds when on a high carb diet. Some pets lose weight when fed a dry diet food (feel fuller, eat less), and some pets do not, and even worse, they gain weight. In general the cooked carbs in pet food are well tolerated and well utilized by dogs, but they are not required (the liver is more than capable of converting protein into the glucose that the carbs supply). It is likely that your dog will benefit from a canned diet with fewer carbs.

If you do decide to switch to a canned diet, you will still need to look at the labels. You want to pick a food that has some sort of meat listed as the first three ingredients. Meat-by-products are acceptable as the second or third ingredient. Meat-by-products have a bad rap that is a bit undeserved. The AAFCO (pet food regulators) states that they may not contain hair, horns, hooves, teeth or other inedible bits. Meat-by-products are made up from things like lungs, spleen, intestines, blood, brain, etc... They are all perfectly edible and nutritious, just not very appealing to us people

Hopefully you'll get your DH on board with the feeding issue. My DH also liked to 'buy' affection from our cats by giving treats. I solved this problem by getting DH to feed the cats their dinner (I have dinner all packaged up and ready to go so that he can't add a bit more), and I'm working on the begging problem by locking the cats in another room when they beg. One cat is a quick learner and no longer begs if I'm around, but the other cat is dumber than a bag of hammers and still gets locked away during our mealtimes. I also gave DH some journal articles to read on how overweight pets live shorter lives. DH is a former physicist and puts a lot of stock in peer reviewed articles. He's now firmly in the thinner is better camp, but he still wishes he could give treats more often because it makes the furkids so happy.

BP

Actually this is pretty common with Innova and EVO. People tend to feed based on can size or by the cup rather than by the calorie content. So when they switch to this higher calorie food, they don't reduce the quantity as well, and their pets gain weight. Natura (the parent company) foods contain a good amount of fat (dogs and cats need more than we do), but it does add more calories. Their diet foods are not high in fat though - I suspect your dog just needed to be fed less (yeah, I know - waaaaaaay easier said than done! A begging pet is really hard to live with )

BP

Hi bopeep, thanks for your reply. I think I will talk to my vet about the carb issue...I'm not a big fan of low carb diets myself, but if the vet thinks it is a good idea, then I will go for it. My vet did say that I should really limit the wet food because it is higher in cals and fat. As for by-products, I'm really not into giving him anything that I wouldn't eat myself, and I am definitely not into eating spleens and blood! Sometimes we feed him Merrick's canned entrees, which are made of human grade things like sweet potatoes, beef, green beans, apples, carrots. Those are pretty high in cals though (I just looked them up), so we are definitely going to have to cut back on those! Yeah, Bubba definitely needs to be fed less. I'm going to stick to 1/2 cup twice a day until I see my vet, that is how much the bag says to feed him. Begging pets really are hard to live with, especially when you find them so cute!