Dog Weight
Found yourself buying the light brand of dog food and still not seeing your dog not loosing weight, have you increased the walking distance for your dog. Seeked advice from the vet and other dog owners, but all is not getting the results you want, well...
This a situation i found myself in some time ago with my chocolate lab named Coco. As you can imagine being a dog trainer I was very frustrated that after walking for around two hours daily with all my dogs that the weight situation with Coco didn't seem to be changing. I was feeding him a light version of a branded dog food, and feeding to the recommended daily amount. However what I started to notice was that the energy in Coco dropped of dramactically, which in turn left him not being able to run for any length of time and looking some what tired for very long periods. What I also observed in Coco was that he became oboviously well aware of the weight gain and just seemed to stop running over night with no other attempt being made to run around, i called this day weight critical point, a point where a switch seems to happens in a dog to conserve his energy and protect his health.
As we know, that to help keep dogs fit and healthy they should have access to freedom, being able to run of lead for periods will not only help with weight issues, but will help with aiding your dog to relax and be calm. So what did i do next, well like many dog owners I tried another brand of dog food, then another. Lucky he was a lab as most of us know, they will eat anything. Then a visit to the vet, with an ear infection indicated that his coat looked also looked a bit dull and fellt course. He suggested adding some oil to the diet to help with this, so I decided to call the nutrition help line for the dog food he was on. lets just say the response wasn't great! Something along the lines of there will be something in our range to suite him. I found myself getting into a dilema about Coco with ear infections then a sudden skin alergy, followed by more ear infectons and the weight reamaining the same. It felt like this was a case, Chris Rose wasn't going to resolve!
I decided to act and focus all my research time into dog foods, what nutritionally a dog should have and how wild dogs and wolfs never seem to be over weight. So what catergory do dogs fall into first ...... Well they are carnivores and omnivore, meat and vegetable eaters, so here lies one problem for not getting the weight of Coco, a dog biscuit falls into the catogory of a carbohydrate, well thats how I see it no matter if it says it is a light version. Some dog food companys even add L-Carnatine to aide weight loss to compensate the fats that preserve the shelf life of the food. That to me says, admission to knowing it will put weight onto a dog. So i got back to basics and started feeing my all my dogs a BARF diet, now I am not saying to anyone who is reading this you should change your dog food and if you have any doubts about your dog food or health speak to a vet first. So now I was feeding what a dogs category is, and i sarted feeling great about it as well knowing I was feeding them what they adored, the empty dog bowl told me that, and lets face it this was what dogs used to get fed many many years ago, scraps and parts of the game we wouldn't eat for the table along with some vegetables....
So what about wild dogs and wolfs, how come you never see an overweight one.... Well there are several reasons to this, one being that they huint for long periods of the day, burning all that fat off. Diet plays a role, and sometimes they don't get a kill that day either. But when they do, wild dogs and wolfs will regulate their food intake to there needs. For instance they will eat less during summer months and more through the winter. Research has even showed that chemical changes happen in the blood to indicate when a animal is full and there is probably alot more to it all than research has found so far. So I decided to regulate my dogs food through the summer, feeding them a little less, then increasing it through the winter. So to date, Coco remains a steady weight througout the year, has a zest for life and his coat feels soft and has a shine. As for the ear infections and skin problems all gone. So what ever the food you are feeding your dog, just try cutting it down slightly through the summer months and then increasing it through the winter as a starting point to loosing weight in your dog. Have a look a different dog foods to the content in them, seek advice, even have a think about the BARF diet, it has been researched to find that it could increase your dogs life by 130%! I will continue to research, study and observe the dog so I can help all dog owners with their dog problems.