I can’t seem to get my Vizsla to gain weight?
belle97814 asked:
My dog looks so thin, I can see her ribs, and I can’t seem to get her ti fill out. I have had her checked for everything under the sun and she is really healthy. She just looks like I starve her. She always has food out so she can eat when she wants, does anyone have any tips on how to add some healthy weight to her bones.
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My dog looks so thin, I can see her ribs, and I can’t seem to get her ti fill out. I have had her checked for everything under the sun and she is really healthy. She just looks like I starve her. She always has food out so she can eat when she wants, does anyone have any tips on how to add some healthy weight to her bones.
Content supplied by UK Yahoo Answers
Category: Vizsla | Tags: Everything Under The Sun, Gain Weight, Ribs 4 comments »
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Vizsla’s in general are a thin breed. A healthy Vizsla actually shows a trace of its ribs. If you can’t see the trace of ribs, the dog is overweight.
If you think yours is too skinny and she isn’t eating the food you have sitting out, then you have some options.
What kind of dog food is it? Maybe she doesn’t like it?
Has she been recently spayed because they tend to eat less afterwards.
You may try doing some extra training with her. It’s an easy way for the dog to eat something. Give a small reward for every time they sit or do a new trick. Doing a couple of training sessions a day would add up to a good amount of extra food intake.
January 24th, 2010 at 1:40 am
this is more of a question for your vet, who has presumably examined the dog. there are lots of things that you can use to gain weight, but first, how old is she? if she’s under 18 months, put her back on puppy food. there’s more calories in it. there are dog foods specially made for working or hunting dogs which have more calories, you might consider those for her. how much does she eat now?
consider that some dogs just have faster metabolisms.
if you’re free-feeding, stop. monitor her daily intake, and increase it.
if you put the bowl down and she doesn’t eat in 15 minutes, pick it up and put it back down at dinner. make sure she’s eating the right amount for her weight.
what kind of food are you giving her now?
January 26th, 2010 at 3:51 am
Vizslas are a naturaly thin breed as it is, so she doesn’t seem super thing. Not only that, but dogs are like people, and some are just smaller then others. We had the same problem with our old husky. You could see his ribs and his hip bones and he was super skinny, but vets never found any problems and he acted perfectly healthy. If your vet can’t find anything wrong, then that is just how your dog is. Don’t worry about it. As long as she is eating, she is fine.
One thing you could try doing, though, is switching to a RAW diet. It is the best diet out there, and it is actually cheaper then premium dog foods. My german shepherd was always on the thin side. His hips stuck out a little. I started feeding RAW and he filled out in about 2 weeks, and now he just looks great and really healthy. His coat looks shinier and feels better, and even his expression looks younger and more upbeat. He just looks a lot better.
You should feed about 2-3% of your dogs body weight a day. My shepherd is 90lbs and eats about 2 lbs a day. You want to model a prey diet, so each meal should be roughly 80% raw meaty bones and 20% organ meat. Some meals can be a little less of one. Over time variety will even it all out. 5 days a week I feed 2 chicken leg quarters (which are thighs and drumsticks combined with a little back meat), and then I feed 3 ounces of tripe and 3 ounces of chicken hearts and liver and gizzards, making about 2 lbs. One day a week I cut a chicken carcass in half, and each dog gets one half. One day a week they each get two 2lb fish. My older boy, the one that use to be skinny, isn’t super fond of fish, so he usually gets one fish and one chicken quarter. Then whatever cheap scraps I can find, I throw in randomly. Pigs foot here, cow tongue there. I never spend over 1$ per lb on food. So I roughly spend 14$ a week on one dog, 60$ a month, which is way cheaper then the food I was buying, a premium dry kibble. Try that and see how your dog does.
January 26th, 2010 at 10:38 am
She checks out medically so she just has a high metabolism. Seeing the ripple of ribs is okay, in fact it’s healthy, but seeing each rib stand out is too thin. She should be on a high protein diet, preferably a natural diet, and she should not be free-fed. Feed twice a day, measure the food, and pick up the bowl after 15 minutes. Have you thought of putting her on green tripe? It’s completely natural and high proteins and fat. In fact, I’ve known dogs to start getting fat on it. Or, you can add a teaspoon of NutriCal to her food, but that gets expensive.