When he was four. He didn’t start getting round until a few weeks after the surgery.
Oy, tell me about it…I’ve had Rottweilers since 1996 and if I had a dollar for every person who told me about this or that 200 lb Rockwilder :rolleyes: they owned or knew…Rottweilers are classified as “medium-large” by every reputable registry; they’re not supposed to be huge.
At one point I owned two - a 100 lb male and a smallish, 65-70 lb bitch. Both close in age and activity level, but the female ate more than my boy. He had a very efficient metabolism, which was a shame because he was a hog and always ate like his hair was on fire. But I had to keep him lean - he had bad elbows and also was an active agility dog; any extra weight would have harmed him. I could have left food out all day for Daphne, she’d just eat what she needed.
moejoe, I had a dog with an underactive thyroid years ago. She was low-energy and tended towards overweight and skin problems; I was not an experienced dog owner at the time so I didn’t think it was a big problem. Luckily I had a good vet who suggested testing her thyroid function, and once on meds she was a happier and healthier dog.
My girl was fat when I got her. I think her former owners fed her rather than give her the attention she needed.
As bad as that is though, what is worse is everyone wants to give a dog a treat. I tell everyone that she has diabetes and is on a strict diet. I tell them that I wouldn’t want her having people food anyway. But still people sneak her treats. At a Christmas party the elderly matron kept giving her stuff and I finally started making her spit it out. Unfair to her, she was doing what came naturally. But I couldn’t make the old woman understand and much more fuss would have cast me as the bad guy for yelling at the old woman.
Having said all that, I had to get my vet to tell me how much and how to feed her, when I first got her.
My dog looks like he’s been dead forever. He’s 44lbs (supposed to be about 60), he gets 4 cups a day in his bowl and another two cups in his Kong toy. That is six cups when we’re at work. When we go to the dog park they always remark upon how skinny he is. It’s because he waits for human treats and won’t eat until it’s 3 a.m. when he finally decides it’s okay to go and eat HIS food.
Oh, I feel your pain, Khadaji! It kills my dad not to be able to give people food treats to our dogs, even though he knows the reasons behind our feeding practices! One of ours is a working narcotics dog, and his searches would never hold up in court if he had a habit of being distracted by bacon cheeseburgers. One is a retired K9, and we try to keep him at a healthy weight because we love him and want to keep him around as long as possible. And the fuzzy pig was a rescue, whose previous owner gave him no training: an undisciplined giant dog is a menace, so we’ve taken the task of convincing him that he’s not the lead dog in our pack. It’s a constant struggle, but worth it when I see him playing with the kids and other dogs, or checking to make sure that “his” baby is screaming with laughter and not fear/danger.
Sadly, my dad is in danger of loving his own dog to an unpleasant death with food… and doing the same to himself.