As others have said, she is probably just fine. I counsel about 80% of my clients about their obese dogs and RARELY see a dog who is underweight. That said, a good source of both calories and anti-inflammatory omega 3 fatty acids is fish oil. The ideal ratio is 180 EPA:120 DHA, so not just any “fish oil”.
What the hell is a satin ball?
Seconded ^
My Blue Tick Coon Hound is skinny (38 lbs and you can see her ribs a little). We feed her plenty and she’s happy and healthy. But when she comes back from a few days at the open-concept kennel she’s skin-'n-bones with her ribs and hips sticking out…simply from running around non-stop all day! We just give her extra kibble, a little canned food, and limit her visits to the dog park until she gains enough weight that her ribs don’t stick out as much.
I agree with the previous posters that if your dog is happy, healthy, eating, drinking, peeing, pooping, playing and cuddling normally that everybody else needs to MTOB. Just say “S/he’s fine.” and change the subject.
I work hard to keep my three dogs lean (a number two on the posted chart). Our vet always praises their weights.
In addition, our vet has mentioned that she periodically gets people trying to score anabolic steroids as weight gain aids for their dogs. She is bright enough to call their bluff, and even keeps a printout on hand from a body building website that suggests veterinarians as an anabolic source.
What “comments from others” are you referring to? … and +3 on WTF are “satin balls” and also, are you posting drunk or something?
My German Shepherd was very thin as well, even when it seemed that she was eating a decent amount of dog food. I stopped feeding her conventional kibble, and started feeding combinations of chicken, venison, whatever other types of meat I could get my hands on at bargain prices, bones, various organs, w/ rice, sweet potato, occasional greens chopped and mixed in. I also started giving her probiotics along w/ her food. She quickly gained weight, looks much healthier, and the her fur became softer and thicker as well.
I find this amusing. What do they do, starve the dogs until they’re thin, then go to the vet acting like it’s a mystery? It’s interesting that they’re used for that; the only time we had a pet that refused to eat (a cat after a looong series of other issues), the vet gave us some valium and he ate within 30 minutes of taking it. It was amazing.
If your the vet says your dog is fine, then she’s fine. You could try responding to people the way I would,
stranger: Your dog is too thin!
me: Your mouth is too fat.
But you’d be better off saying something like “This breed is known for being very thin”
The article she has suggests borrowing a buddies’ Boxer or Greyhound since they tend to be lean.
If your vet says the dog is healthy, then I wouldn’t worry about it, as others have said. I keep my dogs lean for a few reasons - mostly because it’s healthier and easier on their joints and I think they look good. I hate the look of fat dogs.
There’s a difference between lean and too thin. To me, prominent hip bones in my dogs means they’re too thin. Having to press on their side to feel ribs means they’re too fat. I like them somewhere in between.
I don’t know if anyone has suggested it, but there are a few calorie dense premium kibbles that may help - more bang for each mouthful she eats. For my dog, a high calorie, high protein formula was the only thing that put weight on him when he was young so he didn’t look like a rescue case. YMMV.
I’m curious to know what breed the OP’s dog is as well. Along with fat dogs, people are also used to fluffy dogs. A really fit lab isn’t likely to show ribs, but a fit boxer easily will, just because they have a single instead of double layered coat. I like the ‘the vet says this is really the right weight’ comeback. I’ve also heard people say ‘yeah, it’s hard on my other dogs to have a supermodel in the house’.
Inform them that dogs are like people, they’re *supposed *to have waists and when the don’t there’s a problem. Or you could always tell them your vet wants her thin so she’ll have fewer joint and back problems as she ages. Even if your vet hasn’t said as much to you, it’s pretty well true. Excess weight is just as hard on their joints as it is on ours, especially as they age and develop arthritis, and it’s much easier to control middle age spread in a historically thin animal than a historically plump one.
As for the dog, I wouldn’t give her a bunch of supplemental stuff, especially not table scraps. Most of that kind of thing is high in fat, which is hard on the digestion and sets her up for unpleasant and expensive issues like garbage gut or pancreatitis. You might try putting a little wet food in with her kibble like we do with our skinny Minny Princess Picky-pants, but other than that I’d let her go.
While it would be interesting to know the OP’s breed, individuals of almost any breed can be that way. As I mentioned, my one Lab was.
I have my small, lean Labs out in public constantly. I never remember anybody directly commenting on their condition. Perhaps some of the people that tell me they have a 90 pound Lab at home are suggesting I fatten mine up. I figure many of them should be 70 pound Labs and try not to roll my eyes.
At a year, Zypher was a lean 69 pounds. When he returned my family’s care about 4 years old he was 92 pounds, but still had something of a waist. I hate to think how much dogs that bulge behind the ribs must weigh. Today he is in the low 70’s even with a couple of little kids in the house. My daughter does her best to keep the dogs from getting the children’s food.
Thanks for all the input guys! I’m not worried about her either. But if she’s a 2 on that chart, would it hurt to try and get her up to a 3?
I agree people are probably just too used to seeing fat dogs, so our ideas of what is fat and what is healthy is becoming very skewed (probably the same thing is happening to people, I am borderline overweight for my BMI but I doubt many people would ever consider me close to being overweight).
Basically, I understand that you are all saying it’s fine if the vet says she’s fine, but would a few extra pounds hurt if she’s around a 2 on that chart?
She is a lab mix of some sort, a very small dog. She only weigh’s about 20 lbs. She looks like a very young lab, everyone always thinks she’s a puppy, but she’s several years old!
Her name is Dotti, btw.
It won’t hurt, (probably) - but it certainly won’t improve her health, certainly won’t improve her looks, so why on earth make her fatter when she’s apparently perfectly healthy and happy the way she is?
If she’s healthy and energetic, I wouldn’t bother trying to force weight gain beyond offering her palatable foods and seeing if she accepts them. Muscle weight is ideal, so I’d feed her meat or eggs on top of her usual diet.
Canned pumpkin is only about 40 calories per half-cup. It adds bulk to the kibble rather than calories overall, which is why it’s recommended for dogs on restricted calorie diets. (I saw a few people mentioning they added it to their dog’s food to fatten them up, and I don’t see how that works unless it encourages the dog to eat the kibble they’d otherwise leave.)
If she’s happy and healthy I see no reason to worry – I live in an area that is very doggy and in the mountains, and it is actually rare to see a fat one. Even the labs. It surprises me when I see an overweight dog. And I see dogs on a daily basis, including a lot of labs, the walking appetites. They were sort of born for this climate, it’s lab heaven. I looked at the example pictures on that chart and laughed – totally lab. There’s a reason.
My parents have kept the weight off of our (he’s my dog too even if I live 2000 miles away) lab and he’s 12 and doing great. He does have arthritis and if he puts on weight he’s a lot unhappier about it.
Hell, today I met a relatively slim and trim and surprisingly active Basset. You do not expect a Basset to jump on you to say hello! I suppose I live in an atypical area as far as dogs go.
Googling Satin Balls (because I had no idea what they are). Its a recipe.
some sort of doggy treat.
I don’t know how it works. I know that at least one of the dogs was a pretty uninterested eater, to the point where my brother’s ex was handfeeding the dog. Apparently the dog liked the taste of pumpkin and would eat any food that had pumpkin mixed in with it.