Is my dog too skinny? It is really scaring me! Please help if you can!

ScentHound

looks good to me

dixiesmygirl

Thanks everybody. Y'all have helped me. I am def. gonna do a food change! She likes the gravy stuff. Is there another product out there you can ad water to to make gravy?

Tess

I would agree your dog looks a little on the skinny side. This may be a perfectly healthy weight for your dog, but to know for sure, I would try a high quality food. I've had dogs that were too skinny, and would not finish their food, but when I switched to a better diet they got more enthusiastic about their food and put on some good muscle weight. Also their coats got better. Never underestimate the importance of good nutrition. Think of it this way... would a person maintain a healthy body weight on a mono diet of dried, processed brown nuggets? Is it any surprise when a dog turns away after hundreds of bowls of the stuff? Most dog food is the human equivalent of vitamin fortified cheetos, in other words junk food. Its made of the cheapest ingredients the pet food industry can gather, boosted with synthetic vitamins, then coated with something on the outside to make it have some taste appeal.
There are some really excellent kibbles out there now to try. If that helps, you might even investigate integrating some variety in the form of good for dogs table scraps, or even go all out with a raw natural diet, although that is a whole other adventure! I for one believe dogs do better if they get to have more than just kibble. Don't be afraid to share your left over veggies from your plate, or scraps of meat. You can mix them with the dog's food and she will be delighted to try new things. Meanwhile you are giving her important trace nutrients, in the form of "real" food.
Here is a great website to help you find a better kibble
Dog Food Reviews - Main Index - Powered by ReviewPost
Good luck, and do let us know how she does!

Mikey

I think better then us guessing by pictures is talking to your vet and seeing what your vet thinks. And like PAwz says you can have a fecal test done to check for parasites.

She looks fine-boned to me, not skinny at all.
A dog who is too skinny you can *SEE* ribs, a dog who is in good shape-you can *FEEL* ribs (A good rule of thumb)-and if you can't feel 'em, fido needs a diet

But honestly your dog looks great, and I don't see much tapering at the waist (From the top view) so she may even be on the + side of perfect


I think a much better option, if your looking for something to add to her food to make her want to eat-add instead of 'gravy' or processed dog-food gravy-
Add canned salmon
Add canned tuna
Add ground beef
Add some stew or other left over.

In most cases it's cheaper then dog treats and add ins and it's healthy human grade food

Human food (IMHO) is much healthier then this over processed food we give them and you *know* it's suitable for humans to eat and therefore much higher quality then what is in most dog food and treats.

People food gets a bad rep because people feed it on top of normal meals and there is usally weight gain. There is nothing inheritantly wrong with people food, in fact, it's much better for them then many of the products out there. (Not saying eliminate dog food-it's nutritionally balanced-but if you are going to add something-instead add a meat or vegetable that's suitable for them and yummy and healthy)

PaulaMackie

She looks fine to me. It is quite difficult to tell with cross breeds because they are all unique there is not a set weight or anything. Especially when you don't know what exactly she is crossed with. Personally i think there if definitely some hound in there somewhere as she has quite a barreled chest and her stance is very hound like.

PaulaMackie

She looks fine to me. It is quite difficult to tell with cross breeds because they are all unique there is not a set weight or anything. Especially when you don't know what exactly she is crossed with. Personally i think there is definitely some hound in there somewhere as she has quite a barreled chest and her stance is very hound like.

dixiesmygirl

It's random and maybe I'm crazy.... but I'm thinking of doing a raw food diet.... Does any body know if it is: more expensive or cheaper? Hard to do? How long does it take? Have any recipes? Suggest a raw food diet? Basically a raw food diet is making your own dog food, right? I would like that much better because it has to be more healthy for them then dog food! Afterall what did dogs eat back then when there was no dog food? They probably lived longer that's what!

Tess

Dixiesmygirl,
I feed my dogs a raw diet... not at all sure I'm doing it well yet as I'm still learning. They've been eating raw since about January and are both very healthy. There were some immediate improvements. Both put on weight, which they needed to do as they are high energy, run-it-all-off type of dogs. Their teeth are clean, their poos are small and not stinky, coats are nice and they have no itchies and I never need to clean their ears or worry about anal glands. I agree with you its much more natural. There are certainly some very good dog foods out there now, so I don't think one has to go raw for good doggie health, but if you want to, I would recommend a few books. Many people start with the one by Kymythy schultz here.. There are lots of websites too. This one is pretty good for trying to make it relatively simple. Leerburg | Feeding a Raw Diet
I have not yet started to delve into the resources on this forum, but I see there is a whole section on natural diets and so forth.
Overall, we have had good experiences with trying new things beyond "dog food." The advertising industry tries to convince us that it is not possible to feed a dog healthy without an industrial dog food, but like you say, dogs did not used to eat scientifically formulated brown nuggets in the past! LOL!

Criosphynx

If the dog has been only on ol' roy, my guess would be that changing to raw would be a massive system shock...you can't mix and match it the same as kibble and it would be, for the most part a "cold turkey" change...ate least when you change kibbles you can gradually mix it...with a raw/kibble switch...the two foods digest at different rates and its generally a bad idea to mix them in the same meal

honestly, if you want to pursue raw, you need to, as suggested above do alot of reading/research on it...I did almost two years of reading on it before I tried it and I still had issues with it.



that said, IMO you should simply switch the dog to a premium food, at first at least...get the dogs system used to richer food. Keep in mind that ol'roy is basically sugar, salt and corn and thats what her body is used to.

and in my personal experience, it was not cheaper. If you can buy large amounts and freeze/ store large amounts, it can be...but I could not. Plus the time spent hunting around for meat is som'thing I consider an expense.

fawkese1

you can make your own dog food and cook it i did that a lot when i first got my dog, but lack of fridge/freezer space made it really really difficult to keep up... what i liked about cooking the food is there weren't the same issues of mixing it with kibble as there are with raw, now i will make him some stuff but not as much as before... and i really only supplement his kibble diet, i don't replace it, the info out there as far as balanced dog food recipes is inconclusive IMO/E or again, the food itself just takes up too much space.

as crios said, switching to a higher quality food now, to get her used to it, would be a good idea, especially while you research your options