My three year old Pomeranian is overweight. She will not eat any canned dog food and hardly the dry. We give her chicken, burger meat, and sometimes pork when we make it, for dinner. What can I get for her to help get rid of the weight? She is also on meds from the vet for allergies which adds to the weight gain. Thanks.
By Elaine
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First of all, you should not of started giving your dog scraps in the first place. I would suggest taking your dogs for two good walks a day to get plenty of exercise. You can buy dietary dog food at any supermarket. Your dog is going to have to bite the bullet and get used to dog food again. I would also go to your vet to get more recommendations.
Any pet owner should feed their pet the intended diet from day one. You're pet might've resisted in the beginning but it would've adapted. Your dog is not only over weight, it's most likely highly unbalanced nutritionally. I'm assuming you cook the meat before feeding too (not recommended).
You have 2 choices:
1: Force it onto a good dog food (wet or dry). It'll be a struggle for both of you at best for at least a couple of weeks but it'll be worth it in the end. Start off by starving it for a good 12 hours. Now offer it a bowl of dog food with a little bit of the original meat that it likes.
What I'd do is hold the meat up to it's nose so it knows it's accepted food then place it in the bowl of dog food. Only give it a little meat so it's appetite gets going but not enough to satisfy. Despite what crying or moaning, don't give it for more meat. If it walks away after eating the meat and not the dog food, wait until the next meal and do the same. Your small portions will ensure your dog doesn't starve to death (plus it'll lose weight) for the time being while at the same time, it'll start to associate the smell of the new dog food with meal time.
Your dog will eat the dog food after a few meals. When you notice it starting to eat the dog food, reduce the meat at each meal. After a few days or a week, only give it dog food. It will adapt.
2: You can continue feeding it meat like you are but go online and find a healthy proportion guide to ensure your dog's health. You might find one that says like 80 percent meat, 10 percent organs, and so on.
Make sure it's a lean formula so your dog loses weight. If you haven't been feeding you dog organs and muscles, there's a chance it won't eat that stuff. (You must make sure your dog eats everything in the bowl so that the diet is complete.) If that's so, you'll have to mince everything up into a meat mixture so it has no choice but to eat everything. Sprinkling tuna juice or gravy on the whole thing the first few meals might help.
Once a week, go to a cheap Asian grocery store and buy a beef bone (Asian grocery stores sell them for a dollar or 2 per bag). Go home, boil them up for a couple hours so the bone marrow becomes softer and give it to your dog. It'll love it for sure and it'll help a lot with nutrition.
I suggest you go with option 1. I've tried option 2 before. It's too much work and you most likely have to invest in vitamins and stuff like that to compensate. Good store bought dog food like Ajisen, Orijen, or Science Diet for example will let your dog live a long life. A dog that lived for 8 years on dog chow could've easily lived until 10 or 11 at least if it was fed a GOOD dog food. Brand is totally up to you.
Stop giving it scraps. It'll wait for scraps to fight its hunger instead of giving into the new diet.
Also, exercise. It needs more. If you already take it for walks, stick it on the tread mill for 15 minutes a day if you have one. If you don't, buy a laser pointer and get it to chase it for 15 minutes a day while you're watching tv or something.
Feeding good food to your pet might cost a little more now but you'll save a bundle on trips to the vet/surgeries, it'll be healthier, look healthier and it'll be around for much longer for you to love.
My dogs eat regular dog food for the most part, but I sometimes feed them baked potato, which the point of my saying that is they will eat vegetables. I'd say less meat, more veggies and other grains... and control her food! You do not have to keep a bowl full of food always handy for her to eat. You can put the food out once or twice a day in controlled amounts. Unless she goes out and kills something (smile) or learns to shop for food, that's that! (smile)
Hi there,
I also got my dog to lose a lot of weight. She's a Labrador.
Dog food is terrible for dogs, its got no nutrition in it, like eating cardboard. The minute you stop feeding it, you will see improvement with the allergies. Feed veggies together with chicken, necks, giblets, liver, also shin with the marrow bone in it, liver from any animal together with scrambled egg, plain yoghurt, and other organ meats like heart if you can get it. You can feed raw or cooked.
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