Nutrition for weight gain, rejection of dry food and love for cat food - we solve the dog's problems. What can I feed a dog so that she gains normal weight Sheepdog does not gain weight what to do with vitamins

Excessive thinness of a dog can indicate a number of diseases, but this is not always the case. Pets taken from shelters or from the street may be underweight due to a lack of protein, vitamins or trace elements. Weight gain, as well as weight loss, should always be approached with caution, the main goal is not to harm, “tearing” the animal’s metabolism. Consider what to feed the dog so that it gains weight and what activities need to be carried out.

Naturally, the best option is to take the dog to the doctor and undergo a full examination. Firstly, a visit to the clinic is not always possible, and secondly, a comprehensive examination is a significant financial cost. To begin with, we exclude the possible options "on the surface", which are logical:

Important! Diarrhea and vomiting lead to rapid. If you are sure that you are in control of the situation and are not going to go to the veterinarian, in order to avoid rapid loss of muscle mass, add rehydron to your dog's drink.

It is an important responsibility for any dog owner to keep the dog at a healthy weight. Even a healthy dog can be underweight or overweight, but disorders caused by disease or injury are of particular concern. After being properly checked by a veterinarian to rule out possible health problems, most dogs can be helped to gain weight through dietary and lifestyle changes.

Steps

Diagnosis of underweight

Keep track of your dog's weight. If you suspect a dog is underweight, you should start keeping a record of it so you can see the weight loss, and then monitor the weight gain as you begin your weight gain plan. Be sure to provide this information to your veterinarian.

Determine your dog's ideal weight. Talk to your veterinarian about having your dog evaluate their body condition to objectively determine if they are too thin, overweight, or in perfect condition. An example of an evaluation table can be viewed. If it is clear from the dog's body condition assessment that the dog is malnourished, you should seek advice from a veterinarian on what approach should be taken to help the dog gain weight.

Make sure your dog is getting the right amount of exercise. A dog's weight reflects its overall health, which in turn depends on getting the right amount of exercise.

Be sure to check with your veterinarian before embarking on an intense training plan with your dog. Some dogs suffer from arthritis, neurological problems, or metabolic disorders that result in wasted muscle mass and require a special approach under the supervision of a veterinarian so that the dog can improve its health without further injury.
Gradually increasing the duration of controlled walks on a leash is generally safe for all dogs and carries a lower risk of injury to the pet. For those dogs that don't mind water, swimming can be a wonderful and completely safe exercise. Make sure pools, lakes, or rivers have safe water ingress and egress to prevent accidents on the water.

Supplement your dog's food with suitable human food. Introducing some tasty and safe human food into a dog's diet can help increase a dog's interest in food. Low-fat, unsalted chicken, beef, or vegetable broth, when warmed up and poured over food, makes food tastier. In grocery stores, you can find low-fat broths without added salt for a relatively small price. A few tablespoons of broth will add a pleasant flavor to the dog food.

Try using a different food. If your dog is not responding well to the food he is eating, try offering him a different (high quality) dry food or a high quality canned (wet) food, or switch to tried and tested homemade food recipes. High quality feeds usually come first with protein ingredients such as beef or chicken.

Add water to dry food. If your dog is not enthusiastic about dry food, try adding hot water to the dry food and then refrigerate it until it has a porridge-like consistency. This often makes the food more attractive to dogs.

Warnings

Be aware that sudden changes in your dog's diet can lead to indigestion. Consult your veterinarian about gradual transition to a new type of food.
If you are introducing human food, such as squash, to your dog's diet and it is causing your dog to soften their stools, then you may need to reduce the amount of human food added to the food.
Do not overload your dog with serious physical activity if he is not used to it. As with humans, the load should be increased gradually.
Don't force your dog to eat, it can only be tempted with food.

Excessive thinness is always alarming. This applies to both people and animals. But does the translucence of bones through the skin always require prompt action? Is this evidence of dangerous ailments? What do experts say about the problem?

About the causes of thinness of animals

We note right away that pets taken from the street or shelters do not gain weight due to a lack of protein and vitamins. Taking them home, you should not abruptly start fattening, give large portions of food, because good intentions can only do harm. Both weight gain and weight loss must be approached carefully. The main thing is not to harm the metabolism of the animal. It is best to take your pet to the veterinarian and undergo a complete medical examination. But not all owners have this opportunity. Therefore, it is necessary to exclude the probable causes of weight loss.

Perhaps your pet is nursing multiple offspring? Then she really needs to increase her diet, because the growing body of puppies every day takes more and more nutrients from the mother.

Sometimes, if there are two dogs, one can simply eat the other, less active and fearful. Watch both and draw the right conclusions.

With dysbacteriosis, food will also not be fully absorbed, which means that the dog will lose weight. If there are undigested residues in the pet's feces, then for sure the reason is precisely this disease. In this case, it is necessary to conduct a course of probiotics.

Perhaps your dog is too young. Some representatives of service breeds gain full weight only by 2-3 years. They should not be tried to fatten at a young age, exceeding the norms of food intake or increasing the frequency of its intake. An overactive metabolism for such dogs is the norm at a young age.

Or maybe the reason lies in malnutrition? Are you sure you're offering your dog enough food to make sure he's getting enough calories? Start by weighing your pet. Cynological tables will help you determine the compliance of the result obtained with generally accepted standards, indicating the minimum and maximum weight depending on the breed and gender of the dog.

Calculate if your dog is getting enough calories per day. Please note that for 1 kilogram of weight per day, representatives of small breeds should receive 85 kcal, medium - 70 kcal, large - 60 kcal. If your dog is really not getting enough of his calories from natural feeding, then it is recommended to gradually, over the course of a week, increase the serving size by 5-10% to the required daily allowance.

How to properly feed a dog?

If the dog is very thin, then it should be fed not twice, but three or four times a day. After all, the small stomach of an animal simply cannot accommodate a lot of food with all its desire.

Experienced dog breeders recommend that in case of severe thinness, transfer the pet to special high-energy feeds. On their packages there are exact instructions, dosages corresponding to the weight of the dogs. Follow these guidelines strictly. Make sure your pet always has access to fresh water.

Also, in the case of severe thinness and the dog's nutrition with ready-made food, it is recommended to replace them with canned food. If within a week the animal began to gain weight, it means that he was simply tired of the monotonous diet. In this case, you can consider the option of changing the usual food to a better one or transferring the dog to a “natural dog”. But to combine it and industrial feed is categorically not recommended.

With a natural diet, you need to make sure that your pet gets enough B vitamins, especially B12, which is found in eggs, liver, and lean beef. For catastrophic weight loss (for example, after a serious illness), veterinarians advise offering sugar-free infant formula as a "snack". Too frisky, active dogs will not be harmed by energy supplements. These are complexes of substances that stimulate metabolism. If within a week or two after all the actions taken, you do not notice improvement, that is, weight gain by the dog, then you cannot do without a comprehensive examination of your pet friend.

May be associated with some diseases of the internal organs, such as the liver or pancreas.
First of all, of course, contact your veterinarian. He will prescribe your tests (clinical and biochemical blood tests and stool tests). If they detect diseases of the internal organs, then the veterinarian will prescribe a course of drug treatment for your dog and select a suitable diet for her.

Perhaps the dog is due to the defeat of the body by helminths. This can also be determined by a veterinarian by looking at the test results. If there is such a problem, buy an anthelmintic drug (the veterinarian will also help you choose the right one) and give it to your dog. Usually, after solving this problem, the appetite returns to the dog, and she quickly gains the weight she needs.

If everything is in order with your dog, then you should reconsider his diet.
If you feed your pet with natural food, do not forget that the dog is, first of all! When feeding natural, take food rich in animal proteins as a basis in dog nutrition - meat, fish and sour-milk products.

When preparing porridge for your dog, keep in mind that meat or offal should be about 70%, and cereals - 30%. Cook cereals first (rice, buckwheat, preferably millet - this is the most fat-rich cereal. But note that millet must be thoroughly boiled) and only then add finely chopped meat, offal or fish to the porridge. From meat, dogs can be given beef and chicken. Beef is given either steamed or well-frozen. Be sure to remove all tubular bones from the chicken before feeding. Let's give the ocean fish, having previously slightly welded it and removed all the bones from it.

Feed offal (heart, lung, liver, kidneys, scar) to the dog in its raw form, except for the liver - it should be boiled. Feeding raw, unpeeled beef tripe is good for gaining weight in a dog. Give it to your dog at bedtime in its pure form, that is, without porridge, as an additional bait.
Several times a week, give the dog fermented milk products between feedings: kefir, varenets, cottage cheese.

Sometimes a dog becomes very thin after a long illness or due to other reasons. How to feed a dog so that it gains weight - this issue needs to be dealt with in a timely manner. Remember that you need to feed the animal so as not to disrupt the metabolism in the body.

Before deciding how to properly fatten a thin dog so that he gets better, you need to figure out whether the weight is really not enough for his physique and age. From whether the weight of the pet corresponds to the norm, both its health and the predisposition to ailments at a more mature age depend. With normal weight, the dog develops fully, and intense physical activity does not burden it.

Video "How and what to feed the dog"

In this video, experts will tell you how to properly feed your dog.

Causes of weight loss

Sometimes the owner of a four-legged creature notices that his pet suddenly began to rapidly lose weight and eat poorly. The best way out is to show the dog to the veterinarian and undergo a comprehensive comprehensive examination. However, consider the fact that it will cost you a decent amount. That is why it is first necessary to establish the cause of the dog's rapid weight loss, and only then make a decision.

Among the common factors that cause weight loss in a pet, the following should be highlighted:

Feeding your favorite offspring. After that, the dog usually needs a serious recovery.
Dogs living in the same house cannot share food among themselves. In this case, it is advisable to isolate the malnourished dog from other individuals for the duration of feeding.
The dog suffered from the invasion of helminths. In this case, you need to give the animal special preparations for worms, otherwise the consequences may be sad.
This is due to the young age and individual characteristics of the breed.

Feeding offspring

Lack of appetite is not always associated with health problems in your pet. Sometimes she does not eat too actively and at the same time loses weight due to the fact that most of the nutrients leave with milk. When a dog fattens offspring, it often loses weight. In this case, it is recommended to increase the portions.

Make sure that the daily menu includes vitamins. Then the puppies will receive more useful substances along with mother's milk, and the tailed mother herself will not actively lose weight. Do not forget that sometimes the birth of babies in a dog is associated with serious complications. The reason for this is an operation or illness.

High competition for food

Sometimes the owner of four-legged creatures does not notice the exhaustion of one of the pets in a timely manner. It would seem that the food is distributed evenly, and each of your dog has its own bowl for food. However, keep an eye on your animals while feeding: it is quite possible that someone is left without treats, because they cannot win a "place in the sun." All you have to do is feed the deprived dog in another room so that he doesn't have his food taken away.

Age and characteristics of the breed

Among the reasons for the sudden weight loss of a dog, it is also worth highlighting its age and individual characteristics. For example, representatives of service dog breeds often gain weight by the age of 2-3 years. This is due to the fact that the metabolism of an animal at an early age is too active. Therefore, it is not worth increasing the daily ration.

Keep an eye on your dog to begin with: if he continues to lose weight, you should take him to a specialist and check if everything is in order with his health. After consultation with the veterinarian, you can modify the daily diet.

How to feed a pet

In order for the dog to look healthy, have a normal weight and stop shedding, it is necessary to provide her with a balanced diet. You can feed it with a set of the following products:

high energy feed. These include foods high in protein and protein;
natural ingredients. Buckwheat, rice, oatmeal - these cereals contribute to weight gain. As for meat, it is better to give preference to beef, rabbit, chicken;
unrefined vegetable oil - just add a few drops to the feed;
fish, liver, cottage cheese - these products are high-calorie and can diversify the dog's daily diet quite well.

Mixing ready-made feeds with homemade products is undesirable, because in this way you will only disrupt the metabolism in the pet's body.

What Not to Do

Some dog owners prefer to feed their four-legged friend with semolina porridge cooked in milk. Refuse such a dish, since the product of wheat processing, like cereals in general, is tolerated by the dog with great difficulty. You should not feed the dog lamb and pork, as such meat is too fatty for him.

Do not replace meat with offal - they are rarely given to an animal, as a good meat supplement, but not as a main ingredient. The best option is cereals and soups with meat and vegetables. It is possible to prevent anorexia in your dog and increase his appetite if you follow the basic recommendations of the veterinarian.