# Overweight on Raw....



## Mrpuck (Oct 19, 2004)

Hello all. I have a 3 1/2 year old GSD and she is really starting to tip the scales near 100 pounds now. It's heavy for her, and I think I really realized we have a problem when the groomer said she couldn't even jump up onto the groomer table anymore. 

I typically feed her the usual 3% of her body weight as I have done for her and her brother since they have been pups. Her brother is a lean slender 85 pounds, and she is just fat. They get the same size servings, same food. Pork, Chicken, Beef, Fish, Eggs, and 10% of organ meat. 

I have since tried cutting back the food to her to about 2%, which 2 pounds to this GSD is like 3 Leg Quarters. I feel like I am starving her. Regardless I stuck with is for weeks. I am not noticing ANY difference.
The only thing I can think of is I do sometimes feed them a gorge meal once a week. A huge pork shoulder 6-7lbs. but I typically will not feed them the next day then. Maybe this is causing the issue, I dunno.
I also feed at night, when they are near bed time to avoid bloat from running around after they eat. Maybe I should only feed her in the morning?

I am at a loss on what else to do, I am at the point of taking her to the Vet. However the Vets in our area, none of them are happy with the RAW diet she is on. Pretty much blame that for anything even though she is healthy other then the weight. I am afraid if I go to the Vet she will be put on a weight control kibble formula. 

I am just concerned if she keeps up this weight I may be looking at Elbow or Hip problems soon. :help:


----------



## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

Have you had her thyroid checked? How much exercise does she get? Mine gets pretty regular exercise and gets 1.75%. I would decrease to 2% at least and increase exercise. I would also stop the "gorge" meal until her weight is back under control.


----------



## Mrpuck (Oct 19, 2004)

I did have her Thyroid checked months back, because she tires quickly on walks. Everything came back good, and the Dr. said they didn't see any problems. I contemplated going to a specialist after that but just didn't have the money to throw at it, when aside from being overweight and tiring easily, she is perfectly healthy.

I'm going to cut out the gorge meal for now. See if that helps, I can also try walking her more often.

We have a 2 acre lot, and she is outside pretty much all day running around with her ball, chasing deer, etc.


----------



## Two (Jul 18, 2011)

I think walking her more often, casually over time, will help this problem. If you don't walk her at least once a day I could imagine the dog gaining unwanted weight.


----------



## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

How tall is she? I don't know how much overweight she is but guessing 20 lbs because she's a female.

Definitely start with walks and low impact. Maybe swimming. I would make sure she got regular, structured, exercise. She's tiring easily because she's overweight.


----------



## bocron (Mar 15, 2009)

Maybe you lucked out and have an "easy keeper". We had a DDR bitch a number of years back that lived on almost nothing compared to the other dogs. It was just the way she was and we fed her accordingly. Close to 100lbs for a bitch is ginormous! I wouldn't worry about the percent you are feeding her, just getting her back into a good weight. If you feel she needs a bit more food then give her some green beans as filler, just be sure to rinse if you use canned beans since they are usually pretty salty.


----------



## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

Jax is an "easy keeper".  Her ideal weight is 62-65 lbs and if she's not getting good exercise (45-60 minutes of running) every day then her food should be kicked back to 1.5% to 1.75% which is about 20 oz per day.

I forgot about the green beans!


----------



## Freestep (May 1, 2011)

bocron said:


> Maybe you lucked out and have an "easy keeper". We had a DDR bitch a number of years back that lived on almost nothing compared to the other dogs. It was just the way she was and we fed her accordingly.


Yes--some dogs just do well on less food, and that's a good thing--it saves you money! To the OP, I would cut her food back by about 1/3 and continue the exercise. She's getting tired quickly because she's lugging an awful lot of extra weight around, all the time. With a third less food, you should start to notice a difference within a couple of weeks. If you don't, cut the food back further. I have not heard of "gorge feeding" with raw, but I would stop doing that with her. She obviously doesn't need it. 

One of my dogs had the opposite problem--she couldn't keep weight ON with raw, so I switched her to kibble. This is the first I've heard of a dog that got too heavy on raw, but I think you're just feeding her way too much. Don't feel like you're "starving" her if she only gets three chicken quarters a day--that's way more than any of my dogs are eating, and they are not underweight or starving to death. Of course they are hungry all the time--most dogs are--and most dogs will eat as much as you put in front of them, because that's what they're wired to do. In the wild, you never were sure where your next meal was coming from, so when you got food, you ate as much as you could possibly hold in your belly. Modern dogs are fed regularly, but their evolutionary wiring doesn't know that, so many (if not most) American dogs get waaaay too fat. A well-meaning owner thinks that if a dog acts like it's starving all the time, he's not getting enough nutrition, so he overfeeds. It's terrible for the dog, causes all kinds of joint and organ issues, but somehow people manage to overlook this. Glad you haven't!


----------



## martemchik (Nov 23, 2010)

I feed premade raw and kibble. My 1 year old gets about 2.5 cups of good kibble in the morning and about 1.5 cups of premade raw at night (its like ground up chicken and vegies/other vitamins). He is a slender 75 lbs. Three chicken leg quarters a day seems like way too much. He would get more when he was a growing puppy but we have cut back in the past few months and he looks great. I've heard of the 3% rule but I don't think that it works for all dogs (just like 2000 calories doesn't work for all humans). I would really cut back, and if you don't see any bile throw up then your dog is fine. Let her burn through all that extra weight, you have her brother (I'm guessing litter mate) and if they are the same height he should still be a little heavier than her. If she is smaller, she should weigh less than him.


----------



## vomlittlehaus (Aug 24, 2010)

You dont have to put her on a kibble just because the vet 'reccomends' it. You do what you want with your pet, the vet is just there to help and guide. I have found most dogs carry more weight on a raw diet, but it is more solid weight. Just cut back on her current diet. I try to evaluate how my adult dog looks about every six months and adjust accordingly (unless I notice something needs to be changed sooner).


----------



## Mrpuck (Oct 19, 2004)

Thanks for all the advice. I did attach a few pics of her, I will have to update it every month. 

Going to do the nightly walks and cut the food back even more. 
1.5 pounds for her seems so small, but I will give it a shot. 
Your right she is always hungry, and is a pig when it comes to food.


----------



## Holmeshx2 (Apr 25, 2010)

Yes she is definitely overweight.. if thats your male next to her thats not a good picture but he looks like he might be overweight as well. Not sure if you said but how old are they? 

As for tiring out its like anything if you hold 30 lb weights your gonna tire out a lot quicker on your walks she definitely needs to lose quite a bit of weight and with her size your not going to notice the differance quickly especially not in a week. My pup needed to lose weight on raw also because I was overfeeding I was giving her close to 2.5% of her weight and noticed she looked great but had to press some to feel any ribs so cut back to 2% and after a week didn't notice anything but over the course of the month she started looking alot better. Go to rawdogranch.com Laurie has a great article on helping a raw dog to lose weight. 

Please for your dog don't feel bad about cutting the portions back to a reasonable size I know it's hard I feel bad with my girl cutting her food back and sticking to it because she acts like I'm killing her and if I feed twice a day the portions are like one bite to her but shes doing well on it and i still give her snacks but healthy "filler" foods. Green beans are a good one either canned rinsed or I buy frozen so they aren't covered in salt she loves asparagus and different veggies so I use those when I feel bad. Also for the record on average it's 2-3% of their body weight 3% is the top end for a HIGHLY active working dog not just running around the yard not many dogs need that much food. I would go to Lauries site and check it out I believe you start giving a percentage of the ideal body weight not current but double check she has tons of info on feeding there.


----------



## Freestep (May 1, 2011)

Mrpuck said:


> Going to do the nightly walks and cut the food back even more.
> 1.5 pounds for her seems so small, but I will give it a shot.
> Your right she is always hungry, and is a pig when it comes to food.


I can tell!  You're absolutely right, she is far overweight--like 20-25 lb more than she should be. It didn't take overnight for her to get that heavy, so it won't take overnight to get her lean, but it will happen, as long as you don't let her sway you into overfeeding again. 

After the huge amounts of food she's been eating, yes, the correct amount of food will seem very small. Don't let that worry you. I have an Akbash dog who weighs a lean 130 lb, and he eats one (1) cup of kibble a day. That is less than some people feed their lap dogs, yet it is all he requires to stay in good physical condition. He is another "easy keeper". He does forage for fresh eggs from my chickens, so probably gets 3-4 raw eggs a day on top of his kibble (or whatever raw I am feeding). As you can see, he is lean, but not thin.


----------



## Mrpuck (Oct 19, 2004)

Holmeshx2 said:


> Yes she is definitely overweight.. if thats your male next to her thats not a good picture but he looks like he might be overweight as well. Not sure if you said but how old are they?
> 
> As for tiring out its like anything if you hold 30 lb weights your gonna tire out a lot quicker on your walks she definitely needs to lose quite a bit of weight and with her size your not going to notice the differance quickly especially not in a week. My pup needed to lose weight on raw also because I was overfeeding I was giving her close to 2.5% of her weight and noticed she looked great but had to press some to feel any ribs so cut back to 2% and after a week didn't notice anything but over the course of the month she started looking alot better. Go to rawdogranch.com Laurie has a great article on helping a raw dog to lose weight.
> 
> Please for your dog don't feel bad about cutting the portions back to a reasonable size I know it's hard I feel bad with my girl cutting her food back and sticking to it because she acts like I'm killing her and if I feed twice a day the portions are like one bite to her but shes doing well on it and i still give her snacks but healthy "filler" foods. Green beans are a good one either canned rinsed or I buy frozen so they aren't covered in salt she loves asparagus and different veggies so I use those when I feel bad. Also for the record on average it's 2-3% of their body weight 3% is the top end for a HIGHLY active working dog not just running around the yard not many dogs need that much food. I would go to Lauries site and check it out I believe you start giving a percentage of the ideal body weight not current but double check she has tons of info on feeding there.


Thanks, I am definitely going to go check out her article. The male is actually the perfect weight. May be a bad picture of him, but his ribs show. People actually think I don't feed him, he is so skinny. 

I like the green beans idea for a snack. I'll give that a shot and see if she likes it. Also I mentioned I give them raw eggs as well, I think I may cut that out as well for a bit since it's probably high in fat.


----------



## Mrpuck (Oct 19, 2004)

If she turns into an "easy keeper" as you have all described. I definitely won't complain on the added savings.


----------



## Holmeshx2 (Apr 25, 2010)

actually eggs aren't high in fat and probably just fine in her diet.... dogs need some animal fat in their diet and I would look at possibly what a typical week is like for food but honestly you are giving her ALOT of food 3% is a lot for any dog and 3% of her current overweight is just going to keep adding to her weight issues because she'll pack on the weight plus don't forget they can pack weight on pretty quick with raw just by adding a few ounces a day. You might have to do some research but any veggie low in cal fat and sugar should be great for helping to fill her up some so you don't feel so bad just in case she doesn't like the green beans. One thing I've learned is Jinx acts like shes starving ALL the time but if I give little snacks throughout the day she seems better because she's not hungry shes just a begger. So instead of adding a cup of veggies with her meal or something I'll toss her bits of what I'm eating throughout the day.. bite of a burger or a bite of melon that I'm munching on and she's thrilled and it doesn't have to fill her up just satisfy her mind because she wants whatever she sees.


----------



## Draugr (Jul 8, 2011)

Stick with raw, cut down on the percentage.

My guy got a little fat on raw too, I was feeding around 3%, now he's around 2.5% - but he's also a 19 month old intact male.

The more extra weight your dog has on her the longer it will take to notice a difference. Mine was only about 5lbs overweight and it only took two weeks to lose most of it.


----------



## paulag1955 (Jun 29, 2010)

I don't have anything to contribute to the overweight discussion, but I do notice a lot of you cautioning about rinsing green beans before feeding them to your dogs. 

FYI, Libby's does offer green beans that are canned with no added sugar or salt. If they're not available in your area, you can order them online direct from Libby's. 

12/14.5 oz. Libby's Naturals French Style Beans

Of course, Shasta won't eat them. Doesn't like her veggies.


----------



## malinois_16 (Aug 8, 2010)

Feeding the crap the vet recommends will only make her fatter. Trust me. 

Continue feeding raw but cut back. Base the amount you feed on the weight she should be. So if she should weigh 70lbs, feed her 2% of 70lbs.


----------



## DunRingill (Dec 28, 2007)

I don't think I've ever fed any of my dogs 3 leg quarters in one meal, YIKES! Sounds like way too much food.


----------



## malinois_16 (Aug 8, 2010)

It depends on the chicken quarter. Lincoln will eat 3 chicken quarters in one meal if they are small. If they are large he only gets 2. But Link also gets 2lbs a day of raw


----------



## Verivus (Nov 7, 2010)

You're feeding a lot of food. 3% of her body weight is obviously not working so I would stick with 2% for at least a month. Take her in to get weighed and take her in again in a month. If there's no improvement then I would go down to 1.75% and repeat. Up the exercise. I would put her goal weight at 75 lbs for now; maybe lower after seeing how she looks once she hits the goal. In the photo your male also looks overweight, but you said he's not so I'll take your word for it.


----------

