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How to put more weight on?

*Pauline*

*Pauline*

Well-known member
Dylan is really skinny. He really doesn't seem to enjoy James Wellbeloved(JWB). I wish he would eat more. Can anyone suggest a good dog food that may have higher calories than JWB or tastier so he eats more? It has to be a food that isn't impossible to find.
 
Do you try adding any tinned food or shredded chicken, lightly cooked beef, sardines and their oil, etc? All of these make kibble more interesting. My dogs really like Butchers tripe which is widely available in tins. Pet shops (good ones) should have other quality tinned foods, or there are many high quality ones that you can get delivered to your door through zooplus.co.uk.

In the Caring for your Cavalier section there's a recipe for Satin Balls which breeders use to put weight on dogs. You could lighly cook it rather than feed raw. It s quite high in calories and dogs love it.
 
Thanks Karlin, up late like me (or should I say, "as I"? icon_nwunsure )as usual I see! I mix in a large teaspoon of Nature Diet but don't tell my trainer, she always goes on about messing with protein levels. She says tuna is ok as it's a different type of protein. This makes no sense to me though.

I give Dylan about 70g of food twice a day, he won't eat much more(kibble mixed with Nature diet).

I'll look up about satin balls tomorrow.

Thanks, get some sleep girl! Good night ;)
 
Does JWB have canned wet food? I find that this is a great way to mix up the flavors without causing tummy upset with my Cody. His belly used to be super sensitive to change in diet but I found that the same brand of wet food didn't affect him. I rotate protien sources (rabbit, beef, chicken, venision etc) every week now just by adding a spoonful to their dinner. They love it!!:D
 
Every dog I've had with a poor appetite has Adored Satin Balls. I sent some home with a pup that I was watching. I was afraid they'd be insulted that I thought the boy was tooooooo thin. Instead, they said he loves them and they wanted the recipe. My dad makes them for his very very very active ruby. good luck with them
 
To make a smaller batch - I use

3 pounds cheap ground beef
3/4 wheat germ
8-10 ounces total cereal
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup molasses
3 egg yolks

This size batch fits into a kitchen aid mixer- make into meatballs- freeze-- only thaw a couple of days worth at a time.
 
Has your vet said that Dylan is too thin? I'd talk to him/her and if they say that Dylan is okay don't worry about it. Much better to be on the thin side than the fat side - just ask Wallis!! Less weight means less stress on the heart, joints, pulmonary system.........

Just throwing in my opinion.
 
I have never had a vet tell me my dogs were too fat. Even when it was the truth. When the ribs can be seen, the tuck extreme and the waist scary (like the pup I was talking about) the pup was too thin. It didn't take a Ph d in anything to see it.
I like pups to have a little fat on their ribs-- if they catch any little bug they can end up on supportive care. When a dog is full grown they often lose their "baby fat" and look good- maybe even a little thin and it isn't scary. jmo
 
I guess that's comparing a puppy to a grown woman. Or old woman. The vet looked at Wallis and said that she needed to get rid of about 10 pounds. We're working on it! It's hard, too, because she loves to eat.
 
I've never seen wheat germ, what is it, does it come in a jar or packet and where can I get it? In the baking section of a supermarket?
 
Wheat germ is a bit similar to bran and can be found in most good health food shops such as Holland and Barratt! I swear by Satin balls too for putting weight on dogs, let us know how you get on??
 
Thanks everyone, I'm off to Holland and Barrett. What would we do without that shop. I live in a small town but we still have a Holland and Barrett :D Oh and 13 hairdressing salons :eek: not good as my daughter has a lot of competition.
 
Have you tried putting his kibble in a treat ball.

Chester has James Wellbeloved & Nature Diet as well. But if I put the kibble in his bowl he just walks up to it, has a sniff & then walks away.

I now put it in his treat ball & he loves it again. It's like a game for him & he eats it all up now.

He has kibble in the morning & then Natures Diet in the evening.
 
I know you shouldn't mix them but I put one heaped teaspoon of nature diet with JWB kibble. He eats it all no trouble but if I give a slightly larger portion, he won't finish it. A little more weight has been gained this week though.
 
I mix kibble and other wet foods all the time, just as my parents did for our pyrenees, which lived a very healthy and long lived life (13 years for a giant breed is *ancient* and she never ever went to the vet for a single illness). That is the main thing I feed now -- either a cooked diet, or cooked or other fresh addition mixed with kibble. I have never seen a single convincing argument or actual proof that mixing kibble (or cooked) and anything else cause any problems and have never seen a single *qualified* animal nutritionist say this either. Soe raw food diet manufacturers actually sell a kibble mixer for their raw foods. So I would mix as you like. Why only a heaped teaspoon though of wet? That's such a tiny amount of food!

The argument against mixing is based on to me the quite bizarre reasoning that an animal that subsists in the wild (canids) by scavenging a wide range of foods, or for thousands of years, as domesticated dogs, by scavenging from humans -- eg eating a mix of raw and cooked foods -- and is supposed to have a cast iron stomach that digests very rapidly and is impervious to threats like e coli, salmonella and campylobacter -- is too delicate to eat kibble and tinned or fresh food and so partifular that it cannot gain nutrition from mixing food. Yet captive wolves are regularly fed a mix of raw food and kibble and outlive their wild counterparts by 3-4 lifespans. And if dogs can;t get nutrition from 'mixing' than we, as omnivores, also should not be able to get nutrition when we mix a salad and a soup and bread.

So I am sure you can mix away. :) The Satin Balls recipe itself is a 'mixed' diet as it mixes some process foods with raw and breeders swear by it for giving a nutritional boost to underweight dogs. That's many years of feeding by some very knowledgable dog people.
 
People have told me mixing wet and a "complete" kibble can increase the protein. Like giving puppy food to a grown dog which may be higher in protein, can be bad.

Personally, I think they do their maths wrong, if the dry food is 20% protein and the wet food is 20% then adding them together IS still 20%.

I have also been told wet food isn't so good for the teeth so I only give a little. He has that added to 60g dry twice a day.

I do agree with you though, I just take make what I will with all the information I have.
 
I didn't retain the info as to exactly why, but the amount of protein in wet and dry food can't be compared. Something like oranges and apples! (Just a few brain cells working right now!)

Maybe your dog is like Sasha. She has days where she will lick every speck of food from her dish and other days where she will sniff and turn up her nose. My other shihtzu was the same way, and Tibby is that way sometimes. They seem to know how much they need to eat and don't need us butting into their business!

And maybe Dylan is just at one of those gangly stages. I have a picture of me and Wallis taken a couple of months after we got her and she was all legs.
 
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