Experienced and professional animal trainer provide their insights in answering this question :
A. According to Dr. Jim Dobies, cutting your pet’s food intake by 25% along with a gradual increase in daily exercise is a good way to achieve weight loss in the overweight pet.

How to Identify Common Pet Problems ?

Our sources include academic articles, blog posts, and personal essays from experienced pet care professionals :

Continue until an ideal body weight is achieved

If there is no significant weight loss after one to two months on their calculated RER, then I recommend cutting back your dog`s total calories by 10 percent (most veterinary nutritionists recommend a 10–20 percent calorie cutback).

Here`s another approach: 3,500 calories = one pound of weight. If your goal is for your dog to lose one pound every two weeks (appropriate for a dog who should weigh 50 pounds), you must reduce calories by 3,500 per two weeks, or 250 calories per day.
(Resting Energy Requirements or RER), which can be calculated by multiplying the animal`s body weight in kilograms raised to the ¾ power by 70, for example, a 10kg (22lb) adult neutered dog of healthy weight needs RER = 70(10kg)3/4 ≈ 400 Calories/day.
How long will my dog need to be on a diet? Most dogs will achieve their ideal weight within six to eight months. If the process is taking longer than this, something needs to be changed. A healthy weight loss is between one to five pounds per month based on your dog`s size and current condition.
While weight loss can sometimes be achieved by feeding less of your dog`s regular maintenance food, you`ll find you must feed very small amounts to achieve the reduced number of calories required to lose weight. This leads to a pet that may feel less satisfied and begs more.
High Impact Activities

Work up to high-impact activities slowly and be sure to talk with your veterinarian before starting any new activity with your dog. Running. Increasing speed from a walk to a run is the most effective way to burn additional calories.

Eggs are a good source of protein and healthy fats. They`re also included in dog food to help your dog lose weight and rich in vitamins A, D, E, K and B-6, and minerals such as selenium, zinc, potassium, iron, and copper.
When restricting calories veterinarians follow a very important rule for the desired rate of weight loss. For dogs this is 1-2% of their total body weight per week. For cats this is 0.5-2% of their body weight per week. So, for example, if you have a 100 lb Labrador Retriever, he can safely lose 1 to 2 lbs per week.
For example, to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week — a rate that experts consider safe — your food consumption should provide 500 to 1,000 calories less than your total weight-maintenance calories. If you need 2,325 calories a day to maintain your current weight, reduce your daily calories to between 1,325 and 1,825.
It`s a bit of a myth that wet dog food is more fattening (we`ll go into this below) as although it`s seen as more of a `treat` than dry kibble, its lower carbohydrate level means it`s actually more often used to promote weight loss in dogs.
Wet food can be more filling

When your dog needs to shed a few pounds, some turn to wet diets as a solution. Because canned food has a much higher water weight than kibble, canned occupies more space in the bowl (and the dog`s stomach), and can provide an easy way to scale back on calories.

Cut Back on Treats

Dogs love to beg, but fatty treats and table scraps contribute to obesity. Treats should make up no more than 10 percent of her calorie intake. Feed carrots, cooked sweet potatoes, or green beans as treats between meals.

Rice and chicken are a great combination for dogs, and they can be a part of a healthy diet if you feed them in moderation. If your dog is overweight, you should try to limit her carb intake, but if she`s healthy she can eat a moderate amount of carbs and still be healthy.
Yes, dogs can eat broccoli. Dogs can eat the vegetable both cooked and raw, as long as there are no seasonings or oils added. However, this vegetable should always be given in very small quantities, especially because the florets contain isothiocyanates, which can cause gastric irritation in dogs.
Are carrots safe for me to feed my dog?” While some of the vegetables we love are unsafe to feed our dogs, carrots are a perfectly safe and nutritious treat for your dog.
How Many Calories Can You Burn Dog Walking? While it ultimately depends on the pace and general temperament of the dog, a person of average weight can burn around 205 calories per hour of walking a dog at a leisurely pace of 2-mph, including potty and idle sniffing breaks.
Another study tracks results of a 22 pound dog walking at a strong pace on a treadmill while submerged in 10 inches of water would burn about 64 calories in 30 minutes if maintaining a pace of 6.8 miles per hour.
Try substituting safe fruits and vegetables into your pet`s diet. Green beans are very low in calories and have a satisfying crunch. They can be a great green snack for your dog or cat. In addition, most dogs love baby carrots, and at about four calories each they make a great weight loss snack.
Other low calorie treats for dogs are carrot sticks, cucumber slices, zucchini slices, apple slices (without seeds), cooked lean meats, small pieces of baked potato or baked sweet potato (no unripe potatoes or potato plants), bananas, unsalted almonds, plain cooked pasta, broccoli, tomato, pumpkin, blueberries, …
How Many Eggs Can A Dog Eat? It`s widely recommended that most dogs should not be given more than one full egg per day. Eggs should never be the sole source of protein for your dog, much like dog food contains other much-needed nutrients for a healthy, balanced diet.
The answer is yes. Rice is an ingredient sometimes found in commercial dog foods. Many pet owners feed white rice to their sick dog. One of the reasons white rice is the chosen grain for a dog with an upset stomach is that it`s easy to digest, quick to prepare, and low in fiber.
“While there is no best time, with most dogs that eat twice a day, it is best to feed them in the morning as soon as you get up and then again when you get home from work in the afternoon,” says Dr. Sara Ochoa, veterinary consultant for doglab.com who practices in Texas.
Look at your dog if their waist is extremely exaggerated instead of a gradual slope your dog might be underfed. If you can see or feel the ribs and they don`t seem to have any fat on them your dog is probably underfed. If your dog is losing patches of hair there may be an issue with the nutrition.
Little and often is the safest way to start. Try to take your dog out at least twice a day, and start to introduce active games – ambling down the road on a lead is not going to burn off many calories. Increase the activity level at home as well.

Relevant Questions and Answers :

the most relevant questions and answers related to your specific issue

Q. How do I determine how much my overweight pet should weigh?
ANSWER : A. There are many tools to determine overweight and obesity levels in pets. A new tool, morphometric measurements and body fat index, are available to accurately determine a pet’s ideal weight; this will allow an accurate determination of the amount of food a pet should receive to achieve weight loss. Feeding the correct amount will lead to greater weight loss success.

There are many weight loss food options to help pets reach their ideal weight. Your veterinarian can help make a ideal weight recommendation. Here are some tips to help your dog lose weight in a healthy and safe way:

1. Diet: Providing a healthy and well balanced diet is essential to your pet’s overall health. Finding the right food for your dog can be a challenging process. For those overweight animals many commercial dog companies offer weight loss diets, but it is important to evaluate food labels for adequate nutritional content.

You want to ensure you are not missing other essential vitamin or mineral content. Volume of food is also important and the amount of food that works for one breed of dog may not be the same for another breed of dog. Portion control as opposed to free-choice feeding can help your dog to drop a few unnecessary pounds.

There are also prescription weight loss foods designed by veterinary nutritionists, such as Hill’s r/d (http://bit.ly/1AoENSd). Some pet owners find that home cooking is the best option for helping to provide a well-balanced and realistic diet plan. There are websites such as balanceit.com that offers recipes to fit your dog’s specific needs. Consulting with your veterinarian or a veterinary nutritionist to find the appropriate diet is a great way to help your dog be as healthy as possible.

2. Exercise: Another great tactic for weight loss for your dog is exercise. Whether this is through running, walking or playing with a favorite toy all of these are wonderful types of exercise to help keep your dog at a lean and healthy weight.

For those pet owners with busy schedules utilizing professional dog walking services or playtime through dog daycare services is another option. It has been shown that those pet owners that exercise regularly with their pets generally live a healthier lifestyle.

3. Physical therapy: As animals age pet owners offer encounter their favorite canine having more difficulty walking and have a dwindling desire to play with toys. Physical therapy, specifically hydrotherapy is a wonderful way to help older and arthritic animals gain more mobility and lose weight. Hydrotherapy has been proven to have several therapeutic effects on the body including, muscle strengthening, relief of swelling, decreased joint pain, less stiffness in limbs, improved circulation, weight loss, and increased tissue healing to name a few. For more information on the benefits of hydrotherapy:
http://bit.ly/1w1qqoy

4. Veterinary visit and blood work: Weight gain can also be related to underlying health concerns such as hypothyroidism or other endocrine disorders. Scheduling a veterinary evaluation and routine blood work can be another important component in increasing the longevity of your dog’s life. Conditions such as hypothyroidism that predispose dogs to gain weight can be treated with a daily medication to improve hormonal balance. If feel that your dog is unnecessarily overweight there can be an underlying health condition that needs to be addressed.

5. Healthy treats: Pet owners love the chance to reward their favorite canine companion with treats and most dogs jump at the chance to consume these delicious products. The problem is many treats, which can include commercial dog treats or table scrapes can add many unnecessary calories to your dog’s daily intake. Reading labels and making note of the calories in these treats is an important component of understanding your dog’s overall health. Treats should not exceed more than 10 percent of your pet’s daily calories. There are healthier treats that can be offered to your pet to keep calories lower yet provide a fuller sensation. A pet owner can add steamed or pureed vegetables, such as carrots, green beans or sweet potato to add more fiber and thus a fuller feeling for your dog.

Read Full Q/A … : How Do I Determine if My Dog is Overweight? – Pet Health Care

Q. My cat is excessively scrstching herself., to the point she has sores. She is strictly an indoor cat. Did have flees been treated for 2 months
ANSWER : A. For every flea you see on your pet, there are 100 more in the environment. Get your pet on a good topical or oral flea control through your vet. In flea control, you get what you pay for. Consider asking your vet for a dose of Capstar. It helps get the problem under control by killing the fleas on the pet starting in five minutes but only lasts for 24 hours.

You need to treat your home environment. If you use a pest control service, tell them you are having a flea problem and they can adjust their treatment. Use a premise spray that also contains an IGR, insect growth regulator. This keeps eggs and larvae from maturing into adults and helps break the life cycle. Also, vacuum EVERY DAY, throwing out the bag or emptying the canister every time into an outside receptacle and spraying the contents with insecticide to kill the fleas you’ve vacuumed up.

Treat your yard too, since fleas are opportunistic and will hop a ride into your home on your pant leg without you knowing it. Concentrate on areas under bushes, in the shade. Fleas are less likely to be located in open sunny areas where it gets hot.

If chemicals are a problem, you can use borax. Sprinkle it into rugs, into corners and under furniture, use a broom to work it into the fibers and let it sit for hours, days even. It won’t hurt you or your pet to have it present. Then vacuum it up, reapply as needed. Food grade diatomaceous earth can be gotten from a health food store and worked into the rugs and corners in the same way as borax. These treatments aren’t as fast and effective as chemical insecticides but they can help.

You might want to consider boarding your pet for the day at your vet, to give you the opportunity to flea bomb your house without having to worry about your pet being exposed. They can bathe your pet and give a dose of Capstar while you treat your home.

Be patient, you may have to repeat these steps multiple times 10-14 days apart to help break the flea life cycle.

Skin problems can have a variety of causes, sometimes more than one. It is important to have the problem checked by your vet to determine if there is a medical cause for your pet’s skin issues and treat accordingly.

In pets of all ages, fleas, food allergies and exposure to chemical irritants such as cleaners and soaps can be a cause. Any one of these may not be enough to trigger the breakouts, depending on how sensitive your pet is, but a combination can be enough to start the itch-scratch cycle. Finding out the cause and eliminating it is the best course of action. With flea allergies, if your pet is sensitive enough, a single bite can cause them to break out scratch enough to tear their skin.

Check for fleas with a flea comb. Look for fleas and/or tiny black granules, like coarse black pepper. This is flea feces, consisting of digested, dried blood. You may find tiny white particles, like salt, which are the flea eggs. Applying a good topical monthly flea treatment and aggressively treating your house and yard will help break the flea life cycle.

If you use plastic bowls, this is a possible cause for hair loss, though this tends to be on the chin, where their skin touches the bowl while they eat. If you suspect this to be the culprit, try changing the bowls to glass, metal or ceramic.

Food allergies are often caused by sensitivity to a protein in the food. Hill’s Science Diet offers some non-prescription options for sensitive skin as well as prescription hypoallergenic foods for more severe cases. Royal Canin carries limited protein diets that may also offer some relief. Your vet can recommend a specific diet that will help.

If there is no relief or not enough, consider getting your pet checked by a veterinary dermatologist and having allergy testing done.

Read Full Q/A … : Cat Excessive Licking, Scratching, and Chewing Causes

Q. My pet eats too much. I need to know when and how much to feed him. Any advice?
ANSWER : A. If you feed your pet a commercial food, most food bags have a feeding guideline on the side to help you know how much to give. This is a good baseline and is usually based on your pet’s weight or age. Once you start with this amount, you can adjust the amount of food given as needed – if your pet seems to gobble his food and is losing weight or is more active, then increasing the amount is good. If your pet picks at his food or appears to be putting on the pounds, reducing the amount can help. The amount to give is usually best fed broken up into several smaller meals throughout the day rather than one big meal. For most adult animals, feeding once in the morning and once at night is enough. Smaller dogs or young animals may need a third meal mid-day as well. Switching out treats for healthier options may also help prevent overeating or weight gain. If you feel your pet cannot safely lose or gain weight on his own, then making an appointment with your vet can help!

Read Full Q/A … : 10 Things You Should Know About How Much to Feed Your Pet

Q. My cat will not eat the renal food my veterinarian recommended, can I feed a grocery store food?
ANSWER : A. Your veterinarian recommended a therapeutic kidney diet because it has ingredients that will help slow the progression of your cat’s conditions, especially phosphorus and lower protein levels. Many of the non-prescription or grocery store foods generally have high levels of phosphorus and would not be ideal for your cat.

To help your cat accept the new food It is important to do a transition. There are two reasons to do a transition:

1) Occasionally a pet will have a GI upset when switched to a new diet,

2) A pet will accept a new food better when a transition is done to allow the pet to get use to the new texture and flavor.

There is more of a chance with a hydrolyzed protein or different (high or low) fiber level food to cause a GI upset. Transition recommendation:

1) Recommend ¾ old diet – ¼ new diet

2) Do this for a few days; if no GI upset, go to the next step

3) ½ old diet – ½ new diet

4) Do this for a few days; if no GI upset, go to the next step

5) ¼ old diet – ¾ new diet

6) Do this for a few days; if no GI upset, go to the next step

7) End with 100% of the new food.

Sometimes a transition should be longer, especially for cats. Use the same recommendation, but instead of a few days, recommend doing each step for a week or more. If you cat is still not interested in the new diet you can research other non-prescription diets focusing on the labels for appropriate levels of phosphorus and protein.

Also, home cooking may be an option but make sure to provide adequate nutrients. A good website to consult is balanceit.com. This website helps you to create well balanced home cooked recipes and offers supplements to add into the diet.

Read Full Q/A … : The Best and Worst Pet Foods: 13 Pet Foods Ranked

Q. I want to feed a homemade meal for my dog. What are the basics I need to follow?
ANSWER : A. Feeding your pet a homemade meal can be tricky, however there are several steps to take. The first is to begin by examining the ingredients of meals similar to the one you’d like to feed them. Many commercial raw and fresh food diets will feature complete ingredient lists to give you an idea of the portions and types of foods used. Looking up recipes that others have made can also help you find what ingredients are common.

Foods require a balanced level of nutrition that is made up of proteins (your meat source and “slow” energy), carbohydrates (short-term energy and needed for brain health), and fats (for stored energy as well as flavor). Carbohydrates can be in grain form which is most common in commercial diets, or in non-grain sources such as potatoes, peas or sweet potatoes (more common now in “natural” or “holistic” diets). Proteins can come from plant sources, but are most commonly found in animals, and fats can be from many things.

When starting a homemade diet, it is always a good idea to add in an extra vitamin supplement to fill in any gaps or holes in the diet while you find the right balance for your dog. Working with your local veterinarian is also good as they can monitor your dog’s weight and overall health, and may also recommend bloodwork to check for any nutrient deficiencies.

While homemade diets are a nice alternative to commercial ones, they are not under the same standards as commercial diets. For a diet to be fed as a commercial product, it must have an AAFCO certification on it. This is usually listed as a statement on the packaging which mentions whom the food can be fed to (adults, seniors, all life stages, puppies, etc) and ensures that the food is nutritionally balanced. This means that your dog would be able to survive fully on eating only this food. While it may seem the food is balanced, it does not mean the food is healthier than others, and may still contain ingredients that dogs with sensitivities or allergies can have a reaction to.

Read Full Q/A … : Dog Food and Basic Feeding Tips – The Spruce

Q. My pet is overweight, what should I look for in a food?
ANSWER : A. There are many therapeutic food options available. These foods have been formulated to provide the proper nutrients with controlled calories or formulated to alter metabolism, so the pet will lose weight. Using over-the-counter wellness foods is not advised for weight loss. They have not been formulated for weight loss, so while calories can be restricted; nutrients will also be restricted, which could result in deficiencies in important nutrients, such as protein, minerals or vitamins.

There are many options for weight loss foods. There are restricted calories and fat foods; typically calories are replaced with fiber, water or air to give a feeling of fullness. The pet can eat the same amount, but receive fewer calories. There are weight loss foods that alter metabolism. High protein foods have been used successfully to alter metabolism to burn fat. Research has been completed using neutrogenomic technology to alter metabolism in dogs and cats.

Read Full Q/A … : How to Help Your Overweight Dog Lose Weight – Dog Food Advisor

Q. How do I know if my pet is overweight?
ANSWER : A. There are many ways to determine if your pet is overweight: breed standards, body condition score (BCS), body fat index (BFI), and morphometric measurements. These tools are used to determine how overweight a pet is, as well as to determine how much to feed to reach the pet’s ideal weight. Most weight loss programs fail because food dose calculations are based on inaccurate estimations of ideal body weight.

Current methods of estimating ideal body weight (body condition score/ guessing) are most likely to underestimate % body fat and therefore overestimate ideal weight, which leads to overfeeding. Pets are being overdosed on food because of inaccurate estimations of ideal body weight.

To determine body condition score it’s often helpful to have a scale from 1-5 to compare to: http://www.hillspet.com/weight-management/pet-weight-score.html. This scale is based on your ability to feel or see the ribs, the size of your dog or cat’s waist, and the appearance of the abdomen.

An overweight animal can be predisposed to several health conditions including high blood pressure, arthritis, endocrine disorders such as diabetes, and hypothyroidism. This is why it is important to determine an ideal weight for your pet and work hard to maintain a healthy weight.

Read Full Q/A … : Cherry Hill Vet Clinic » Blog Archive » Q: How do I know if …

Q. My pet shows weight loss and has a hard time walking, like he has lost strength in his legs and has no control to maintain balance. What’s wrong?
ANSWER : A. Loss of balance or inability to control the limbs can be caused by a wide range of problems and is usually cause for concern. Damage to the nerves or muscles can cause loss of balance, as well as neurological disease or some illnesses. Having your vet perform a complete examination is needed to determine the exact cause.

Weight loss can refer to the actual loss of fat and weight on your dog, or may also be due to the loss of muscle tone in the body. If there is a problem with one of the limbs, it may be that the weight loss you are seeing is actually loss of muscle in that area. Weight loss can again be caused by a wide range of problems from neurologic disease, illness, parasites or disease. Making an appointment with your vet is best.

Read Full Q/A … : 21 Symptoms You Should Never Ignore in Your Dog – The Web's …

joliana smith

My name is Sarah Smith and I am a dog owner, lover, and trainer. I have been working with dogs for over 10 years and have a passion for helping them learn and grow. I am a certified dog trainer and specialize in positive reinforcement methods. I believe that all dogs can learn and that the best way to train them is to build a strong relationship based on trust and respect.