My dog is over weight, I’m amused

[desiney]

TLDR at bottom lol

So he is not neutered and just turned 2.

We went into see the vet and got diagnosed with a UTI, got treatment.

Anyway, he weighed 42 pounds. Last summer he was 38 pounds.

The vet advised us to cut back his food a little and give little treats.

Usually he gets treats for peeing outside at night, or a small Nyla bone or the Costco chicken cadet chews when we leave. He also gets training treats for just basic training stuff throughout the day, We don’t leave that often, 4 times a week. We had cut down to just a small training treat on the night outings.

Much to our surprise, at our check up visit 3 weeks later, we discovered he had gained, an entire pound.

We were all perplexed. Told to do no training treats either.

We live on 5 acres, and now.. it has come to our attention that our dog has started unburying all of his treats over the last year. I guess his lack of treats from us has pushed him over the edge. I keep finding old pig ears covered in dirt all over the front yard.

So I guess now we know why he’s gaining weight.

Hopefully summer will help him lose it, as he goes from 4 hours of winter exercise to 8 hours in the summer.

TLDR: dog is overweight, cut back but still gaining. Apparently he has been hiding bones for a year and without treats he is unburying them and eating them.

Edit: here’s the dog tax some including his dirty face after obviously burying a bone with his face.

 

[munwell]

@desiney Smart dog! That rainy day he was saving them for has arrived! I'm actually impressed he remembers all his hiding spots.

 

[desiney]

@munwell I am also impressed. He doesn’t just sit and chew them at once either.

Even before if we’d walk by a hiding spot he would go and unbury because he thought we’d discover it.

 

[deusvult92]

@desiney Your dog is great. It's very much dependend on the breed and the character, if they do such things like storing food for later. I remember how i was at the house of a friend with my old german shepherd, he has a husky. My shepherd found one of the spots where the husky buried a bone and he wasn't happy, that my girl got the bone and started to eat it.

P.S. Happy Cake Day to you!

 

[desiney]

@deusvult92 Thank you!!

He is quite funny. We had a tree trimmer out for a quote last week or two and he had a poodle.

Well, she started finding the pig ears and an older deer bone in the yard and she started resource guarding..

Luckily my pup isn’t protective so he just kind of looked at her funny and ran next to me like she was being mean growling at him hahaha.

 

[esmith76]

@deusvult92 My dog sitter watches multiple dogs, separately. The other dogs bury bones in the yard all the time, but my dog just digs ALL of them up and enjoys them! I think if we had a yard she might bury stuff sometimes because she’ll sometimes carry treats around the apartment and cry and dig around in blankets or the rug seemingly sad she can’t hide them.

 

[lids]

@esmith76 My dog FREAKS OUT if he can’t properly bury his food or treats. I end up having to take them from him and put them up because he gets sooo distressed from it. I honestly don’t know how to ease his anxiety around this. He will sit there and try to bury, bury, bury all the while whining and barking more and more frantically

 

[howardvickers]

@desiney I had a shih tzu that would do that. Except his was an indoor dog, so his idea of burying it was to aggressively dig in the corner of the carpet, then push the milk bone into the corner with his snout. He would then get very offended if anyone noticed his "buried" bone.

 

[desiney]

@howardvickers YES he does this inside if his dog doors closed lol.

If you walk by he looks at you with the side eye and huffs.

He doesn’t usually dig too much at the floor, but he just aggressively nose nudges it against the wall until it’s somehow ‘hidden’ enough. lol I have yet to figure out how he thinks it’s hidden in plain view.

He also hides them in the couch, some well.. some not.

 

[jermaineman]

@munwell The doggo hath foreseen this outcome.

 

[jedi__knight]

@desiney What a smart dog!

It might be easier to just cut back his kibble a little. I did that with my dog, and he became more food motivated and easier to train.

 

[desiney]

@jedi__knight He’s insanely well trained, and we did cut it down to 2 cups. We were doing 2.5 cups.

He unfortunately is a little too smart at times. He does listen without the treats though. Can give him pets as a reward.

His food is fed on a snuffle mat and he doesn’t always eat it all. He is not an over eater in general, hence him hiding his extra bones when he was full.. so if he is actually starving he will sit by his mat and sigh. Happens like 1x month, usually on over exerted days.

The recommendation for food is: 2 1/4 cups for 30 lbs, 2 1/2 cups for 35 lbs and 3 cups for 40 lbs.

His embark dna testing said he should weigh 37.

I don’t want to cut him back too much since he limits himself when he’s not hungry.

I really think his lack of exercise with the rain might be making it… harder

Plus I think sometimes he sneaks to the neighbors and eats their cat food they leave outside (dumb since it can attract rats/racoons/etc) we are working on a fence around our acreage but a slow expensive project.

 

[thisguynamednick]

@desiney 2.5 cups is a lot. I give Hopper 2 cups a day, which is about 1000 Calories.

 

[desiney]

@thisguynamednick We are doing 2 cups a day now.

 

[peopleperson9503]

@desiney Calories matter more than cups. There are calculators online that you put in your dogs current weight and body condition score and it will give you the calories you need to feed. The food bag should tell you the calories per amount of weight. Weigh out his food for a bit then you can transition to measuring by volume when you get a better idea of how much food it is.

My dog is at a healthy 45 pounds. She was 68 pounds when I got her. She gets just less than 2 cups a day.

 

[desiney]

@peopleperson9503 I’ll look into this, as I just did what the vet recommended which was look at the back of the bag and feed for 30 lbs. and I feed him the 1/4 cup less and then if he asks for more I give him that 1/4 cup but he doesn’t really

 

[tim10001]

@desiney You...increase your dog's food if he asks for it? That's a more challenging way to manage intake.

All of my dogs calories are accounted for. He gets 1.5 cups/day across two meals and some training/treats (Purina Pro Plan) (8 YO neutered male). He's 40 lbs, up from 38 when we first got him from the shelter but stable for 4 years.

Anything he gets during the day comes out of his kibble allowance. It sounds annoying but it's super easy, if we take half a (0.5 cup) scoop of his food to give him treats or training, we just leave the rest of the scoop on top of the dog food container so we know what's been taken out.

We used the Ohio State calorie calculator and then did the math using the kcals on the back of the bag.

He likes the routine and so do we - I really recommend holding his calories fairly steady. And Google the calories in your treats! Pig ears are something like 30% of my dog's daily calorie intake. We have to adjust his dinner if he gets them more than once in a while. If you really want to have something to give him, there are lots of low calorie treats you can give - try carrots & carrot peels, little squash cubes, and cabbage. Mine doesn't go for them but I know lots of dogs that do.

 

[desiney]

@tim10001 We are not giving any treats besides with his antibiotics now since speaking with the vet.

Vet recommended following the bag for 30 lbs which is 2 1/4 cups daily, (embark says he should be 37), we are giving 1 cup in the morning and 1 at night.

If he exercises more, sometimes he will ask for extra which is rare. Then I give him the other 1/4 cup to reach the recommendation of the 30 lb 2 1/4 cup. He doesn’t usually eat all his food on his mat, he snacks on it throughout the day on there. We feed him on there to increase his nose work as it stimulates his brain.

I’ll check out the calculator too, maybe it’ll be different. Thanks!

He was getting probably 2 pig ears a week, but when he did he was not finishing his food or even close.

I really think it’s related to his decrease in exercise due to winter, but we will see as the summer ramps up. Unless his UTI doesn’t go away then we need to look at if there’s a medical issue.

I do think he’s losing a bit as his chest was chubbier when sitting and it’s a lot tighter now.

 

[amyzmom]

@desiney You could try bulking up his kibble with pumpkin purée, green beans, carrots, or just some water.

 

[leoncb]

@thisguynamednick It matters what type of food. All food has different nutritional value and calorie content.

2 cups of spinach is not the same as 2 cups of chicken.

Similarly metabolisms and exercise amounts will be different for different dogs.