Weight Gain

Chikadee

Anyone have any secrets for getting a dog to gain weight? My shepherd is driving me nuts, she just seems like she is not gaining any weight at all. I'm training her as a seizure alert service dog, but I haven't been taking her out places very much because she just looks so skinny.

She is on Innova LB Puppy and I've also been adding canned food to her meals, but still nothing is working. She only weighs 55 pounds and probably needs to be at least at 65 or 70, heck, I'd be happy with 60 right now! I'm giving her extra treats, I've tried Enervite, no luck at all. This has been going on for about 2 months now and she hasn't gained any weight at all. She's been to the vet, all blood tests have come back normal.

Any suggestions at all are welcome

Lightwingcreations

Is she really too thin? Or just very lean? And what did the vet say about her weight? You didn't say how old she is, but if she's still a puppy, it could be that you won't be able to make her gain weight for a while. I've seen many different breeds of puppies who are moderately active to extremely active stay thin until they are around 2 years old. What is her activity leve like?

Chikadee

The vet says she definately needs to gain weight, you can see her ribs and spine from at least 200 feet away. She's 15 months old. She's a working dog, so she's usually very active though I haven't been working with her much in hopes that that may help her gain some weight as well. I know German Shepherds are supposed to be lean, I'm just not sure that she should be this thin...

Lightwingcreations

If it were my dog I would start adding in extra meals and gradually increasing portions at each meal. The guidlines for feeding dogs is seriously lacking for some dogs, as they all have a unique metabolic rate. If you and your vet have ruled out all health problems I would say up her caloric intake in whatever way is feasable to you. I don't follow any of the guidelines with my dogs, I just wing it and watch thier overall body shape and tone. If they need more, I'll give them more, if they seem a little padded, I'll cut back. Good luck with your girl

Renoman

Wow, that sounds just like my GSD Tessa. From the time she was a puppy of 6 mos. old until she was 3 she was nothing but skin and bones and I had every test done that you can imagine. She was also extremely active and grossly underweight. I'd often get comments about how thin she was.

My vet recommended adding Prozyme to her food, which I did and it helped, but what I also ended up doing was gradually doubling the size of her meals until she started to keep weight on. I gradually increased her over a period of time to 2.5 - 3 cups twice daily. With the prozyme added she eventually gained enough weight to look healthy instead of malnourished. It was then constant monitoring and increase/decrease of food to keep her at a good weight which was about 70-75 pounds, since she was a large female. Around 5 y.o. her metabolism slowed down and I could keep her pretty steady at 1.5 cups twice daily.

Good luck.

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Chikadee

Yeah, I get the comments too, that's why I've cut back on taking her places, which is seriously hurting her training as a service dog. But her health comes first of course!

I just started feeding her from 2x a day to 3x a day today and I'm slowly adding more food. Hopefully she will eat all of her food. Some days she wolfs it all down in seconds, other days she just picks at it. It's very frustrating. Today is one of the good days where she ate it all at all 3 feeding times. She's probably eating around 2.75-3 cups a day on a good day and 2 on a bad day. I will try the Prozyme as well.

Anyone know offhand what brand of kibble has the highest calories? I'm not so great with kibble, my dogs have always been on raw (except for Libby, just got her 5 months ago), but the meat prices are just so high around here right now to feed more than 1 dog raw and my older girl can't tolerate kibble at all.

Thanks guys!

lovemygreys

I was going to suggest feeding her more often throughout the day, but you are already doing that. I've had good luck with raw ground beef putting weight on a dog. Just mix a bit in with each meal. Introduce it slowly b/c of the fat content. Sometimes I mix up "fat ball" treats - basicallly ground beef, crackers/cereal or oatmeal and honey and give them with a meal or as snacks between meals. Just google "satin ball recipe" and you'll find tons of suggestions. I always have to look it up before I make them. LOL

I'm assuming she's had a blood panel done to make sure her levels all look good? Thryoid function and tick disease are two things that come to mind.

Some dogs are just skinny dogs. I used to feed our boy Prajna twice (or more) what the other greyhounds ate and he *never* gained weight! Greyhounds are supposed to be skinny, but this guy was insane! Completely healthy but would just poop out extra food and never gain weight. Finally at 9 years old he's started to keep weight on...but I used to cringe taking him places b/c I was afraid people would think we weren't feeding him!

all4thedogs

I have a skinny GSD too. He is a 4.5yr old male that doesnt like to eat. We finally got him to put on weight by adding raw to his diet. He absolutely loves raw meat and will eat with gusto. He is finally at a point where I would consider him lean not thin.

I cant feed him all raw, so adding it a couple times a week is what I do.

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