Combating your Dog's Obesity

Numerous studies have concluded that obesity can adversely affect your dog's lifespan.  Just like humans, the biggest causes of obesity in dogs are the quantity and quality of food that they eat and how that relates to the amount of exercise that they undertake.  By consulting the body condition chart below, you will get a fair idea ofwhere your dog’s shape sits and whether you need to take steps to help change it.  Breed and metabolism have an effect, a sporty, active dog will need a little more food than a less active one.

According to the PFMA, vets consider that 49% of dogs in the UK are overweight and with obesity comes health problems.

Healthy Paws food contains such excellent quality nutrients, that the volume of food that needs to be fed can be significantly reduced.  On the back of our complete dog food bags, you’ll see a chart giving guidance as to what quantity of food to feed each day.  The figure on the left is the one to err towards and the one on the right is the absolute maximum that should be fed.  Finding the perfect volume of food for your particular dog involves studying their poo.   If you feed your dog twice a day, then he or she should only need to poo twice a day.   Start by feeding the amount on the left hand side of the chart based on what your dog weighs.  Your dog should excrete small dark coloured firm poos no more than the number of times that you feed him.  If you are feeding too much, then poos will be sloppy, or might start off dark and firm, but be sloppy at the end.

We often find that owners will ask for advice because their dog has no problems with its morning poo, but the afternoon or evening poo starts OK then goes sloppy at the end.  The answer is to feed 60% of the daily amount of food in the evening and 40% in the morning.

Read our blog post Dispel the myths about dog nutrition which gives you more information about how to judge the quality of your dog’s food.  It also unveils the mysteries of the part that specific ingredients play in your dog’s well being.  The key message is that the better the quality of ingredients, the less the volume that needs to be fed. Hence the cost per day of feeding Healthy Paws can be considerably less than other brands and eating fewer ‘empty calories’ which cause obesity means a happier, healthier dog.