How to Help Your Dog Maintain a Healthy Weight
Overfeeding your dog and allowing them to become obese is definitely not a good idea. Granted, it’s seldom done intentionally and is more a matter of not knowing how to prevent it from happening. But let’s start with understanding why it’s so important to help your dog maintain a healthy weight in the first place.
Research has proven that slender dogs find it easier to get around and enjoy an overall higher quality of life. In one study spanning over a decade, dogs who were fed the correct amount of food showed fewer signs of ageing and developed canine arthritis three years later than their overfed littermates, whose lives were nearly two years shorter.
Overweight dogs are also more vulnerable to a range of health problems. This includes diabetes, heart disease, hip dysplasia, and pancreatitis among other issues. So, what can you do to help your pooch stay in shape?
Evaluate the Situation
There are three steps to determining whether your dog is at a healthy weight:
- Feel their ribs and shoulder blades - there should only be a slim layer of fat over the bone.
- Check their waist - it should be discernible.
- The abdominal tuck - observing from a side view, the abdomen should rise at an angle instead of being flat.
It’s also worth analysing how frequently your pup takes a bathroom break. If they’re doing it more than twice daily, chances are that something is amiss. Remember, waste is exactly that - waste. It’s only when you’re eating more than the amount your body requires to function that you’ll be getting rid of the excess three or more times per day.
Understand the Paradox
No owner can be blamed for succumbing to their dog’s attempts to secure another serving of food. Now that they no longer need to head out into the forest and hunt, our domesticated wolves have evolved to become expert beggars instead. But in order to help them avoid the troubles of obesity, it’s important to understand how they think.
Most dogs love food. They live for it and are constantly dreaming about it. Others have more of a take it or leave it relationship, but the former is more common. If your dog is one of them, it needs to be understood that they are impossible to satisfy. Whether they’re in perfect shape or morbidly obese, they’re always hungry.
So, you need to focus on feeding them as much as their bodies need and nothing more because no matter how much more you give them, it will never be enough.
Put Quality Over Quantity
A potential antidote to the above problem is to feed your dog the right food, which is important for a myriad of other reasons as well. The commercial dog food industry will have you believe that their mass-produced kibbles provide all the nutrients your pooch needs. While that might be true, it doesn’t change the fact that said food is also loaded with junk.
Even among top-end brands, processed dog food - which no dog was designed to eat - contains high amounts of carbohydrates and unhealthy fats, not to mention the prevalence of preservatives and other artificial ingredients. You only need to look at our own modern diets and what they’re doing to our health to understand why that’s bad.
An increasingly popular alternative comes in the form of raw dog food, which is essentially a natural alternative to the commercial stuff. But what is raw dog food and what are the benefits? You can start by reading this guide on Bella and Duke’s blog, which is a company that specialises in this type of food.
How they work is that you provide some details about your dog, they create an appropriate diet using real, natural ingredients and send it to your door at no delivery cost. There is a range of health benefits associated with this kind of food, including weight regulation, so it’s worth checking out.
Work it Out
Regular physical activity is a non-negotiable aspect of every dog’s life for numerous reasons. Aside from weight regulation, exercise helps your dog release the immense amount of energy that otherwise builds up in their bodies and inevitably finds its way into the nearest piece of furniture.
That somewhat highlights another important part of exercise, which is its role in helping your dog maintain their mental health. Depending on the breed, they’ll usually require between 30 to 60 minutes of exercise per day, be it a brisk walk around the neighbourhood or a game of frisbee at the beach.
As a bonus tip, you needn’t give up treats, as they’re often a vital component of your relationship with your dog. But be sure to use them sparingly, such as by breaking them into pieces and if they’re big enough, reducing meal sizes accordingly. These steps together will help you help your dog stay happy and healthy for years to come.
