Slightly paranoid about weight gain in my puppy

B

blaiseshimmer

Forums Regular
Hi everyone - we recently brought into our home our sheltie puppy, Kelby. WWWAAAYYYY more energetic that our last SheltieAngel, who was, I see now, probably the most passive, quiet sheltie ever.

We lost Lir to CHF, due to no small part his weight; he was short, around 12 inches, but always around 30 pounds. After a myriad of diets, etc, he was starting to lose weight when we switched him to raw, but his poor little heart was already tired.

So you can imagine, we are already twitchy about overfeeding Kelby. Just before we brought him home, his breeder weighed him as 4.6 pounds at 7 weeks. Now, at 10 weeks, he's 6.8. His parents are both within standard, the dad at just under 15 inches and 17 pounds and the mom at 14 inches, around the same weight.

Is this a normal weight gain for sheltie pups? I'm used to a Shiloh, where 10 pounds a month is expected, but for this little guy, we don't want to overfeed him. He's been dewormed and has a clean bill of health, but he literally inhales his food, wailing quite loudly, when he finishes his plate and his two buddies (adult scottie, who couldn't care less, and 7.5-month old Shiloh who we swear likes to tease Kelby with his pile of food). Even with his weighed amount of food, he still feels a little bony.

Any advice, input, suggestions, would be greatly appreciated (and maybe I'll be brave enough to ask for help with posting his ears, which at this time are covered with glue since he wiggles A LOT).:fl
 
weight

I tend to have chowhounds, so I try to stay on top of the weight issue. My previous girls were stocky, solid, but not fat. They loved to run and run, same with Savannah, but Kaleigh, she isn't as active as my others. They all have been bottomless pits and suffer from entitlement. If anyone is eating within sight they feel slighted and are vocal about their predicament. As many posters on here, shelties always act as if they have been starved and had their final meal-such little actors and FAKERS. The rib test is pretty reliable, although in puppyhood they can feel a bit chunky one day and then grow overnight. I try to gear intake to activity. And now where I am, lower temps need more calories to stay warm. And it never hurts to get input from your Vet, or even your breeder. Kaleigh went through a pudge stage in puppyhood, and the breeder said not to worry that they had seen that with litters from her mom. Especially her girls, they would pudge up, and then have a growth spurt, which is what Kaleigh did...so that gave me a bit of insight that I found helpful.
 
The best advice I have is to ignore the numbers. A dog's height and weight are data points, but they really don't give you any information about whether the dog is at a healthy weight. This goes for the sire and dam's weights, too.

Here is how you tell: feel the dog's sides. He should feel like the back of your hand, where you can easily feel the ribs (poking hard to find them under the fat doesn't count!), but there is a layer of tissue over them. He should have a nice little waist when you run your hands from neck to hips, too.

Even with his weighed amount of food, he still feels a little bony.
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See above - that's how they are supposed to feel.

but he literally inhales his food, wailing quite loudly, when he finishes his plate
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This is 100% normal behavior for a dog. Dogs evolved as scavengers; they found a rotting carcass or a garbage-pile, inhaled whatever they could as fast as they could, and then kept looking for the next carcass or garbage-pile, which they might not find for another few days. A dog who ate slowly lost out. Healthy dogs do not say, "Gosh, I've had enough, now I'm full, thanks Mom"; they say, "More-more-more, until I barf it back up." (I don't know what's up with your other two dogs, but personally, I want all of my dogs to be good, eager eaters.)

Do a guess-and-check. Start by giving him one half a cup of food, twice per day (one cup total). Feel his sides every day. Does he feel fat or fit (again, see above)? If he is really feeling bony (be honest! I mean hip-bones poking you), add a little. If he feels fat (again, honesty!), reduce the food a little.

I apologize if I come across harshly with all of this. I am harsh when it comes to dogs and food, because it is so easy for us to control their weight (the dog can't open the fridge for himself), but so hard for some owners to disengage from the "poor little hungry puppy" or "love=food" or "How dare you call my dog fat!" mentalities.

Also, and I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but you admit yourself that you have a history of having an obese dog. I want to help you break out of the mentality that led to that, so that it doesn't happen again. You need to be ruthless when it comes to food intake.
 
What kind/brand of food are you feeding him? A cheaper food won't make them feel as satisfied as a good quality diet.

And do you plan on having him neutered? We have a male puppy who's 10 months who we're not planning on neutering and I've noticed he's staying a good weight, compared to my old Sheltie who started packing on the pounds when she was spayed at 6 months and then was always overweight her whole life, no matter what I did. She had issues with arthritis and Cushing's Disease, all helped by her weight no doubt.

Anyways that's totally a personal decision, but we've done lots of research and not neutering is what feels right to us (and what our breeder recommends).
 
Believe me, I have a tough skin, so if I AM doing something dumb or overthinking, please let me know.

My dogs are on raw, ever since I realized that not only was Lir pathetically obese (he was down to a quarter CUP twice a day of prescription diet kibble and STILL was struggling to breathe with all his weight), but that he had a slew of skin issues and smelled like a brewery (food allergies). Ironically, when he went to sleep and didn't wake up, his coat and skin were perfect, and he had lost some weight.

My dogs are on raw due to my preference, plus they seem to really like it. Both the puppies (sheltie and shiloh) are fed amounts based on their present weight, though I do think that the shiloh seems to eat slower since a good portion of his meal is meat still attached to bone. And his temperament, like my scotty, are both on the passive side. Kelby, on the other hand, is always in a hurry, no matter what...it seems as if he's always in his zoomie stage...

His breeder had mentioned that she feeds the puppies pretty much as much as they want; I'm going to increase the amount of food for this little guy. Maybe I'll start feeding him before I feed the other two (they're all fed in their crates, and I've caught Kelby trying to pull a chunk of pork from the Shiloh's crate...the stinker...:wink2:)

You guys are great.
 
Spirit is on a raw diet too and doing great on it. She's very active and I've actually had a hard time keeping weight on her now so I've been steadily increasing her calories to get her to maintain. She's now about 12 inches tall and 12 pounds, and eats close to 600 calories of raw food per day :eek2:

From what her breeder told me, it is perfectly natural for shelties to feel that they are starving to death at all times. Spirit is a shameless food thief and apparently her mother is too.:yes:
 
Cara Sandler said:
Spirit is on a raw diet too and doing great on it. She's very active and I've actually had a hard time keeping weight on her now so I've been steadily increasing her calories to get her to maintain. She's now about 12 inches tall and 12 pounds, and eats close to 600 calories of raw food per day :eek2:

From what her breeder told me, it is perfectly natural for shelties to feel that they are starving to death at all times. Spirit is a shameless food thief and apparently her mother is too.:yes:
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I don't do full raw, but Dickens gets one cup of dry food per day plus three to five ounces of beef; some of it raw; some of it in the form of jerky, which I make specially for him. Anything and everything else is fine by me, so long as it does not contain simple starches or sugars. It's essentially the Atkins Diet for dogs. Dickens is 20.5 inches and gets, I'd say, between 900 and 1200 calories per day. Smaller dogs need more food in proportion to their body weight; pups even more. I'd be circumspect about the amount of food a puppy was getting, but I wouldn't agonize over it.
 
At this point I wouldn't worry about a large weight gain, puppies are growing constantly and at some point the increases will level off. When I took my pupp Piper home he was just under 5 pounds and he gained almost 2 pounds in just over a month. He's also 10 months old now (Fireweed's pup Barley's brother) and he's levelled off at 16 pounds, he's gone at times over a month and a half with no weight gain and he's about 14 1/2 inches tall. But I know we worry, I remember taking Piper to the vet when he was about 17 weeks old because I was worried he wasn't eating enough (he used to be very picky haha) and because he was sleeping alot:lol:. Now I wonder what happened to my picky puppy because he now scarfs down his food lol.
 
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