border collie cross, 5 years old. 13Kg

My dog is hyperacvtive and is as thin as a rake, she goes for a 3 mile run
about 3 or 4 times per week and even then, when she gets home she never sits
or lies down, she eats a variety of foods including leftovers (pizza, toast,
sandwiches, chips (french fries in America) and anything else offered to
her, but her main diet is:

Dog food (8% protein), rice, wholewheat biscuits or wholemeal bread,
carrots, brocolli, peas, cauli etc, all fresh.

Tinned fish, IE sardines, pilchards, mackerel etc

She never seems to put on any weight and her ribs are visible, she never has
loose stools or gas, she's wormed every 3 months without fail.

I've recently been feeding her a 'complete' dried food in place of the
wholeheat biscuit, as it's about 18% protein, but she isn't really
interested in it.....the same thing happened once before when I was feeding
her a diet of chicken, veg, rice and biscuits, and the vet suggested
replacing the biscuit with a 'complete' food in an attempt to get some
weight on her - she just lost interest in food altogether

Years ago I read about the raw bone thing but she's not interested - they
just sit there until they start stinking, although she will eat small
amounts of raw meat, but quickly loses interest.

Is the diet she's on now sound OK? - the vet doesn't seem too bothered about
her ribs being visible and just put it down to her being a 'live wire'

Does she 'know' how much protein is in her food? - if it goes over 10% she
turns her nose up at it.

--
Phil L
RSRL Tipster Of The Year 2008

In article ,
Phil L wrote:
Is the diet she's on now sound OK? - the vet doesn't seem too bothered about
her ribs being visible and just put it down to her being a 'live wire'

It's hard to tell - you don't mention if the food is kibble
or canned, and since canned food has such a high percentage
of water what looks like low protein might actually be okay
as a percentage of dry matter. You need to do the
arithmetic. It sounds like she eats a lot of junk food,
including low quality fats and *far* too much sodium (salt),
and I'd cut that crap out.

I'd tend to look at a diet oriented towards performance
dogs.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community

Melinda Shore wrote:
In article ,
Phil L wrote:
Is the diet she's on now sound OK? - the vet doesn't seem too
bothered about her ribs being visible and just put it down to her
being a 'live wire'

It's hard to tell - you don't mention if the food is kibble
or canned, and since canned food has such a high percentage

The complete food is dried, the dog food I referred to is canned, I was
feeding her the canned + veg and wholewheat mix, but have now swapped the
wholewheat for complete


of water what looks like low protein might actually be okay
as a percentage of dry matter. You need to do the
arithmetic. It sounds like she eats a lot of junk food,
including low quality fats and *far* too much sodium (salt),
and I'd cut that crap out.

That's me you're talking about! - the dog gets small amounts of leftovers
like pizza etc - what I'm saying is that she gets a varied diet and there's
no salt added to any of her veg or rice etc, or any of her tinned foodstuffs


I'd tend to look at a diet oriented towards performance
dogs.

Working dogs you mean? - we have a museli type working dog food in the UK
called Vitalin, which is mainly oats and 16% dried chicken, the remainder of
the 'working dog' mixes are way too high in protein for her as she refuses
anything high in protein

--
Phil L
RSRL Tipster Of The Year 2008

In article ,
Phil L wrote:
Working dogs you mean?

Right, something along the lines of a 28/18 or better.

as she refuses anything high in protein

That just sounds weird to me. What makes you think it's the
protein? Also, dogs can be trained to be fussy eaters and
not to be fussy eaters. I would work on this.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community

Melinda is right. Dogs can easily be trained to be picky eaters. Our
two year old is a shelter dog and she ate everything we put in front
of her in the beginning (which was dry dog food as her basic food, raw
veggies, and dog biscuits as treats.) She came to us undernourished
so she was in heaven just to get regular feedings.

Our other dog is elderly and pretty much lost interest in food, I
don't know if it hurt her teeth or was just uninteresting. She's
never been a problem eater before but at fourteen, she became picky
and losing weight so we started putting additives to entice her. Well
you can't treat one dog without treating both so the two year old got
additives too.

We'd add pieces of bacon and add water so the flavor would get around,
or soup, or cottage cheese, or anything we thought wouldn't be junkie
but would be tasty and coat the food to entice the old dog. It worked
for awhile.

But then the old dog lost interest even in the additives. And now the
two year old doesn't want plain old dog food anymore. If it doesn't
have additives, she doesn't want it.

So we put the food down, both dogs look at us like, "Well? That's the
best you can do?" If it was just the two year old I wouldn't fuss,
I'd leave the food down and when you're hungry you will eat. But the
fourteen year old dog... hard to do...

Moral of the story... by putting additives in the food we turned a
young dog who was more than happy with her dog food into a picky
little booger.

Shari

---
Dogs and bears, sports and cars, and patriots t-shirts
http://www.villagetshirts.com
WlND0WS and MAClNT0SH shareware games
http://www.gypsyware.com

Shari and Dakota wrote:

But then the old dog lost interest even in the additives. And now the
two year old doesn't want plain old dog food anymore. If it doesn't
have additives, she doesn't want it.

What does your vet say about your old dog's loss of appetite?
Any known or likely causes?

When Chile was in her last year (16) and had lost interest in
most food and was losing weight, we added Eukanuba Maximum
Calorie to her other food, and she ate it pretty well, at least
for a while. It's a prescription food, available only from a vet.
I wouldn't suggest giving it to a young dog who has a healthy
but picky appetite, and it might not be appropriate for your
older dog, depending on her condition.

So we put the food down, both dogs look at us like, "Well? That's the
best you can do?" If it was just the two year old I wouldn't fuss,
I'd leave the food down and when you're hungry you will eat. But the
fourteen year old dog... hard to do...

With your two year old, you could try putting down the food for
15 minutes, and if she hasn't eaten it, pick it up and make her
wait until the next feeding. Unless she has a disorder that
requires regular feeding (like diabetes), it's not likely that
missing a meal or two will harm her.

Moral of the story... by putting additives in the food we turned a
young dog who was more than happy with her dog food into a picky
little booger.

Yeah, that can do it!

When Chile was getting special meals, we were afraid that Oppie
might start thinking he should too. Silly us - he's a Lab!

FurPaw
--
Don't believe everything that you think.

To reply, unleash the dog.

In article ,
FurPaw wrote:
With your two year old, you could try putting down the food for
15 minutes, and if she hasn't eaten it, pick it up and make her
wait until the next feeding. Unless she has a disorder that
requires regular feeding (like diabetes), it's not likely that
missing a meal or two will harm her.

Absolutely, and I'd actually either go with "The first one
they skip is their idea, the second one they skip is mine"
policy if you feed more than once/day. I'd also consider
cutting the quantity in half, at least temporarily. Not
eating can be a sign that the dog is being overfed.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community

Shari and Dakota wrote:
... Well you can't treat one dog without treating both

Yes, you can.

But then the old dog lost interest even in the additives.

What does your vet suggest?

--
Mary H. and the restored Ames National Zoo:
The Right Reverand Sir Edgar "Lucky" Pan-Waffles;
U-CD ANZ Babylon Ranger, CD, RE; ANZ Pas de Duke, RN; and rotund Rhia

Phil L wrote:

I've recently been feeding her a 'complete' dried food in place of the
wholeheat biscuit, as it's about 18% protein, but she isn't really
interested in it.....

That's because it's not really complete. Your dog is a carnivore and
that food is not made


Years ago I read about the raw bone thing but she's not interested - they
just sit there until they start stinking, although she will eat small
amounts of raw meat, but quickly loses interest.

Try raw green tripe. She will not turn it down. Also try putting just a
little garlic on meat and quickly sear it in a pan, leaving it mostly
raw. I did that for my old girl when she got picky.



Is the diet she's on now sound OK?

Absolutely not! ;-)

We feed them twice a day. Morning and evening. We don't worry
whether Dakota eats or not, she'll eat if she's hungry enough. It
usually gets the better of her if she skips a meal or two and then she
eats everything in sight again. I know the experts say to take the
bowl up after 15 mins but the older dog has always been a slow eater,
eating a little now and a little later. Doesn't hurt anything so we
let her. Leave the bowl all day and if she's hungry (and it's
appealing enough) she eats. It's actually kinda funny to watch the
two dogs jockey for each other's (same) food. It always tastes better
out of the other dog's bowl.

No doubt many will disagree, but I have a hands off approach to aging
pets. My philosophy is that if I take her in and she's diagnosed with
virtually anything serious, I'm not going to subject her, or me, to
treatments. I'm going to let her go naturally, in peace and comfort,
without needles and unpleasant tests and so forth. At her age it
isn't like they can "fix" her. She's elderly. You get old, the body
starts to wither. Geez, I know the feeling with my own body and I
don't run to the doc for me, either. So it's pretty much a personal
philosophy all around.

As long as she's happy, comfortable, good quality of life and not
suffering, she lives her life in peace with us. The older dog and her
appetite issues, she's just gotten picky (and senile) in her old age.
She has lost a few marbles along the way. Pretty normal based on the
other old dogs I've encountered. Even people get that way. Right now
she's happy to eat if I add a bit of vegetable soup to her food.
Tomorrow she might feel picky again. And they always get carrots as
treats, she's never said no to a carrot or dog biscuit.

I had two old cats years ago. One I let go naturally, and she had a
good end, and I have happy (sad happy) memories of her end. The other
I took to the vet, and his end still tortures me to this day. The
tests, the poking and prodding, the treatments that left him worse
than when we took him in and shortly after, the final ending where
they couldn't hit his vein and kept sticking him over and over... no,
I'd rather let it be natural as long as there is no suffering for
beyond normal old folks stuff.

Shari