Advice please

T

tractor

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Hello,

I don't often post in here, but often have a good lurk!

I wonder if you lovely knowledgeable people might have a bit of advice for me. I have two labs, one of which is mine, 6 years old, fit and healthy. He's not the reason I'm posting, but just thought I'd introduce him anyway as he's helping me to type......

The "problem child" is Bracken, my OH's dog. Bracken is 3 years old, has had a problem with his hock joint since birth which is managed with injections when it is particularly bad. I'm not 100% sure of the technical term for his condition, but basically he has a golf ball sized lump surrounding his hock joint, made up of cartilage. It causes him no pain generally, but around this time of year we have a period where he is very hoppy. It always coincides with when he is fat, which is the reason I'm posting...

The dilemma is, we have cut his food right down (1 tin of pedigree chum per day, perhaps 2 small Markie type snacks, that's it) and he is getting walked for an hour a day. This currently seems to be making his leg worse, so I have a proper dilemma - do I walk him so he loses weight and his leg hurts less, although it will put him in more pain initially, or do I cut his food back further and make him even grumpier?

Help! Thank you for reading, you can all have some of my OH's chocolate that I've stolen as he's gone to the pub :-)
 
One of our labs was lame on and off, and we were told about something called Mobile Bones from a company called Pooch and Mutt. Pets at Home do it in some stores, or you can get it direct from P&M online. We have been giving her that for about 6 months, and she has not been lame since, despite us taking on a young rescue lab that runs her off her feet, and has helped her lose the last bit of weight that we were struggling with!
 
As Lml suggests, change a food to a better quality food like fish4dogs dry or Jameswell beloved and sardines in oil mixed in and do away with the tinned dog food altogether, the fish4dogs also sell salmon oil in bottles.
I would also try some hydrotherapy sessions, it' s a much lighter way to exercise and builds muscle nicely to prepare for surface/ground exercise and will help with the pounds;).
Also look up magnetic collars.
 
Switch him to a real food. Fish4dogs.

Add in some boiled green beans to make him feel extra full.

Hydrotherapy and acupuncture along with his usual walk.
 
When our JRT was getting overweight I grated carrot into her food which filled her up and helped the diet enormously (I subsequently found where she was stealing food from and that helped even more :rolleyes: )
 
Thanks everyone, I do think that getting his diet right will make his leg come good too.....going to work on the OH tonight to get them on to a different food.
 
katielou said:
Switch him to a real food. Fish4dogs.

Add in some boiled green beans to make him feel extra full.

Hydrotherapy and acupuncture along with his usual walk.
Click to expand...

Stupid question but does it matter what type of green beans, poor Busta is on a diet and he is hungry and therefore scavaging... I need to make him feel fuller for longer (sound like a Marks and Spencers add) Can I add all different types of veg? would that help?

Ax
 
Gladioli said:
Stupid question but does it matter what type of green beans, poor Busta is on a diet and he is hungry and therefore scavaging... I need to make him feel fuller for longer (sound like a Marks and Spencers add) Can I add all different types of veg? would that help?

Ax
Click to expand...

Green beans are the lowest in calorie and highest in fiber thats why its recommended you add them. They usually use French beans here as you can get them in big packs for cheap but whatever you can get.
 
What you are feeding is very unbalanced. Try a complete food so that you don't have to worry about carbohydrate/protein balance when you are needing to feed less. With complete food you just feed less. If you are in the habit of giving treats then put the next meal ready when he has just eaten. Then take any titbits you give out of that, come meal time what is left is whats left he will still have had a correct daily ration. I feel you should get nearer to the correct weight before too much excercise as you could make problems worse. Don't feel bad about feeding less to get his weight down that is a human perspective not his.
 
Thank you for all your comments. I agree that getting the food right will get his weight down which will make his leg come better.

I ordered some samples of Fish4Dogs, which arrived today - they were both very keen on it, surprisingly my (usually picky) lab was more into it than the gannet! OH says we can try a sack and see how long it lasts/how they do on it/whether the picky one will get bored of it.

I have been walking Bracken for the same amount of time (I have to wlak them together due to work) but I've been keeping him on his lead. This seems to have helped as he's not been hopping for a few days.

Thank you all again for your comments, hopefully with a bit of persuasion & evidence of the good advice on here OH will let me change their food :-)
 
Whole raw carrots and feed from a kong toy-lasts longer. Switch off Pedigree, nasty stuff.

Re supplements to help, research turmeric-I'm seeing rave reviews everywhere and seraquin from the vet is expensive, but contain turmeric (£1.78 for 400g in Asda;)) I know of three horses on it currently and my pack are all on it.
 
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