Losing weight

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vieshot

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My collie has just been prescribed onsior to help with her arthritis. We have been caught in a vicious circle of me not giving her to much exercise to help her not get to stiff and sore so then she has put on weight which is of corse not helping her joints!

Her whole life she has been around 30kg (she's crossed with a lab so quite stocky) however has just weighed in at 40kg! Im going to give her an extra walk on lead for 20-30 minutes in the evening. She already gets an hour in the morning and spends 2hours+ playing at the field at least three days a week.

She gets fed a mixture of raw and wainwrights. How much should she be being fed? Can I cut her meat/kibble down and replace with vegetables to fill her up so she's not getting as many calories?

Any tips? I'm not used to having a fat dog!
 
Don't replace with anything, just cut her food down.

40kg sounds an awful lot - both my collies weigh between 18.5-19.5kgs each!! Even the stockier collies don't weigh much more than 20-22kg at a healthy weight so I would think even 30 was quite a bit too much.
 
Nope, she's crossed with a Labrador and vets have always praised her condition before now. She was coming out point to point training with the horses on a daily basis and was fit as a fiddle. She's much bigger than a border collie. 30-32kg is her ideal weight.
 
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i would just cut down the food, as she is gaining as she cant exercise as much- so she does not need as many calories. she probably wont even notice. try and weight it to check how much she gets
 
I would cut down the Wainwrights and feed more bone, something like chicken carcasses so that she has enough to keep her happy, and raw meaty bones.
 
Raw is supposed to be 3% of ideal body weight, I'd go for lower end of female lab breed standard. I think she's to heavy-sorry-and that will exacerbate the arthritis. Keeping her lean is the best thing for her. When do you feed raw and when Wainwrights and what raw are you giving?
 
RAW feeding you feed BETWEEN 2-3% of their body weight. I'd be feeding her the minimum. Also you shouldn't mix raw and kibble as they digest it at different speeds... Get rid of the kibble and go full 2% raw!
 
She gets the packets of ready made up stuff ordered in from Raw2Go. They are 450g a packet. I can cut out the wainwrights and buy in chicken wings. I'm a bit out of my depth. So much conflicting advice on the Internet! One page tells me feed 1.5% for weight loss, however I thought 2% was minimum? Do I feed the percentage of the ideal body weight or the existing body weight? no idea how much a chicken wing weighs! If I feed one packet of the ready made stuff and then two small wings/one big wing a day does that sound about right or will she then be getting to much bone as the minces contain 10%? Overwhelmed!
 
Only issue I have with the bone is that whenever I feed her chicken bones, half the time she pukes them up! She's a sensitive weirdo, could I get away with feeding her 1.5 of the ready made packs a day instead, they contain bone so therefore she would be getting around 700g of raw food and then she can still get her chewy in the evening....
 
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For raw feeding, it's 2-3% of the ideal breed standard body weight, tricky with a cross. 700g is a lot! Feed by eye, not by weight although you need to keep a close eye on her to ensure she's not starving. Weigh the food really carefully, I was over feeding without realising it and have had to be really careful with my arthritic older dog. You can just give the ready made stuff and not worry about giving chicken wings if they make her vomit. My lot get a square of Wainwright's tray for breakfast and raw in the evening.
 
2-3% of body weight is maintainence to the best of my knowledge.

shes 40kg so 2% = 800g

I would feed for her desired weight ie 30kg @ 2% = 600g a day to start with to see how shes goes

If you dont want to drop her by that much then I would change the content to fish (am thinking the frozen blocks of white fish from PAH) I would in fact prob do this anyway. The packs have bone content in them. Or maybe the turkey variety if shes not keen on fish

Unless you skin them I wouldnt feed the chicken wings as they are little calorie monsters :)
 
Dobermonkey said:
2-3% of body weight is maintainence to the best of my knowledge.

shes 40kg so 2% = 800g

I would feed for her desired weight ie 30kg @ 2% = 600g a day to start with to see how shes goes

If you dont want to drop her by that much then I would change the content to fish (am thinking the frozen blocks of white fish from PAH) I would in fact prob do this anyway. The packs have bone content in them. Or maybe the turkey variety if shes not keen on fish

Unless you skin them I wouldnt feed the chicken wings as they are little calorie monsters :)
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Thank you that's really helpful. Will take a trip to PAH over the weekend :)
 
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