Just like I ask in the thread title. I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of modifying the platform or part you stand on to make it bigger so a full grown Lab can sit on it. Now, Im not even sure if you can do this without throwing the whole scale out of calibration or not. But I need to weigh a 5 year old female Yellow Lab who has a Neurotic mother who thinks the dog will get mad at her if she doesnt give her 25% of whatever she may be eating. I have tried explaining to her that she's crazy and that the dog has won the war of the minds with her and has shown superior intelligence and has her trained. The more I bitch about it, she will actually give her more food on the down low when Im not around just to prove a point that she doesnt want to listen to anyone and that the dog is fine. Now that I have proven that my Mother probably should be committed to a mental health facility back to the scale idea. Basically I need to be able to weight Bella daily but as you may have figured out... Im also cheap. I looked for a scale like the ones they have in every Vets office and the real ones (the professional ones) seem to start in the high 100's and go up into the $1000-$2000. Obviously these are VERY rough figures and Im sure there are lower level imitations of the better pro models that arent that pricey. But you can get a pretty decent digital Human scale for $50-$75 but they all have the small platform built for human feet and not borderline overweight adult Labs... Anyone?
I haven't done it and I don't see how you could without a tilt factor. I pick my dog up and weigh us together. Then I put him down and weigh me. Subtract and I have the dog's weight. This is much harder now he is adult but I can do it. Not to mention the unpleasant side effect of having to know my own weight. However most times I take advantage of the Vet's scales
I have tried the pick up your dog and weight both and then subtract my weight. And I am a reasonably fit and strong 40 year old man with no history of back problems. Just picture Arnold Schwarzenegger during Terminator 2 but minus about 30% of the muscles. But if I had to pick Bella up every day I think I would develop back issues. Shes about 95 Pounds of dead weight...
Do you have a local vet? Most have a set of scales in the waiting room you can use without an appointment.
Well yes I do and that is a possibility. But I know I would start to get the feeling like Im free-loading off them if I started coming in every day or even once a week. Eventually I would just stop coming in. The other option is maybe someone can recommend a decent dog scale that is reasonably priced and has a correct size platform. I remember when I was looking before Christmas AmaZahn and other places online had ones that looked like they were big enough for a full sized lab to sit and even said in the description that they were big enough but a lot of reviews always said the platform was under sized or that the scale itself was not very accurate or reliable. This was for a scale that looked like the one the vet has. I think they started around $150 and went up fast. Basically these were cheap imitations of the better brand and models most vet use. Then I found a site that specialized in supplying real professional Vet quality stuff and their scales started around $1000 and went up.
Our vets are happy for us to pop in any time to weigh our dogs. It’s certainly not freeloading. They want us to care about our dogs’ health. .
Yup....our vet has the scale in the waiting room too and encourage us to use it. Weekly weights should be enough.
Yes, weigh at the vets regularly, also has the advantage of the dog seeing visits to the vet surgery as a normal thing .
I do apologise, but I am struggling here with your motivation for needing to weight the dog so frequently. I do understand ( I think..) the situation with your mother. Am I right that she thinks you are not feeding her (the dog...) enough? Maybe if you both go down to the vet and have a chat, agree with the vet a good target weight for Bella, then weigh Bella once a week/month and ask the receptionist to pop the details on Bellas notes.
I agree that daily weigh-ins are excessive and counter-productive, just like in humans. Weight will fluctuate from day to day without it being any indicator indicator of fat levels. Weekly weigh-ins are far more significant.
I'm with @Beanwood and @snowbunny with regular weigh ins at the vet. I would definitely advise a chat with the vet first to set a weight for your girl together a food allowance for the day. Having the occasional treat from our plates isn't necessarily wrong as long as it is something like lean meat or fish with no gravy, sauces, salt etc added or lightly cooked vegetable, again with no salt. For every titbit given during the day needs a reduction from a dog's daily food allowance to prevent too many calories/fat and weight gain.
I did twice a month when Ripple's weight increased. That was plenty to get him back down to a better shape.
Your vet may run nurse clinics for weight control and they would only be too happy for you to weigh your dog. I don't think putting a platform on normal scales would work at all! I don't think you live in UK? We have 'Countrywide' stores which have the dog scales for use when you go in, perhaps there is something similar?
That's cool! I have never heard of Countrywide, but I've often thought it would be good to have scales in PAH stores. Maybe the do in the vet area, but it would be useful to have them in the general area. Although maybe it would be counter-productive if they're trying to sell treats On the other hand, if I were to be cynical, putting scales next to a selection of "diet" products would probably sell more....
My Vet is more than happy to let us use the surgery scales whenever we like , which is great because Nelly has a tendency to gain , and being so small she cant afford for this to happen x Should have written , we cant allow this to happen !
Well, Oban only weighs 68 pounds. I have him stand on the chesterfield. Once he's at that height it is pretty easy to lift him, it's much the same as lifting him out of the jeep. Even our breeder didn't ask for daily weigh-ins. She did want every second week, only till the dog was 18 months. I can tell a lot about weight just by looking and feeling. LOL, my sister's dog stayed with our Mum most days. The dog was rather more rotund than she should have been and Sis always blamed Mum. Mum passed away in 2014 and guess what? If anything the dog is even rounder now. She's at least as fat as she ever was.
Axel is 100 pounds and me being female and quite short was able to lift him yesterday and walk around the living area. I could have stepped on the scale to do the weigh us together and subtract thing while someone told me what the number was when I held him. But honestly our vet doesn’t mind us coming in once a week (when he was growing we went in every Friday) to weigh him, in fact they encouraged it. I only weigh him once every couple of months now as I go by feel and look. If I can’t feel his ribs easily then I take him into the vet to weigh him or I just reduce food a bit. The number doesn’t mean much really. He weighs more now than he did several months ago, but I can feel his ribs more now, he’s just put on muscle. I have no idea about scales as I haven’t looked. But if that’s what you’re set on then spend the money on what you think is best. I don’t know anyone who has one so can’t recommend anything besides by using the one at the vet office plus like mentioned, it’s great to bring them to the vet for positive only visits
Years ago, I bought a shipping scale which has about a 14" square top, and a remote readout. I added a removable plywood top to it that is about 18" square. When our dogs were growing puppies, we weighed them practically every day, and still do occasionally. Both of them will sit quietly on the plywood top until the scale settles down. I don't recall what I spent on the scale but I expect it was under $100.00 You could do the same thing with a human scale, except that it would need to retain the reading after you got the dog off, because most don't have a remote readout.
