Ella had been 23.5kgs for about two months then suddenly ballooned to 27kgs over the space of about 3-4 months. I think she's a little overweight as, even though her shape still looks good, I'm having to press a little harder than ideal to feel her ribs. We reduced her food a little to help get her back to a good size but she seems very hungry. Now, Ella will tell you that she's ALWAYS hungry but since reducing her food she's been starting to wait for her dinner very early in the evening (about two hours before dinner time). We've also had her vomiting a little foamy yellow stuff on a couple of occasions which she hasn't done since she was a hungry little puppy adjusting to two meals per day (down from three). I'm not sure what to do as she's putting on too much weight if I increase her food too much but she seems starving if I keep it a lower amount. Any advice/ideas?
Maybe a little snack to replace the third meal. Is the vomit in the morning? I've heard (no first hand experience) that called hunger pukes and a small bedtime snack often eliminates it. You could reduce the other two meals just a wee bit to make up the snack. I know a couple of people who add green beans (glycemic index is zero) to make up more bulk in the food without adding weight so pooch thinks she is getting a greater amount of food. A slow feeder might help too, even if she doesn't eat too quickly. Labs are always hungry, did you read the thread about the wonky POMC gene?
Thanks @Snowshoe she has been on 2 meals a day for about 8 months but she did do a little vomit like this when we reduced her from three to two meals, that's why I thought of it as a hunger vomit. Over the last couple of weeks she's had a couple of days when she's had a vomit at either/both 6am and 6pm(ish) so about an hour or so before her meal time. I have started giving her a little food first thing as soon as we wake and again at around 5pm to get her through to both meal times. However it does seem a little strange that this has just started to happen.
When do dogs stop growing, as in from puppy to adulthood? I wonder whether it's just a growth spurt? Do pups/young dogs have growth spurts?! Just a thought. I've heard of hunger vomit too... Snowshoe's idea of a little snack to replace the third meal might work. I'm assuming she's still very active, so I bet it won't be long before you can feel those ribs again. Not that I know very much, but am learning as I go
How much did you reduce the food by? Just wondering whether the sudden reduction is the cause of the 'hunger' vomiting. Has Ella noticeably grown to go with the weight gain? At around a year old she is probably around her adult size now, give or take a bit of extra growth. You could try giving her a couple of biscuits at bedtime to help any stomach acid causing the morning vomiting, and Juno always has a nice chew at lunch time as part of her daily rations. It may be worth considering just reducing one meal by a small amount and then the other a week or so later by the same amount and see how she is.
Is the food you're feeding her very calorie-dense? Meaning you have less volume "per calorie" than other foods? Like, the difference between a square inch of broccoli and a square inch of lard - the same size, but very different caloric values. I'm just thinking if the food you feed her is dense (which is absolutely not a problem in itself), then you may find that, for the calories she needs, her tummy still feels a bit empty? This is just a complete guess, based solely on the experience of changing from my puppy food (which was quite heavy per handful and so I needed less) to the adult food (which is really light per handful, so they get to eat more volume). That's a really unscientific explanation, I'm well aware! Anyway, if it could be that she's just not getting her tummy filled enough, you could think about maybe adding water to her meals, or giving her some water flavoured with chicken stock separately, just to make her tummy feel fuller for very few calories. Some people on here have also mentioned using cooked green beans in the past, which are low in calories.
@snowbunny I think you might be right. She is still on puppy food so I was wondering if it might be time to change. Maybe I'll get a bag of the adult food and start adding it to the puppy food to start the transition. Thanks for the other tips too, I'll try to make her feel a little more full after a meal... If that's even possible with a lab
Thanks for asking Fiona. She's still starving so I've started spreading her food out more over the day. She gets a small amount of kibble as soon as we get up, then a late breakfast, another small amount of kibble late arvo before a late(ish) dinner. So far so good with this new feeding schedule and it's allowed me to make her mini snacks fun (Kong wobbler/find it games/etc.) Short version of the story... She's a spoilt lab
That is precisely how I feed Mabel, she will also have a carrot late morning. Another spoilt Labrador
