underweight

Thanks again for an advice here. Our lovely 2 year old intact boy has always been a bit underweight. Although we don't chop and change his diet - over his life he has had all sorts of quality, mainly kibble, e.g. Acana, millies, canagan etc The temptation is to feed more but then stools get looser. Recently he has been on Wainwights wet trays mainly with extra grainfree kibble. He seems fine on this but still somewhat underweight - the vet said so - he weighs 22kg - she suggested Eden but have in past tried that also with no result. He is extremely energetic, happy and apart from being underweight - pretty much perfect! I'm not too bothered but I have read here that some foods e.g. Millie peak performance (high fat food) may help without having to overfeed. As always , would be interested in your views. For various reason, I don't particularly want to go down raw route unless this would definitely be the answer. Maybe he'll gain weight when he calms down as ages?
thank you

 

Jubilee was scrawny And light boned even though she ate a lot. The vet said not to worry that she’d fill out when she was about three and she has. She is still thin but is much sturdier and looks great. She eats a grain free kibble.

 

I wouldn't worry, it sounds as though he's fit and healthy. The only thing you could try is to feed his normal daily amount of food in several meals throughout the day, he just may get more out of it that way.

 

Labs come in all shapes and sizes. Do his ribs stick out when he’s stood up straight?

 

You could add a little tripe on the top of his kibble, that helps to put weight on apparently.

 

in reply to whether you can see ribs - well yes we often can - sometimes more than other times - but must stress most people say what great shape he is in - it was just the vet saying on leaving to up hi food as she thought was underweight and I'm sort of saying that whatever we feeding so far hasn't really upped his weight - as another has aid maybe he'll fill out in due course - otherwise perfectly fit and well

 

My boy was a skinny youngster and, like yours, would get loose stools if I increased his food too quickly. He still (3.5 years) tends to the very slim, and sometimes gets a bit ribby. Using calorie-dense foods - that is, high calorie for small volume - such as sardines can help to get his condition back when he is looking too skeletal. Most of the time you can see his ribs when he turns, sniffs or eats, and can make out the lump of his last rib, but I am fine with that. I can see my ribs when I breathe in, too, and I am definitely not too skinny

I would add that I am more concerned about his muscle mass than his body fat. I want to keep him as strong as possible, and muscle mass is easily lost when they're not getting the necessary calories. As long as he's maintaining or building muscle, I'm happy.

 

thanks - regarding sardines - we have done this from time to time - not recently - would you think in water rather than oil better?
thanks

 

I generally feed raw sardines, so that's a bit moot for me. But, if you're trying to up his calorie intake, I'd go for the ones in oil. When I make doggy treats, I always use the ones in oil.

 

I was struggling with an underweight raw fed dog. I had got used to him but it was a Vet nurse who first made a comment to me and when I weighed him I realised looking at his chart that he had lost 4kg over 2017 and he is a mature 3 year dog.

While he was not ill all his ribs were clearly visible and both the Vet and I thought that it was not a healthy weight for him to maintain. Over December I gave him extra food, three meals a day, upped the fat content and restricted his exercise but that was not successful.

At the beginning of January we had full blood panel and faecal samples. There were no parasites but the bloods showed that he was poor at absorbing nutrition or fats through his small intestine but he had full function of both liver and pancreas.

I thought as he is a very fast and rather stressy dog that he was also burning off any calories that he was taking in. The Vet agreed that we would try to both calm him down and sort out his digestion problems. She put him on a seratonin supplement - I was rather sceptical but it did work and I noticed he settled better. He was also put on 3 weeks of low dose metronidazole as the absorption problems are thought to be from an over growth of bacterial in the gut. He gained 1.3 kg on the first week of antibiotics and then stabilised.

She then suggested that we completely change the protein in his diet. So he was swopped onto a raw fish diet and fish treats from his previous chicken, turkey and duck diet. He is now having a pack of fishmongers finest for breakfast and 500g of natural instinct salmon for tea. I give him the seratonin supplement in the evening and he is getting extra probiotics as well.

He was weighed at the beginning of March and he was 28.5k which is an overall gain of 4.5 kg in less than two months. He looks much better and is generally calmer. Sorry this is so long but I do wonder if I could have just changed his protein and had the same result! The vet said that intolerance to particular proteins even after being fed them for some time is quite common.