My Chihuahua is underweight. What food helps her gain healthy weight?

First, consider an exam with your veterinarian to diagnose any underlying medical causes. Next, you can feed a high quality performance diet to get weight on her. Once she is at weight, you can adjust the diet as needed for maintenance. You can also try a puppy diet until she is at weight.

Have you tried to mix it with canned dog food? Also you could give her boiled or canned chicken (no bones) over her food to help her gain weight. Both of these are ok and safe. Finally, if you want to make her on food I would check out some of the recipes on www.balanceit.com to ensure she is getting all the nutrients she needs. Unfortunately chihuahuas are known for not wanting to eat regular dog food often!

Iams is a great brand of food, and it's not as expensive as Hill's. I also like Purina ProPlan, and Purina One. All of these are healthy, and cheaper than Hill's. I recommend trying Layla on one of those foods. You will have to transition her slowly to prevent GI upset. Mix together the new and old food, and over the course of two weeks, gradually increase the amount of new food and decrease the amount of old food until she is eating the new food only. Good luck, I hope this helps!

Provide food that is high in calories, like puppy food or a food that’s designed for active, athletic, or working dogs. Higher protein and fat pet foods are best. Underweight pets should be eating foods that are around 30% protein and 20% fat if they’re eating dry kibble; 7% protein and 5% fat (or higher) if you’re feeding a wet food. Intersperse your pet’s diet with small amounts of high-calorie supplemental canned food or canned products made of 100% meat sources. These will have a high protein and fat content, like 100% pheasant or bison, for example. They won’t say “complete and balanced” but rather “for intermittent or supplemental use” because they’re not meant to replace regular feeding. Some moist foods may be easier to digest, so your pet may retain more nutrients, and more importantly these products tend to be more palatable and tempting to a pet who isn’t eating enough. Any diet changes should be done gradually over a week's time as to not cause any GI upset. Hope this helps. Best wishes.

If he isn't the appropriate weight then there is likely an underlying cause for this. Most healthy pets should be able to remove all the vital nutrients from their food and use it for energy; however there are certain disease processes that can interfere with this, including intestinal parasites, malabsorption/maldigestion issues, certain endocrine disorders such as Addison's disease, and pancreas disorders like Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. So I think the first priority here is to get Peanut examined by your vet to determine if he is ind Ed underweight to begin with. We achieve this by determining his current body condition score, where 3/5 or 5/9 is considered ideal weight. Then determine if the pet needs specific testing to look for certain disease processes that would lead to the weight loss, such as decal examination, pancreas testing and so forth. And of course generally speaking you should be feeding your pet a high quality adult small breed formula, such as Royal Canin, Hill's Science Diet, Evo or Natural Balance just to name a few. I hope Peanut turns out to be ok. Best wishes!

If she is underweight she may have an underlying medical condition. I suggest you have her examined by a vet. That is big weight discrepancy. Be sure you are feeding her a high quality food like Royal Canin puppy and be sure she has been properly dewormed. You can also try this supplement. ( https://jawsnpaws.in/pet-mankind-aptiquik.html ) Hope this helps. Best wishes.

If you can’t increase the volume of food the pups will eat, try to increase the calorie content. Also making sure you feed a high quality food will ensure that the pups absorb the nutrients appropriately. I like Royal Canin and Purina Pro Plan. You will find information about the calories on the side of the package. They are called Kcalories in dog food. I hope this is helpful and please feel free to post any additional questions.