Can green beans help my hungry dog feel full without gaining weight?

Yes! You can certainly do that! Good question! For her weight she would need about 390 calories per day. If you cut her food to 1/2 cup that would equal approximately 220.5 calories. Then you would have about 170 calories left over for the veggies and pumpkin. Be sure to count in any other treats/food you give her. It doesn't take much to add on a lot of extra calories to a 17# dog! The other option is to switch her to a "light" or "senior" formula dog food that has less calories per cup. Then she can eat more :) I hope this helps! Best wishes to you and Chloe. She is beautiful!

Yes those are good. Never give grapes or raisins as they can cause kidney damage and death. Onions aren’t good or large amounts of garlic. I feed plain canned pumpkin which fills them up and increases the fiber in the diet to keep them regular. In addition please feed a good quality dog food so she gets the nutrients she needs. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to help you care for Lucy.

Hi and thanks for posting! I would feed 1/4 cup of plain frozen green beans or cleaned raw green beans in his food twice a day. No need to crush the beans. I give green beans to my dogs every day and they go wild for them! I hope this helps and thanks for posting on Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach!

This is a good question! Many pet parents would not be aware of a change in caloric density depending on brand and type of food. If this is a new brand that you have just started very recently I would recommend continuing with the same measurement/quantity of food as you have previously been giving Chloe and monitor her for weight loss. If she has been on the new food for a little while and you feel she has lost some weight then increasing the amount you feed would certainly be beneficial to help her maintain weight. As you have stated though, increasing her food consumption could result in potential weight gain which is not a good thing. If you need to increase her intake then do it by only a very small amount, make sure you are carefully measuring her daily allowance of food, and monitor her weight carefully with weekly 'weigh ins' at your regular vet clinic.

Hello, you could try adding fiber to her diet or switching to a food with more fiber to create a filling effect for her. This will also cause voluminous stools but will help make her feel more full. The added fiber will not provide additional calories as this fiber is undigestible. Hope this helps and best of luck.

Thee is no reason to give your dog green beans--pureed or not. A good quality commercial dog food will have all the nutrients necessary for a well-balanced diet. There could be a circumstance where someone besides you might have to care for your dog temporarily, and that person might not be as willing as you to do home cooking. This could cause the dog to go off his feed if he is used to having the beans with his meals.

Dogs should eat twice a day. It helps prevent bloat in dogs when they have two meals a day of equal size rather than one big meal. While dogs can eat plant material, they are carnivorous. This is show in the design of their teeth. They have sharp, blade like molars that are designed for slicing food rather than grinding it. Herbivores, like cows, have molars that are flatter and are made to grind up the plant material. In addition, their digestive system is designed to digest protein and fat, and due to that, they have trouble digesting produce. Produce should therefore be pureed to help them fully digest it. I recommend pureeing the green beans, which may help your dog digest them better.