How much homemade food for my overweight small dog to lose weight?

If you are looking to formulate your own homemade diet, check out www.balanceit.com to create your own diet for weight loss. This website is easy to use and I send my clients to this site quite often if they want to make a homemade diet. Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. I am also available via consultation as sometimes it is much easier to talk over the phone about advice.

Feeding homemade diets can be perfectly fine as long as the diet is very carefully balanced with appropriate vitamin and mineral supplements. Dogs can develop a variety of conditions related to different nutritional deficiencies. If you are considering a home cooked diet for Cowboy, look into balanceit.com. This website has a number of different recipes created by boarded veterinary nutritionists and they also sell the necessary supplements for each recipe. They are based out of the UC-Davis Veterinary School, so it is a reputable source. :-) Keep walking Cowboy and monitor his portions closely. It may take time, but he should be down to a healthy well-muscled body condition before you know it!

I recommend switching to a lower calorie dry food. The calorie content is printed on the bag. There are many good low calorie foods for weight loss. Then I would continue to measure the food and eliminate any treats and people food. If she’s still not losing weight I reduce the amount of the dry food by 25% and give green beans, canned pumpkin or other vegetables to fill her up. You are doing a good job with the walking. She probably can’t go much further until she loses some weight and increases her endurance. If needed don’t feed her then take her meal with you and give her the kibbles in her meal along the way to keep her going, just don’t increase the amount of food. Gradual weight loss of a quarter of a pound a week is what you should strive for. We use walking in an underwater treadmill at my rehab practice for dogs like this so they can exercise without carrying their full weight on their joints. Check to see if there is a dog rehab facility near you. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to help you care for Athena.

In addition to exercise (walks) you can reduce his present food by one third and add bran as bulkfiber, so he does not feel hungry. You can also feed a low calorie weight reduction food available from your vet such as Hill's Prescription Diet r/d, or Royal Canin Satiety Support and Calorie Control (also available by prescription only), Your vet may also recommend other weight reduction foods tailored to your dog's health and his recommendation of monthly weight loss.

It's very hard to get the correct balance of nutrients to keep your dog healthy with a homemade diet and instead of trying to do it yourself, I recommend checking out these two websites I will link to below. They are run by veterinary nutritionist and provide recipes for homemade diets that are both healthy and balanced for dogs, providing al the nutrients they need. I would feed Sasha a diet from recipes you find on there. I hope this helps :-) https://secure.balanceit.com https://www.petdiets.com

You are correct that it is difficult to find a good quality weight loss diet. Good quality meats and fats are high in calories. At the end of the day, weight loss is about calories. So, a weight loss food is beneficial because they can eat the same amount of food. But you can achieve the same decrease in calories by feeding less of the Acana that you are currently feeding. A 10-20% decrease in daily calories is exactly what I recommend for weight loss, so you could simply decrease from a level 2/3 cup to heaping 1/2 cup for a month. If Chloe is losing weight, then continue at that amount. If she is not losing weight, then decrease to a level 1/2 cup. Since she is a small dog, it should take her a number of months to lose the weight, so don't be discouraged if she only loses a few ounces in that first month. Good luck! I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Hello. This is a great question! She should be eating about 500 -550 calories PER DAY which includes all food and treats. She can eat any food as long as she stays inside that calorie window. If you feed her a lower calorie diet then she will get to eat more food and be less hungry. Purina ProPlan Weight Management Dry Food is 337 calories per cup so if you feed her this food she can eat 1.5 cups per day with a little left over for a treat or two. http://www.petsmart.com/dog/food/dry-food/purina-pro-plan-weight-management-formula-adult-dog-food-5148013.html?gclid=CKrvp4aRkdQCFZBgfgodPccMzA If you don't like this food you can use any diet. Just check the bag, it will tell you how many calories per cup. Take the 525 (using the middle of her calorie range) and divide it by the number of calories in each cup of food and that will tell you how many cups of that food she can have PER DAY. Example as above 525 / 337 = 1.55 cups I hope this helps. Best wishes. Dr. Amber