Winston’s Well-Being

Living with dogs is a wonderful thing. Part of the pleasure in them is how much like us we can make them…If we are athletic, they can be too. When we want to be cozy and rest they are right there to share the couch…they are real companions and if we work to make the private dog and the public dog as much the same dog as we can, they are able to travel with us and sometimes are the reason we do fun things.

The other part of good “stewardship” is about caring for their needs including good health and well being. So, today when my beloved Winston had a big, scary event on our walk, I had to take a good, hard look at his ”care and keeping” and admit that I have not done right by him in the last few months. It was a hard, long, cold, snowy winter. Although it was manageable for people, a little dachshund really couldn’t negotiate the snowdrifts and walk his little, long, short body for long in the slush and snow. It was simply more comfortable for him to hang around by the fireplace and play with his toys once in a while. At the same time, work, kids, the house and lots of other things kept me really busy. I am ashamed to say, at first I didn’t even notice how chunky he has become. Food and eating became activity and with so little to do, when calories increased, so did the size of my little Winston.

I had to do a little research to figure out how to help my little buddy return to the happy healthy active little guy I used to know…This is what I discovered.

First…How do I know if my dog is fat?

When dogs become over weight, they don’t have fat hanging off them. That means it’s hard to see how much weight they gained. Their bodies become quite solid feeling. It almost looks like they are “all muscle” like some people say. Really, muscle looks very different. A solid feeling dog with no definition of muscle and body shape is probably not muscular. When you touch a dogs’ body you should be able to feel but not see their bones. There should be a nice cover of muscle over their bones but there should be definition of the sections of their bodies. Based on the breed type, certain weights and shapes have to be taken into consideration.

*If you put your hand between your dogs’ front legs and feel the front of their chest and you can feel loose, jiggling mass, your dog is fat.

*If you look over their back and you can’t see their “waist”, your dog is fat.

*If you look at the base of their tail and there is a depression where their tail meets their spine or the base of the tail is depressed into the skin, your dog is fat.

*For some dogs, not all,  if their neck is really thick and their head is looking kind of small in comparison, your dog is fat…Some dogs have a body type that does have a thick neck and smaller head so don’t think that is the only marker for a fat dog. Look at things in context.

How did my dog become overweight?

Sometimes weight gain can really sneak up on a dog. When a young dog grows up, their nutritional needs change. So, if your dog has decided that they don’t want to eat, look at what you are feeding, the condition of your dog and their overall health and take action from there. It is normal for an adolescent dog, males especially, to reduce the amount of food they want to eat, especially intact males. Sniffing and exploring their environment is more important than food. Adolescent dogs should look like string beans. They may be long, lean and lanky but have good coat quality and nice muscle coverage of their lean frame. If so, no worries – if your dog is growing, eating less but defecating daily and drinking and urinating normally and their body condition is good, all is probably well.

All that means if your dog isn’t eating the same amount of food their needs may have changed and less food is what they are telling you they need.

What should I be feeding?

When I was doing my research, I also found that some of the dry foods I would choose for my little Winston have lots of calories per cup so he would really not have much food in his bowl. He does love to eat so feeding a high quality food, although good for him,(the food  has a high “biological value”) translates into the need for portion control. I was shocked when I started measuring his food and so was Winston. The amount of food he should eat in order to loose weight and maintain health was so little it hardly filled half of the bottom of the bowl! I did really try to stick to it but 2 things happened. First, Winston begged and begged and begged for more food, any food. He was a real pain about it and he. kind of wore me down…so, portion control was really hard. Also, he began spitting up in the morning and sometimes in the late afternoon. He threw up yellow, foamy stuff that the vet said indicated his stomach was empty. By the way, what he threw up was not bile! Bile is located in the gall bladder and isn’t what we are seeing. Probably we are seeing digestive juices, including lots of other things including grass that may be what your dog eats when feeling nauseous.

Anyway, I decided to stick with a high quality food, figure out what a correct portion was for Winston and add things like vegetables and fruit to make up the volume and help my little guy feel more satisfied. In the past people used something called the String Bean diet which was pretty much the same, less dry food, more vegetables. My reading also said the following foods were not good for dogs: onions, garlic, grapes, raisins, avocados and chocolate. I used some really cool treats when Winnie wanted a snack…ice cubes with veggies and teeny tiny bits of low or no fat cheese frozen inside. It takes him quite a bit of time to finish it off but he loves them and it keeps him busy for a while.

I did discover things Winnie didn’t really like and just omitted them. Frankly, if he didn’t want to eat something I offered, maybe he just wasn’t that hungry??? As long as he was his bright, active, happy self, all is well if he didn’t want to eat. I found over a period of about 10 days, he was eating just fine!

I also avoided reducing diets. For me, high fiber can mean high carbs which we all know doesn’t help us loose weight. I just worked on portion control of a high protein, low carb diet with veggies and that seemed to really help.

There was one more thing…Exercise

Stay tuned for part 2 of Winston’s Healthy Spring……