How to put weight on a dog?

Renno123

I have a young rescue dog. he is about 1-2 yrs old.
when i got him he was quite underweight. I managed to put a kg on him but it went on slowly. He got very ill recently and after a scare he made a full recovery. (3 days in intensive care)
anyway, he has pretty much lost that kg and I am back to where ive started.
I am feeding Burns. I heard it can be hard for some dogs to maintain weight on this food but it works amazingly well for my other dog.
Ive tried feeding him more but the 80-90g is enough. anymore and he will leave it behind.

Any (reasonably priced) recommendations?

scudzilla

When our pup was young she needed a bit of 'beefing' up as was underweight, we gave her 2 bowls of porridge a day, she's huge now (No fat, just muscle)

Cutie18Ireland

Sardines in oil are good and cheap about 50c a tin. Pasta is also very good, I get big bags in Lidl for about 50c. Also some chicken would help

Gloomtastic!

I was told last week, when we went to have his nails clipped at the groomers, that our boxer is very thin - which he is. However he refuses to eat all the food we give him.

The groomer suggested feeding him salmon as it is quite fatty. Don't know whether your budget will stretch to that. I know ours won't.

scudzilla

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

I was told last week, when we went to have his nails clipped at the groomers, that our boxer is very thin - which he is. However he refuses to eat all the food we give him.

The groomer suggested feeding him salmon as it is quite fatty. Don't know whether your budget will stretch to that. I know ours won't.

Same problems we had with Brodi, our boxer, very fussy eater and was underweight

A few suggestions which worked fine for us are :-

Buy some minced beef from supermarket, just the cheap stuff, around 3/3.50, fry it, cook a cup of Pasta and add it, add a bit of Gravy. That should do for 2/3 days, especially if you add some mixer to it

Porridge, when she got up she had a small bowl of porridge with full fat milk for breakfast

ALWAYS check the section in the meat dept in places liek Tesco that have soon to be out of date meat, Got Sirloin Steaks in there for less than a euro at times, sure it's not red, a browny colour, but has to be used that day, dog doesn't mind

Rich11

mix raw eggs into the food, heard that, never tried it

The Sweeper

You could try changing to some raw food. My dog's weight is good on a raw diet - he stays nice and lean but I can easily bulk him up (I do before a stint in kennels, and when he comes back out).

He eats raw chicken wings, skin on and bone in, raw chicken drumsticks (same way - skin on and bone in), fatty minced beef, strips of lambs liver (not too much of it) - there's a lot of fat in chicken skin and in fatty mince.

He gets one meal a day, and if I want him to be heavier and bulk up a bit I can feed him different treats during the day, like a pig's ear - you eat pork crackling every day and see the effect it has . I also cruise the 'past best by date' shelves and feed him old meat, steaks on the turn, so on.

Fatty beef mince is definitely the best thing though - as listed above you could cook it, but my vet recommended it raw when my dog was an underweight puppy and we've never looked back since.

Ms Tootsie

I would tend to agree with the rest of the posters here - proper meat rather than dog food (even a brand as great as Burns) will put weight on your dog.

Our guy was on dry food but pooping A LOT - we think he was allergic to wheat after much trial and error with eliminating food. In the end (based on the advice from a lot of people on here) we switched him to a meat based diet. While he won't touch raw (unless it's chicken on the bone, it's the only thing he will touch raw)) I boil his meat for no more than a few minutes, add in spuds and some gravy (made from the meat water). We give him meat such as lambs liver, mince beef, beef pieces, chicken legs and wings (both raw) and a lot of scraps. I get about 5e worth of liver or beef and a bag of scraps from the butcher and with a few spuds and gravy that lasts Frodo the week, getting fed twice a day. He looks so much healthier now, weight on but more muscle than fat, his coat is so shiney as well.

If you follow peoples advice on here and buy meat from past the 'sell by date' and scraps from the butcher along with a few good quality cuts of meat you can easily and inexpensively feed your dog a great raw / semi raw diet.

Pedigree Chum . Its the equivalent of feeding your kids Mcdonalds. So not long term. But the dog will love it and there will be weight gain.

Galway 11

Puppy nuts are quite fattening. My dog lost alot of weight because of medication he was on. I put him on puppy nuts and the weight went back on. He is back on his normal food again.