As I mentioned in another thread, I have a terrible time putting weight on Pixie.
She's 28", built like many poorly bred Danes so she has the greyhound body complete with the grey hound but muscles, but everything else is scrawny. No chest, narrow body, etc. She weighs about 70 pounds. Her last rib is visible and you can feel her ribs but don't really see them unless I take her off oatmeal for a few days. Then her ribs do show. Her spine is boney but not obvious. Her hip bones do stick up, and like the ribs become really obvious if we don't do oatmeal for several days. They aren't terribly visible, but you can see the dip between them. And the butt bones stick out too, rounded with muscle, but visible and boney.
So, she doesn't look emaciated or anything, but she just won't put on weight. Here is what I've tried - I'm hoping someone has some other ideas:
1) Feed 2 pounds a day (about 3% of her body weight)
2) Feed pork
3) Reduce exercise/activity
She appears to be allergic to beef so I opted for pork. Nothing improved. On 3% feeding all she did was poop a lot. Reducing activity didn't do anything either.
She does gain weight on 1.5 pounds a day (2% of body weight) and oatmeal. She looses weight as soon as she doesn't get oatmeal.
Her poop is excellent, she's got a lot of energy. My vet believes her hot spot she developed a few months ago was due to too much protein or calories. She was on the 2 pounds of pork and turkey during that time. This is a holistic vet who promotes a raw diet. He had me cut meat in half to 1 pound a day, adding in equal volume of veggies to keep her feeling full, and believed it was ok to continue the oatmeal. She lost weight on that, so I bumped her up to 1.5 pounds and veggies and oatmeal. No hot spot return.
I hesitate to take her up in meat again because that change did make the hot spot go away (it was a nasty one, took two weeks to clear up, after being around for about two weeks while I tried to treat it myself).
She eats mostly turkey, due to allergies/sensitivities to chicken and beef. She gets pork a couple times a week. I give lamb, buffalo, emu or elk as available but its too spendy to give more than once a week. Turkey is the staple food item.
I don't know what I should be doing here. I need to build up muscle on her since she's doing agility and needs more than what she's got to jump 24". What have you done to successfully add muscle and promote healthy weight gain on a raw fed dog who can't have beef?
She's 28", built like many poorly bred Danes so she has the greyhound body complete with the grey hound but muscles, but everything else is scrawny. No chest, narrow body, etc. She weighs about 70 pounds. Her last rib is visible and you can feel her ribs but don't really see them unless I take her off oatmeal for a few days. Then her ribs do show. Her spine is boney but not obvious. Her hip bones do stick up, and like the ribs become really obvious if we don't do oatmeal for several days. They aren't terribly visible, but you can see the dip between them. And the butt bones stick out too, rounded with muscle, but visible and boney.
So, she doesn't look emaciated or anything, but she just won't put on weight. Here is what I've tried - I'm hoping someone has some other ideas:
1) Feed 2 pounds a day (about 3% of her body weight)
2) Feed pork
3) Reduce exercise/activity
She appears to be allergic to beef so I opted for pork. Nothing improved. On 3% feeding all she did was poop a lot. Reducing activity didn't do anything either.
She does gain weight on 1.5 pounds a day (2% of body weight) and oatmeal. She looses weight as soon as she doesn't get oatmeal.
Her poop is excellent, she's got a lot of energy. My vet believes her hot spot she developed a few months ago was due to too much protein or calories. She was on the 2 pounds of pork and turkey during that time. This is a holistic vet who promotes a raw diet. He had me cut meat in half to 1 pound a day, adding in equal volume of veggies to keep her feeling full, and believed it was ok to continue the oatmeal. She lost weight on that, so I bumped her up to 1.5 pounds and veggies and oatmeal. No hot spot return.
I hesitate to take her up in meat again because that change did make the hot spot go away (it was a nasty one, took two weeks to clear up, after being around for about two weeks while I tried to treat it myself).
She eats mostly turkey, due to allergies/sensitivities to chicken and beef. She gets pork a couple times a week. I give lamb, buffalo, emu or elk as available but its too spendy to give more than once a week. Turkey is the staple food item.
I don't know what I should be doing here. I need to build up muscle on her since she's doing agility and needs more than what she's got to jump 24". What have you done to successfully add muscle and promote healthy weight gain on a raw fed dog who can't have beef?
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