As most of you know, we have two dogs: Cowboy, our English Shepherd and Wolfey, our German Shepherd. I am amazed at the differences. Wolfey is only six months old and already outweighs Cowboy by ten pounds. He eats faster than Cowboy and I sometimes have to act as referee at the bowls because Wolfey chows down his larger portion before Cowboy finishes.
I’m sharing some information I found on how to determine the proper amount of food for dogs. After all, you don’t want your dog to be overweight. An overweight dog is an unhealthy dog and will be prone to problems such as joint pain and heart trouble. Most people don’t seem to understand that a dog’s body condition is important. This is evidenced by the amount of fat dogs I see running around. And when I meet them and pet them, I can’t feel their ribs at all through all that blubber! Disgusting!
With that in mind, the best way to tell if your dog is overfed or underfed is by feeling the ribcage. You should feel some rib, but they shouldn’t feel like a bag of bones. Here is a great reference with some more description. Increase or decrease the level of feeding based on how they measure up to this standard. Don’t make changes too drastically though because it will cause stress on the dog.
There are a number of websites out there that can help you determine the appropriate feeding level for your dog, but here is one of my favorites. Combined with the information of the back of the bag of food you can determine the appropriate amount of food.
Thanks, Robert.
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