Worried that your dog is all skin and bones? Worry no more, this article is going to give you important tips to fatten your four-legged companion.
Why is he skinny?
This question strikes all dog owners at some point. They never stop wondering what’s wrong with their pals. Why are they not bulking up? Why are they not getting enough muscles to flex.
The number one reason your dog is not past the patchy physique yet is nutrition. Either you are not giving him the right kind of food or he isn’t getting sufficient nutrition from his food. Dogs cannot speak, so you’ll never get to know what’s the actual heck.
What should you do?
To add flesh and fat to your deary dog, follow a strict calorie-based diet. If he’s currently in a low-calorie diet, have him transition to the new diet. That said, if the current diet was recommended by a doctor or your dog has some diagnosed medical condition, talk to an experienced vet first.
If you are serious about transitioning and having him stick to the new diet, here are all the tips in details.
Add extra calories
You cannot all of a sudden change your dog’s diet. That won’t be healthy for him. The golden rule is to add an additional meal to his daily diet and observe how it goes. If he shows signs of acidity, cut back on the amount. Make it half a meal. If he can process the extra meal, keep giving it to him every day. Sometimes, dogs show apathy to extra food. If your dog does show, give him a different kind of food with increased calorie. Alternatively, you can give him human food as supplement.
Food should be tasty
Dogs may not have 10000 taste buds in their tongue like us humans, but that doesn’t mean they cannot tell yummy foods from bland ones. Akin to humans, dogs love yummy food. The yummier the food, the better. Follow the tips below to add extra taste to your dog’s food.
- Flavor with pungent smell – Dogs have a big nose. If you add something aromatic in their food, they’d be interested to guzzle it down. Meaty flavors are recommended.
- Create a list – You need a list of dog-friendly foods to start with. The foods in the list must be the ones that dogs love. Take peanut butter and yogurt for example. Dogs love these. No harm in adding them to your dog’s meal as seasoning. Never tried clubbing Tuna and egg before. Do it for your dog.
- Add ketchup and sauce – Adding a sauce or some other type taste enhancer is perfectly okay as long as it’s made of organic ingredients. Ketchup is pungent, so your dog might love the taste.
By offering tasty food, you can bring back your dog’s interest in eating, in case it is showing apathy in this area lately.
Diet and exercise regimen
It’s a known fact that a dog’s health is commensurate to how much exercise he does in a day. The dog’s age and breed are important primers. If your dog – because of his breed – requires light exercise and appropriate diet and you are making him do heavy exercise, he’d always stay skinny.
Puppies don’t need heavy exercises. As for diet, they get most of the nutrition from mother’s milk. Check how their body mass is changing over the time and prepare meals accordingly. Dogs that are young i.e. 3-4 years old need the most protein-based food. Because they are growing, not having enough food means they’d remain skeletal after growing up.
If its an adult dog, he won’t need as much as food as young. Keep him active all day, train him and offer him portions of food that match with his daily exercise volume.
Change feeding schedules
If you really want your dog to gain some extra pounds, add a meal an hour before bedtime. Dogs don’t have fixed bedtimes like us humans. But there’s a time in the night when they get drowsy and slowly drift off to sleep. Notice at what time your dog gets sleepy and feed him approximately an hour before.
However, in the morning you must give him a relatively smaller portion of food, to balance out the daily food intake.
High fat diet
If all else fails, give your dog a high fat diet. This is not recommended, though. But if you have everything else and your dog is still not gaining weight, a diet with increased protein and fat is the only solution.
Summing up
Unless your dog has some genetic issue, he is likely to respond to the weight-gaining tips detailed above. Bear in mind that not all dog owners can follow the tips, many of them screw up. Just don’t be one of them if you want to see extra muscles in your dog.
