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aj55 · Feb 3, 2006, 12:27 PM

I have a 9 month old black lab "Tiko", my wife has been off for the last week and he has been getting a little more exercise than normal. He is looking a little skinny and I was wondering if we should feed him a little more. My only problem is that she will be going back to work and I don't want to mess with the amount of food we are giving him. We usually both work mon-fri and he gets a good walk in the morning and evening. We play fetch in a little grass area in our complex. It is nothing big but he gets to run and play. On weekends we take him to the soccer field where he gets to run a lot and it really tires him out. She has been taking him to the soccer filed this week while she has been off work and it seems he has lost a little bit of weight. Any suggestions would be great. We are feeding him an adult chow 1.5 cups in the morning and 2 cups in the evening. During the day we keep him in a crate or he goes to doggy daycare once or twice a week.

labman · Feb 3, 2006, 01:11 PM

I am not going to post my chart again. If you can see more than a hint of ribs now, increase his chow a little. Besides being better for the dogs' jaws and teeth, dry chow is easy to tailor to the exact needs as determined by the owner examining the ribs. The 3 1/2 cups a day you are feeding is close to what I am feeding many of my Labs at that age. Of course, using the same system, a few years ago, I was feeding Lucky closer to 6 cups. I think his body just made less efficient use of the same thing I fed the others. That illustrates how useless any system of weights, breeds, and cups is in determining how much to feed a particular dog. I see the system I recommend applied to thousands of dogs.

I doubt he will notice it if you edge up his food to say 30 ounces instead of the current 28. Nor will he if you have to cut back later. If he is a typical Lab, he will still see it as half enough. As he approaches a year old, you may have to cut back a little more to maintain his ideal body weight.

Tomorrow will be a bad day. After lunch declining to a small handful this week for my 4 1/2 month old Lab Nita, It disappears completely. She is small, and 1 1/2 cups of adult Pro Plan seems to be enough for her.

fredg · Feb 3, 2006, 02:29 PM

Hi, aj,
Since it's only been a week, why change it now?
I would wait another week, while things get back to "normal", then seen if he needs any more food.
The extra exercise could have been enough to lose just a little weight. After another week, you might be able to better tell if he needs more. Best of luck.

aj55 · Feb 15, 2006, 12:35 PM

We gave our dog 2 cups in the morning and 2 cups in the evening as he was looking a little skinny with all the xcercise he was gettign while my wife was not working for a week. We went back to 1.5 cups in the morning and 2 cups in the evening and have noticed he wants to eat at 4am now. We went back to this on Monday morning and the last 2 nights he wants to eat at 4am. H gets up in the room and roams around and goes to the door and comes back and nudges us. Last night we held off for about 45 minutes and he finally went to his bed, we then fed him at 6am. Could this be a result of increasing his food for 1 week or could there be something else? He is otherwise acting fine.