I have a GSD X ***** that has been spayed. She is 12 years old and is putting on weight. We have reduced the quantity of food we give her, and stopped giving her Dentastix when we found out they contained 225 calories per stick!! But we can't seem to get her weight to go down, she goes out at least twice a day. Can we speed up her metabolism by giving her a little but often feeds, or does that not work for dogs? We give her Bakers Weight control is there something better we could be giving her?

As dogs get older they do tend to gain weight due to being less active.

How often do you feed her and what quantity of food do you give?

At 12 years of age she should be eating either 2 small meals a day or one larger meal in the evening. That's just based on talking to my vet, but everyone has a different approach, so my suggestion is based on my experience and talking to my vet for my particular dogs.

With my 15 year old lab cross we feed on large meal in the evening, simply because he's not very active anymore and really doesn't liven up until evening. At that time we feed 1 1/2 cups, which he usually doesn't even finish.

I also have a 9 year old border collie cross. He's fat. There's no nice way to put it ;). He gets plenty of exercise, but he just seems to retain everything he eats. He also gets one meal a day but he's at 1 cup in the evening.

My 2 year old beagle is very active and a nice healthy weight. He gets 2 meals a day, one in the morning (1 cup) and one in the evening (another cup).

It really depends on the dog. Have you talked to your vet about a diet plan? That would be my next step. Also, how recent is this weight gain? Have you had her checked for any health issues that may be contributing to this? Thyroid comes to mind. One sign of a thyroid condition is flaky skin (almost looks like dandruff, but larger flakes) and if this is going on a simple thyroid medication will help deal with the weight gain significantly.

All in all, we all get a bit lazy and tend to put on weight as we get older. Finding the right food (trial and error) and sticking to a consistent exercise routine (daily walks), and making sure health problems aren't a factor, will help keep her at a reasonable weight. It does take time though.

According to the packet she should be getting approx 500 grms of food, but it seems too much so we give her approx 300 grms which we soak first as it really swells up. Her skin is perfect so I didn't consider her Thyroid.