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Originally Posted by jmdt  thanks everyone for your suggestions. I will try anything. You see they got us this morning and I put the food down and they are not interested. They just nibble. Coco still hasn't touched it. He is just laying down now. Pebbles just took her few mouthfulls and ran off, and Trixie is in there eating now I hear her crunching. I guess I will pick it up in about an hour then give it to them at around 5o'clock. If the didn't eat that much now for breakfast then they will be hungry at dinner. I guess???
Woogie man--- I think your right My Coco is just so short he can hardly jump up on the bed and my Pebbles just has springs for legs. But I do think he is overweight a bit, but obese no way. |
I would really try to not get stuck in the connotation of what we generally take obese to mean. What we as layman's consider obese and what the medical community considers obese tends to be pretty different. Being obese is simply tied to the fact of being 20% bigger than what would be considered normal weight - as a starting point. For someone who's normal weight should be 7 lbs (just for example) weighting 8.4 lbs would put them in the obese category (although at the lowest end). Its not really about the literal weight, its about the percentages. This is most likely why you and your vet disagree on how large your Coco is.
Vets always aim to keep your pets as trim as possible.. because it can add up to an extra 5-7 years on their life (or shorten their lives.)
If you're moving down from free feeding your dogs aren't going to ate all their food in one sitting right away - they aren't that hungry yet! Give them 24-48 hours, they get hungry and start eating regularly at their scheduled times. Free feeding can be tough on a lot of dogs since they can eat when they aren't really hungry or don't need to eat - some dogs can balance it really well and some just can't. If you're really worried about them not eating enough you can really break down the feedings as much as you want. Twice a day tends to become the "golden standard" since its easiest for most - but if you want to feed 3-4+ times a day there isn't anything wrong with that! (Just split the decided daily servings by X feedings.)