Pet dog owners often wonder how to help their pet gain weight. Severe thinness can be the result of a serious illness or other reasons. How to feed a dog? This process is not fast and requires compliance with certain rules.
Which dogs need to be fed?
Female dogs can get exhausted after feeding a large litter, when there are more than a dozen puppies. Skinny animals after a serious illness or operation also need special nutrition.
Exhausted can be street dogs or domestic dogs that are lost and have been without a house for a long time. If street animals are accustomed to feeding on leftover food from garbage cans, then lost pets can refuse such food and lose much weight.
Another cause of depletion is parasite infection. Therefore, before starting to fatten a dog, you should contact your veterinarian and rid the animal of worms.
Depletion is also possible in dogs that have to work hard, but their nutrition is not enough calorie. This is especially possible with tetrapods carrying goods over long distances.
Sometimes it is necessary for the dog to gain weight before participating in the exhibition. It happens that you need to show some features of the breed, so dogs are forced to gain body weight or lose weight.
An animal in old age may refuse to eat due to poor health. They are more than other pets susceptible to exhaustion due to metabolic disturbances. How to feed a dog in this case? Be sure to need the help of a veterinarian who will help adjust the diet of the animal.
Feeding ration
How to feed a dog? On the "natural" it is easier to do. This food has a pronounced taste and smell that dogs like. Food produced by the industry is not so delicious, many animals quickly get tired of them. The exception is canned dog food - they can be called rather delicacies.
If the pet is used to eating dry food, it can be diversified. For example, mix with grated cheese, chopped boiled meat, egg, cottage cheese.
It is important for young dogs, as well as pregnant and lactating females, to eat fermented milk products: kefir, fermented baked milk, cottage cheese, cheese, yogurt. This will help digestion, improve stool.
What else to offer the pet?
Once a week it’s good to give the dogs boiled fish, after removing the bones. Pets are suitable only low-fat varieties.
Eggs contain many vitamins and healthy cholesterol. Four-legged give them boiled.
Plant foods (cereals, fruits, vegetables) provide the body with the necessary carbohydrates and stimulate the digestive system.
In addition to a properly selected diet for an exhausted dog, it is also important to increase the number of meals. Pets are fed three to eight times a day.
If the animal refuses food, they pour warm water from a syringe without a needle and inject a glucose solution.
How to feed a dog?
The main component of the menu for thin animals is meat. It is a source of essential amino acids that are not found in plant foods and fish. If the dog has not eaten meat for a long time, they give it boiled and only non-greasy. The daily menu consists of 75-80% meat.
The rest of the diet is plant foods. For example, cereals. Dogs can be given buckwheat, oats, rice. Corn can cause allergies. Wheat is not suitable for feeding predators. When cereals are cooked, salt is not added. Meat, cut into pieces, as well as vegetables, fruits, greens, are put in porridge.
If the dog suffered enteritis, its food should be mashed and semi-liquid: boiled pieces of meat, sour-milk products, liquid oatmeal, vegetable soup.
Nutrition of the female after weaning puppies is supposed to be enhanced, according to a certain feeding scheme for pregnant and lactating dogs.
Competition preparation
If the dog needs to gain weight before the show, reduce its physical activity and increase the daily serving of food. The ration at the same time do not change. If the dog is ready for the exhibition, then she is in great shape and her menu is completely suitable for her. In addition, the introduction of new products can adversely affect the health and mood of the animal. Shedding, discharge from the nose and eyes, and redness of the ears may begin. Of course, such manifestations will only reduce the pet's performance on the show.
What is not worth doing?
Some time ago, dog breeders advised adding semolina to the diet of a thin animal. However, today experts do not recommend doing this. Dogs do not perceive wheat and products from it in the best way, and semolina is the result of processing of this cereal. Dogs are often allergic to decoy.
Also, do not give your pets fatty meats - pork and lamb. It is harmful to the liver and pancreas, it loads the gall bladder. In addition, pork often causes allergies.
Ideal meats for dogs are rabbit, turkey, veal, horse meat. They are boiled, cut into pieces, added plant components and fed to pets.
During fattening, it is not worth replacing meat with offal. They are not so nutritious, and even worse digested. The exception is only the liver. It can be given instead of meat, after boiling.
To feed a dog, you need to increase the calorie content of its food. In this case, first of all, carbohydrate food comes to the rescue, so the animal is cooked with porridge on the broth and vegetables are added to them.
Should I buy ready-made feed?
If the owner chooses ready-made wet food for fattening, it is advisable to purchase premium or super premium products. Along with them, economy class positions are also issued. In any case, wet food is an excellent nutritional option for depleted animals.
Product advantages are that:
- feed is balanced in composition;
- natural and healthy ingredients are included;
- goods of various categories are produced, including at prices.
Nutritional supplements
How and with what else to feed the exhausted dog to help her gain weight? Among the useful supplements:
- Meat and bone meal is a powder obtained from processed animal carcasses. In some countries, it is used as fertilizer. In the diet of dogs is considered a source of calcium, phosphorus, protein. Large pets are given up to 2 teaspoons of flour per day, adding to food before serving.
- Fish oil is a useful supplement that strengthens the immune system and bone system of the animal. The product helps prevent many diseases. Give the fish oil to the dog 2-3 times a week, mixing a small amount of it into the food at the dosage prescribed on the package.
- Sea kale is a source of iodine and other useful trace elements. Large dogs can be given up to 100-150 grams per day.
- Plantain - normalizes the work of the gastrointestinal system, improves the blood formula, raises the level of hemoglobin. You can add a little leaves of this herb to your dog’s food.
- Sheets Eleutherococcus - increase the efficiency of the dog, normalize the work of the heart, are used as a growth stimulant, improve the quality of the coat. Applied in the form of a pharmacy tincture, which is given to dogs half an hour before a meal. Small animals have enough 7 drops, large - 30.
Practical advice of specialists
How to feed a dog? The answer to this question consists of a number of practical recommendations:
- First you need to find out what caused the low weight of the animal. If the dog brought puppies or she was taken from the street, then everything is clear.
- It will be useful to visit a veterinarian. If the dog is sick, it is logical that she is losing weight. A number of diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, liver, kidney, and cancer problems, can lead to the loss of valuable kilograms.
- The low weight of the dog may be due to its breed. To find out, it’s worth clarifying the standards and comparing the weight of the animal with them.
- If the animal consumes wet dog food, it is necessary, checking the information on the package, to determine whether the owner gives his pet sufficient food. It depends on the size of the four-legged. If the animal consumes less canned canine, it is not surprising that it is losing weight. After all, it does not receive the required daily amount of calories.
- If the dog is exhausted, how to fatten it? It is necessary to increase the daily amount of feed. Usually start with an increase of 10%. If after that the pet does not have diarrhea after 2-3 days, then another 10% is added to the volume of the wet dog food eaten. Etc. The same applies to dry food. It is not worth sharply increasing the amount of food for a pet, as this will cause disturbances in the intestines. If the difference with the initial mass is small, then add to the portions. If the increase is significant, do another feeding during the day.
Here are practical tips that helped answer the question of how to feed a thin dog.