For those who feed your doggies on dry food, do you ever check the fat content?

I know lots of you check protein levels, i just wondered if you check the fat content.

The lady at dog training has told me a while ago leo was getting a bit chunky, this was my fault completely as i kept giving him rawhide and didnt realise it was so fatteneing. I cut that out completely and he does look better now and has lost a bit of weight.

She said again last week he should lose a bit more but im stumped now becasue all he has is his 2 meals a day and any sausage i use for training that day, which is never much.

Are collies prone to putting weight on easily?

I have always fed leo on pro plan and he's been fine on it. I have been told though its fat levels are quite high, as well as the protein which i knew but he's not an overly hyper dog. He gets plenty of exercise too. I have wondered about changing his food for one with less fat in it.

What do you think?

Has he been done? Sometimes they are prone to weight gain if they are castrated.

Have you thought about changing to a RAW diet.

My dogs will be changing from a dry food to a RAW diet over the next month.

no he hasnt been castrated, its a decision i cant make my mind up about.

And i dont know enough about feeding raw to be able to do it. Can't say at this moment in time i would change to raw either.

To me he look just right, i am getting him weighed at the vets tomorrow though

here are few pics i took of him last week

Is he show lines? They often look fatter than your adverage collie but most of its coat and really they are fine. My Tia's show lines and she looks fat but she isn't really.

Aww hes lovely. He looks bigger than Macy but then she i more white, dunno why that makes a difference but it does...lol

The raw diet isnt as hard as you think, Ive been researching it for a few weeks, its very interesting once you get into it.

I can send you some links if you fancy a read.

he is show lines yes, and his fur is very thick especially towards his back end. I do find he is bigger than your average collie lol, a real solid dog.

Send away lol i'll have a read of them :D

Am i being slightly paranoid about his weight? lol

Can you feel his ribs? You should be able to just feel their ribs (without pressing hard lol!) but not so they are sticking out. With regards to training treats I usually take the same amount I have trained with out of their daily meal if you see what I mean. You try training him with his daily amount of dry food and you will realise how quickly it goes.

How about cutting his food down a tiny bit unless he loses weight?

I have had Eli on a diet since the end of August and he has lost loads of weight and has a really defined waist now. All i done was cut the daily amount of food he was having into half. When i did this i think i was feeding about 200 grams a day.

Have you had him weighed, might be good to take him into the vets just to check his weight.
Last year, Meg started looking chubby, took her to vets to weigh her and was shocked to see she had gone up to nearly 24kg, previous to this she was always around the 20 kg. She is show lines and very thick coat, so didn't notice it creeping up.
I then cut both her meals down slightly and over a 3month period she is now 21.5 kg, Ideally going to get her down to 19 / 20kg.
Most vets now have a free weigh and diet clinic where you pop in whenever
Margaret

I had this with VInce and Paul's niece and nephews still call Vince fat compared to Tess but they are completely different builds.

I was feeding Vince twice a day (RAW) andd he would also have kongs, treat balls etc.

I cut out his morning feed and continued to give him kongs with mainly healthy ingredients and he seems to have slimmed down a bit. he is always going to be much chunkier than Tess as he's more show lines but when he's wet you see that he's not fat at all!!

Could you cut down treats or meals? BTW - he looks fine to me!! :D

Try not to get paranoid - I was for ages and now I don't think about it