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How should I feed my dalmatian?
I have an 8 year old dalmatian, and she's overweight. I have doubts about the way we feed her. I was little when Spottie first came home, and my dad says dogs should eat once a day, but I have doubts about this now. Also, I would like to know how much food Spottie's supposed to be eating, because her overweight worries me a little.
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Spottie
on Aug 6th 2008
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in Other Food & Nutrition
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Best Answer
Once a day is fine for some dogs, as for mine I prefer to feed them twice a day. Choose a high quality food and feed her 25 % less than what the bag calls indicates for her desired weight. Fill her up on unsalted green beans if you think she needs more food. Cut back or eliminate treats. Some of those are high calorie and have thing like high fructose corn syrup that make it hard to lose weight.
She is old enough for a senior food. Canidae Platinum is a good choice. Premium Edge Salmon and Potato isn't a senior food, but is low calorie. I had a young dog lose weight nicely on it. It would have a higher percentage of protein than the Platinum. The PE Salmon is great for her skin and coat, too.
Make sure her food has no corn, no wheat and meat as the #1 ingredient, preferably meat meal.
Excess weught is so bad for a dog's joints, heart and internal organs, you are right to be concerned.
Lily answered on Aug 6th.
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Once a day is fine. A dog's digestive system is built to handle a big volume of food at one time. Multiple smaller meals don't properly start the digestion process. The exceptions to this would be small breed dogs who can get hypoglycemic, and puppies who need several feedings a day. I have an article about how canine digestive systems function, if you want it PM me and I'll dig it up for you.
Figure out what you think Spottie's IDEAL weight (not current weight) is and work from there... look at the recommendations on the back of the kibble bag, and cut down that number slightly.
Kolbe
answered on 8/6/08.
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feed less, exercise more. a dog should get a minimum of 45 minutes of exercise/walking daily.
it's natural for a dog to only eat one big meal. wolves don't go hunting 4 times a day- they only hunt once over the course over 1-3 days and gorge themselves on the meal.
but it's your choice, i would rather feed my dog 3 meals a day to keep the hunger at bay. ;-)
Guest 853076
answered on 8/6/08.
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Dogster has this information about how Dalmatians should look and how much they should weigh:
www.dogster.com
Here is some information about dog body condition scores:
www.purina.com
The amount she should eat depends on the brand of dog food - most have a chart on the bag that shows how much they should eat. Use a measuring cup to make sure she's eating exactly the amount you want her to have (previous posters had some good suggestions) and take her for walks or other exercise (just letting her out in the backyard is probably not enough). Dalmatians were bred to run alongside horse-drawn carriages for long distances, so most need lots of physical exercise every day.
It is okay for adult dogs to eat only one time each day - mine eats twice (I just split the food in half and he gets half in the morning and half in the late afternoon.)
Zack
answered on 8/7/08.
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I recommend feeding her twice a day. Give her 1/2 the amount of dry food you feed now and supplement the other half with canned green beans. Green beans is very low in calories and is also a filler. Or you can just switch to canned food only. It is called the Dogkins diet. You can research it on-line. It's like the atkins diet only for dogs. I've been a vet tech for 8 years now. The diet seems to work for most of our patients. If you try the diet and she is still not losing weight have your vet test her thyroid.
Guest 996486
answered on 8/8/08.
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