Advice needed

In spite of the fact that Tyson gets plenty of excercise, according to the vet he is a tad overweight. We are now on the Hills Science reduced calorie food. Tyson does not like to eat in the morning and therefore mainly has an evening meal after his late walk. This is usually 2 cups of the Hills for large breed (he does not like the smaller pellets of the medium food) wih either one sardine mashed or a very little we food mixed in. He gets 4 dog biscuits at bed and is not fed scraps from the table but will get treats for training (Usually chicken viennas cut up to small bits - maybe half one in total.)

In the mornings he has about a third of a cup in his cong with peanut butter.

I have tried to make sense of the feeding quantities on the bag but I cant make head or tail of it. He is 23.6kg at the moment and we need to drop to about 21kg.

I am hoping this bag will be all we need. Please help with measures of what he needs.

I'm not much help cause I don't feed dry. If he's a tad overweight then all I'd recommend is that you reduce his food slightly until you get the right balance.

I wouldn't use Hills because I think it's vastly overpriced. I'm sure there are other reduced calorie dry foods that are just as good, but half the price!

Each brand of food has it's own measurements based on the dog's weight so it's a bit difficult. Is there a guide for a 20kg dog on the pack? If there is, I'd go with that and about 25-50 gms extra to make up for the extra kilo in weight.

Hopefully, if you give him roughly that amount, and continue to exercise him, he will lose the weight. My guess is that he's currently eating the amount for roughly a 23-25 kilo dog.

Does that make sense?

I agree with Caryll, most vets recommend Hills because it's the most expensive and many people buy it direct from the vet. I would find another low calorie brand that isn't as expensive.

For us here, the choices for good food are limited. There is either the brands carried by the vets or the el cheapo stuff at the super market and the gap with quality is huge. I know Hills is really expsensive and I will change him to a generic carried by the vets when he is a little older. For the moment, he is used to Hills so I did not want to make too much of a change.

I thought about reducing the quantity but he scoffs his food and licks the bowl clean and then looks for more.

I'd get him of the Hills if it were me. Full of carbs and not much meat. There's a misconception that dogs needing to loose weight should be on a high carb, low protein, low fat diet but really the opposite is true. Carbs at those levels just get stored as fat.

What was he on before?

Peanut butter and table scraps are a bit high in calories and fat. If you substituted sliced veggies it should cut down the weight

I wouldnt worry that he licks the bowl clean then looks for more, most dogs do that, they're scavengers and will take whatever they can get. A reduction in how much he eats and jstaff's suggestion with swapping high calorie treats for low calorie treats should help.

When Millie had to lose a bit of weight I cut back a little on the amount of food she was getting and the amount of treats. She looks at you in disgust if you try to give her any type of veg so I had to just cut back. It took a while but she did lose a couple of kg

Firstly i would reduce the 4 biscuits at bed to 1, try and find a peanut substitue (but i'm not sure what?) and i don't even know what chicken vienna is lol but maybe try something different for training like sliced carrots or some other veggie that he will take?

Good luck!

I would also try to cut down on the amount of peanut butter as this is quite high in fat. Try a little Vegemite instead if you can get it but again not too much of this as it has a high vitamin B12 content which can effect the nervous system in large amounts.

Vegemite and peanut butter. What a mix!

He has been on Hills for the last few months. He does not get table scraps. I think cutting down on peanut butter is a thought but he dont do carrots so that is out. I will look into an alternative food for when this lot runs out.

Thanks for a ll the helpful advice

Have you tried sweet potatos, cucumbers or cabbage? Suki loves all of those

Best thing to do is to weight his food, its alot easier to adjust the amount when you have to cut his food down...