Last night was Delilah’s yearly exam. As is the case with most vet visits we bring both dogs. We like to says it’s for moral support but really we hate to leave one home alone.
We also like the opportunity to pop the dogs on the scale, to see how their diet and exercise routine is going. Our vet’s office will let us pop in anytime and put them on the scale but we are usually too busy, so we do it on the formal appointments.
At Sampson’s last check-up in October he weighed 86.5 pounds while Delilah weighed 72.4, when they hopped on the scale Sampson had gained six pounds and Delilah has gained 1.6.
I’m slightly puzzled by the weight gain, especially in Sampson. He runs a lot when he is off leash on our walks and he gets minimal treats. Delilah on the other hand is on leash so she doesn’t get a lot of running in, plus she gets LOTS of treats.
For breakfast they get chicken necks. The number of necks vary depending upon their size. Delilah usually gets one more than Sampson. I give them a couple squirts of Salmon Oil on the necks for the Omega 3’s. After their necks, they get about a 1/4 cup of pumpkin, which is low in fat, high in fiber and it helps them feel full.
I had increased their raw food at their evening meal slightly and by that I mean Sampson is supposed to get 12.8 and I usually give him 13.50 and Delilah is supposed to get 10.6 and she usually gets 11.30. They get a small drizzle of olive oil on the food, because sometimes their poop is very dry and I worry it will be too hard for them to pass. They also get about a quarter cup of non/low-fat yogurt after their raw food, to help keep good bacteria in their intestines.
Sandy our food guru said that since Delilah had really gotten down to her ideal weight, I should add a little bit more to see how she would maintain it, which is why she gets one more neck than Sampson.
Today I went back to our original measurements, and I cut back that extra neck for Delilah.
The dilemma is really their treats. Before the great Chinese Chicken debacle, I used to use the little dried disks of chicken, which I think work great for the raw diet. While I do try to buy grain free treats, most of the treats I’m buying do have some type of flour in them. Which is where I think the problem lies. If I could cut out some of the carbs, I think it would really help. My goals are to get Sampson down to 80 – 82 pounds and Delilah down to about 70.
I am now in the market for some good protein treats, any suggestions?
Oh and the rest of her check up went well. They drew blood to check her thyroid and to check for heartworm, I remembered to bring in a stool sample so they checked that. I got a call from the vet today that the thyroid was perfect and the stool sample was negative. Now we are just waiting for the results of the heartworm/tick borne test.
She wasn’t due for rabies, and my vet doesn’t feel she needs Parvo or Distemper, so the only vaccine she got was Leptospirosis.
Our vet said probably in the next year or two she will need a teeth cleaning, she has a little tartar on the back teeth but it hasn’t gotten down to the gum line. She suggested large bully sticks for chewing which should help and brushing her teeth. That should be interesting because we’ve never gotten into a routine of brushing.
Our vet was very pleased with her over-all appearance and demeanor, and keeps complimenting us how the work we’ve done to get them in shape.
Tomorrow is follow-up Friday, but Saturday I am planning (unless something unforeseen happens) to do a post on the command I’ve been teaching Delilah on our walks.
If you have any thoughts or suggestions for low-fat/low carb treats that would work good for training, please feel free to leave them in the comments.
Have a wonderful evening.
Jodi give them baby carrots. Our kids love them. I miss you. It has been a year since I left there!! WOW.
I miss you too Dawn! I was just thinking about that.
We do use carrots a lot, but they are not enticing enough for Delilah when she is off leash!! LOL
Hey S & D…. Bark at her LOUD AND STRONG…. MUSCLES…. We have MUSCLES…
BOL…
Delilah barks at me for her meals! LOL lots and lots.
When I am trying to slim the Newfs down I use frozen green beans. They like the crunch of them, but I can only use them for a few days and they tire of them and I switch to carrots.
Maybe Sampson has gained more muscle? or maybe the vets scale was off. That happens where I work all the time, since it gets so much use it needs to be reset often. I don’t know, just trying to make you feel better:)))
I never thought of that muscle weighs more than fat Jen, I will take that up with the vet at his next visit. I used to use the frozen green beans, but I’ve been told they need to be chopped for the dogs to digest, that’s just too much work for me. LOL
They do get a lot of baby carrots.
I put bacon or sausage in a bag with carrot slices and/or green beans and let them stand for a while in the refrigerator. The smells of the good stuff seems to mix into the good for them stuff and they eat the good for them stuff without noticing that it isn’t the good stuff. Dogs are all about smell anyway.
I love this idea. I think it’s fantastic and plan on picking up some bacon this weekend. Thank you Jan!
I believe dogs need some carbs for energy, but I know people who feed raw don’t buy into that. Sorry I am of no help. We don’t really have weight issues with our doggies…yet. I am sure as they get older, that will change and I may have something to offer. lol Our doggies really like the antlers for getting the tartar off their teeth. We are new converts and boy has they made a difference quickly.
I’m just going by what I’m told, they could need carbs but I think they are getting those from the carrots….then again I’m not a nutritionist. 🙂
I think your dogs also do a lot more physical exercise then mine do, which may be the difference. I thought TOTW was a grain free kibble?
TOTW is grain free but they have carbs, sweet potatoes and potatoes. I think the big difference is that my dogs are not de-sexed. It can be very difficult to keep weight off once the dogs are de-sexed and start to age. Even with a lot of exercise. That is why I am pretty sure I will be in the same boat soon…lol. Eventually mine will be de-sexed. You are doing a great job. I bet you will find the right combo.
Just make a beef heart with garlic powder . like a roast. cut it up in pieces and freeze in baggies You now have doggy treats
Thanks Sandy! I’d forgotten about that. 🙂
OK If you want Delilah to weigh 70 lb she should get 11.2 oz per meal.
sandy
That’s about what she’s been getting. I think it’s the treats on the walk, I’ll have to get the beef hearts.
It’s actually a lot easier on the budget to purchase a dehydrator and make your own jerky treats – if you’re avoiding chinese-made treats (which everyone should!). I recommend Real Meat Company for an alternative to Chinese-made jerky. Some of their ingredients are from New Zealand (lamb & venison) but nothing is sourced from or made in China. Stella & Chewy’s and Nature’s Variety also make freeze-friend raw treats which are very high value.
The other thing is to consider how many treats are given each day and reduce their meals accordingly. On days when I do a lot of training, Hurley gets a much smaller dinner than usual.
freeze-dried, not freeze-friend. sigh.
I read it the right way. 🙂 LOL Right now I’m so busy I really, truly don’t have time. I’m hoping that will be slowing down by the end of the month. Hopefully then I can get back on track. Thank you for the names of treats, I’ll be sure and pass them along to my training center and hopefully Sara will be able to get them in stock. If I was going to be doing a lot of training I would consider cutting up some of the necks and subtracting that from their food. Also a wonderful suggestion. Thank you!
Wow those are some good diets those kids have! You’re so dedicated. One of my favorite treats to have around is some good meaty thing (steak or pork chops or something) made into bits and dehydrated. I love using my food dehydrator but there are probably ways to make jerky in the oven, at a low temp.
Kirsten, after all the issues we had with Delilah I felt like I had no option but to help her lose the weight. Of course, it made sense to bring Sampson along for the ride as well.
I actually picked up some steaks today but read the price wrong so those went right back! LOL
I really may need to get a dehydrator. 🙂
As everyone else has said, dehyrating your own treats is super easy, even if you don’t have a dehydrator, which I don’t. I just use the oven. Liver is super cheap at the grocery store. I just cut it into pieces and pop them in at about 150 to 200 degrees and leave them in until they look dry enough.
Though, I am extremely lazy and therefore don’t do this very often, even if it is simple. Most of our dog’s treats are just plain old kibble, or hot dogs. 😛 Our local meat market sells frozen diced chicken and turkey parts that I sometime use as well because they are already cut up for me.
Glad they both checked out well! It’s always very reassuring.
Thanks Kristine, I went to our local store today and they didn’t have any beef hearts. We don’t have a lot of little local butchers around but at the grocery store they gave me a tip for buying online. I will research and see what I come up with.
I’m lazy too and very tired, so dehydrating may be a ways down the road. 🙂
Hi Jodi,
Your talk of the stool sample brought back a memory!! When I was a pup Mum was supposed to bring one to the vets and forgot, so I obliged right there in the examination room!! See, I was always a Mischief Maker 🙂
Not sure on the protein treats, but I LOVE Carrots as treats and Mum says they’re pretty healthy!! 🙂
Have a fun weekend guys,
Your pal Snoopy 🙂
Oh Snoopy! That made me laugh! I can only imagine how mom felt. 🙂 Sampson and Delilah love carrots too, they get a lot of those when they are sitting nicely in the kitchen while we are working.
Have a great weekend Snoopy, you little mischief maker.
I love that you are so focused on Sampson and Delilah’s diet! I am obsessed with my Mazzie’s diet and supplements and also aim for her to avoid grains generally (she gets a small amount of organic brown rice).
For grain free treats, I like Primal Chicken Nibs (and the Primal line has other grain free treat options), any of the dehydrated treats in the Bravo! Training Treats line and anything from the Plato “Farmer’s Market” line.
And so glad to hear that all is well with Delilah!
Thank you! I have never heard of those treats but will definitely check them out. Many of the grain free treats I get have some kind of flour. Pea, rice or garbanzo bean. I’d like to get them totally away from the flours and protein/vegetable diet only.
What do you give Mazzie for vitamins and supplements? Delilah has herbal antioxidants but our Dr thinks she could go off them.
While the Primal and Bravo treats are really easy for training, if you want to use the Plato ones for training, you’ll need to break or cut them up into smaller pieces. As far as supplements go, your vet would most likely think I’m going overboard! I mix some supplements (a probiotic, a seaweed based calcium supplement and Nupro joint formula) into Mazzie’s home cooked food and give her the others in capsule form (a multi vitamin, wild alaskan salmon oil, flax oil, Vitamin C and Vitamin E). If I did a raw instead of home cooked diet (I do ground meats and veggies), I think it would be more difficult to mix some of the supplements into Mazzie’s food.
Thanks for that info. They have suggested probiotics, but raw food is expensive and money is tight right now so it has to wait. I try to compensate a bit by giving them the yogurt. I would also like to get them on some type of joint support, as they are big dogs and getting older.
I find when I put Delilah’s antioxident is in her ground food she generally eats it. When it’s in her pumpkin it sometimes gets missed.
When I first started giving them the salmon oil I didn’t want to put it on their food because they love their food so much, but now I just squirt a bit on the necks in the morning and they are so excited.
I don’t give them any other vitamins. I’m hopeful they get it from their food.
Great check-up! Ya know, when Jen fed me the recommended amount of food I gained weight, so I’m down a little.
Are you kidding? How did THAT happen?
Malamutes’ bodies are more efficient than other breeds in use of calories.
Jodi – Toby’s “supposed” to be the same weight as Sampson too! Right now he’s sitting at 85, but ideally he should be around 82 as well. They must be distant cousins or something.
We use “Real Meat” treats, nothing bad in ’em and the dogs LOVE ’em.
http://www.realmeatpet.com/
If you buy six bags at a time at Sit Stay, they cost about 80.00 – which sounds like a lot, but that lasts us for two – three months, and we have three dogs. (But you have to feed smaller pieces to get ’em to last that long. They break apart easily enough, and when I’m super ambitious, I cut ’em up into fours, or even sixes)
Thank you Donna, I have had some awesome suggestions in these comments and may make that one complete blog post.
I always said Toby and Sampson look alike!! LOL that is why I asked you where you got him. 🙂 We know Sampson’s birthday is July 30, 2004 though.
Sampson doesn’t get a lot of treats on the trail, but Delilah is a treat whore on the trail. Right now that is working but we will be starting new training in July and we will be weaning off the treats.
I will pass along the information about the treats to Sara, maybe she can get them cheaper through the business. 🙂
I am so pleased that Delilah did well on her yearly exam 🙂