Why doesn't my dog gain weight? Nutrition for weight gain, aversion to dry food and love for cat food - solving dog problems

At birth, puppies' bodies experience enormous stress. More recently, their livelihoods depended on their mother. Now they have to breathe on their own, feed on breast milk, and in the future - switch to regular feeding. If the puppy does not gain weight on dry food, this is a serious reason to contact the veterinarian. Eliminating the problem at an early stage is a guarantee of a speedy recovery for the animal.

Newborn problems

The most common congenital diseases of puppies are related to the respiratory and digestive systems. After birth, adaptation to the environment occurs. Much will depend on the health of the mother and how she endured the pregnancy. All puppies require special care based on their physiological needs.

Dog owners should pay attention to the following points in care:

Healthy sleep. During the first 3 weeks after birth, sleeping takes up about 90% of puppies' time. The remaining 10% is their diet.
Body temperature. Regardless of the breed, in the first 20 days from birth, your pet’s body temperature ranges from 36.5 to 38°C. You should avoid hypothermia and maintain your pet’s temperature. If you fail to follow the basic rules of caring for your puppy, you risk disrupting its metabolic processes in the body, which will lead to failure in feeding.
Nutrition. Breastfeeding in the early stages of life is the main source of energy for a puppy. If he suddenly refuses milk, and later - from natural products or dry food, then it’s time to sound the alarm.
Drink. Dehydration often occurs due to imperfect concentrating ability of the animal's kidneys. Fluid reserves in puppies’ bodies are quickly “used up.” The animal may also experience increased urination. Depending on the age, it is necessary to give your pets 200-500 ml of drinking water daily along with breast milk.
Hypothermia. For normal functioning of internal organs, place the puppy in conditions with an optimal ambient temperature - 30-32°C. In case of hypothermia, you do not need to give your pet breast milk, regular milk, or artificial food. During this period, his ventricle cannot cope with such a load. Veterinarians recommend administering a 10% glucose solution diluted with water orally using a syringe (4 ml/100 g body weight) every hour.
Important! Do not use a hot water bottle to warm puppies. Such active heating only dilates the skin vessels, causing significant heat loss. It is better to warm the dog with your own body.

Signs of a normally developing and healthy puppy include:

absence of whining and squeaking;
body warm to the touch;
confident walking on four legs after 3 weeks of life;
good weight gain.

Important! If you gently put your finger in the puppy’s mouth, the sick animal will neither grab it nor suck it. It will reflexively push the finger out of its mouth.

Signs

Colostrum, or first milk, provides nutrients to the puppy and strengthens the puppy's immune system. You can tell if your pet is underweight by the following signs:

the ribs can be easily felt and visible through the skin;
the pelvic bones protrude noticeably;
the fur becomes dull and falls out even in the early stages of life;
the animal behaves drowsily, apathetically and loses its appetite;
The puppy constantly squeaks and whines.

In some cases, weight loss may be accompanied by:

vomit;
increase in body temperature up to 39°C;
chills;
dyspnea.

It is important to weigh your pet every day from birth. You should be interested not in dry statistics, but in growth dynamics. If your puppy stops gaining weight, you need to determine the reason for this. The most “harmless” among them are:

the puppy is constantly being pushed away from the breast by his brothers;
the baby always gets an empty breast;
The pet has poor suction and instead of sucking milk it only smacks.

At the first suspicion of underweight, it is necessary to observe the animal's stool. Ideally, his stools are hard and light yellow in color. A deviation from the norm is considered:

Overfeeding. The main symptom is loose stools. If a puppy is severely overfed, his stool takes on a greenish tint.
Failure of intestinal enzymatic function. In this case, the animal's stool becomes gray. Symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting and bloating appear.
Dehydration. This is the most dangerous phenomenon for newborns. In this case, food ceases to be digested, and feces resemble curdled milk. To save the puppy, you need to give him 1 tbsp every 4 hours. l. "Smecta", diluted in water in a ratio of 1:1.

Causes

Puppies develop normally only if they gain weight daily, at least 20-50 g. Their weight should double by the second week.

However, there are a number of reasons why a puppy does not gain weight even on dry food:

Narrowing of the nasal passages. Most often, this problem occurs in decorative breeds (Shih Tzu, Pekingese, English or French bulldog). It is she who prevents them from eating normally. Sometimes narrowing of the nasal passages manifests itself in a period from 3 weeks to 2 months. Puppies may snore and shake their heads. To make life easier for the baby, it is necessary to trim the wings of the nose. This procedure can only be performed by a veterinarian.
Hypotrophic puppies. If a dog's weight is 25% lower than that of its littermates, this is a correct diagnosis of malnutrition or underdevelopment. Such pets are raised in special incubators and fed artificially. Their muscles are underdeveloped. Hypotrophics inactively suck, suffer from shortness of breath and do not have normal body thermoregulation.
Impaired digestion. In addition to the fact that the puppy may be intolerant to mother's milk, he may also refuse dry food. This is due to problems of the digestive tract, for example, insufficient enzyme activity of gastric juice. The most common gastrointestinal diseases in four-legged friends are: stomach ulcers, some types of gastritis, colitis and pancreatitis.
Worm infestation. The immunity of newborn dogs is just developing, so not a single pet is immune from helminths entering the body. This provokes a sharp weight loss even with a normal diet (natural products, dry food, etc.).
Infections. At the first stages of life, puppies can be “attacked” by any infectious lesion of the ears (otodectosis, ear hematoma, dermatitis and dermatoses). All this makes the chewing process difficult and the dog does not eat enough.
Viruses. Often, the exhaustion of puppies is provoked by adenovirus types I and II, for example adenovirus and hepatitis.
Cardiopulmonary syndrome. Any breed of dog can experience circulatory problems as early as the first week of life. This is caused by all kinds of stress, overheating or hypothermia. Digestion of food is disrupted due to changes in the pet's breathing rate and heart rate. A threat to life can occur when body temperature drops below 34°C. The main signs of cardiopulmonary syndrome are intense salivation and frequent swallowing movements. The heart rate becomes 40 beats/minute, which provokes seizures. The norm for puppies is from 60 to 120 beats/minute.

In the first month of a puppy’s life, proper care and observation by a veterinarian is especially important in order to prevent a number of diseases and problems with the digestive, respiratory, genitourinary and other systems.

What to feed?

Owners should take care of the proper nutrition of their babies, because the development of all organs and systems depends on this. In this matter you should keep an eye on:

Frequency of feedings. In the first three months, small puppies should eat up to 8 times a day. Later this amount will decrease to 2 times a day.
Diet mode. Both your pet’s discipline and his health will depend on regularity and adherence to the daily routine.
Volume of servings. To avoid gastritis, pancreatitis and obesity in the future, it is important to ensure that the portion of natural food or food is appropriate for the dog’s age.

As soon as the puppy is taken from its mother, in the very first hours it is given 3-5 drops of fish oil, over time increasing the dose to 2 tbsp. l. in a day. This will allow the dog’s nervous, auditory and visual systems to develop normally. In the future, the four-legged friend’s diet looks like this:

1 month. A “menu” of breast milk or artificial feeding is involved in the formation of baby teeth, skeleton and muscles of the pet.
2 month. It is important to feed 6 times a day. The diet already includes meat or ready-made special food for puppies (from birth to two months). If you prefer natural food, then treat your four-legged ones with sour boiled milk (200 ml per day), cottage cheese (100 g per day), oatmeal brewed in meat broth, and vegetable purees.
3 months. From the age of three months, it’s time to include supplements from seaweed, fish or minced meat, and bones. The puppy’s daily intake during this period is 4-5 servings/day.

Puppies begin to introduce dry food into their diet from the 20th day of birth. This product is ground and added to warm water or milk. Dry food can be given from one and a half months.

Dry food

Qualified veterinarians give a number of practical tips to dog owners on choosing such a treat:

pay attention to the expiration date and composition of the product before purchasing it;
do not mix products of different brands;
exclude natural products from the animal’s diet if switching to dry food;
Give the amount of food that is directly dependent on the activity of your pet (the larger the dog, the larger portion it should receive).

When choosing food, pay attention to the presence of such elements and “ingredients” as:

calcium;
glycerophosphate;
bone flour;
proteins, carbohydrates and fats;
vitamin complex.

Also, conditionally, such food can be divided into the following classes:

Important! If you feed your pet only dry food, it is strictly forbidden to mix this type of feeding with natural food. Any supplements with a certain set of minerals and vitamins are prescribed by a veterinarian only as an exception for individual problems.

However, as a treat or reward for following commands during the training process, the dog can be pampered:

pieces of cheese;
a piece of meat;
breadcrumbs;
dried apricots and other dried fruits.

For large breeds

Representatives of large dog breeds have an excellent appetite, but their metabolism is slow. For puppies like Commander, American Pit Bull Terrier, Kangal, Tosa Inu, you need to select food:

nutritious;
moderate in calories with minimal fat;
with protein content up to 32%.

Such “formulas” will be needed for good functioning of joints and internal organs.

Owners of St. Bernard, German Shepherd or Labrador puppies should pay attention to holistic food:

The Brussels Griffon, Chihuahua, and Yorkshire Terrier are all representatives of decorative dog breeds. Their owners should carefully choose food, taking into account the weight, breed type and age of their pet. Many manufacturers produce special series of food for small ornamental breeds. It is important to find the following components on the food packaging:

linoleic acid;
B vitamins;
fruits and vegetables that improve digestion;
probiotics.

For the well-being of puppies, veterinarians recommend super premium and holistic food. They will guarantee the normal development and growth of your dog, and will also reduce the risk of diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, respiratory system and weight loss.

Should I worry if my puppy is not gaining weight on dry food? Why is underweight dangerous and why should its causes be considered comprehensively? How to choose a diet for a puppy so that he quickly gains weight without harm to his health? Let's take a closer look!

Many owners worry that their puppies are not gaining weight well and look too thin.

There are standards that help determine the lag in a particular parameter when it is clearly expressed. If your pet is active, playful, has a good appetite, is learning, acquiring new skills and appears healthy, “defining” his general condition by being thin is simply illogical.

Some dogs remain thin into adulthood, although their siblings gain considerable weight. This is explained by the constitution of the body; our pets, like people, can be naturally thin or stocky.

Let's think about what would happen if you actually "forced" a dog (who is naturally lean) to gain weight. We are not talking about lean breeds such as greyhounds or. For example, let's take . According to the standard, a German Shepherd can weigh from 22 to 40 kg.

Based on the standards, you can try to “fit” your pet to them. However, its joints, heart and other organs are designed to allow the body to operate with less weight. It is important to understand that these arguments apply to both fat and muscle mass. Tiring your pet with unnecessary stress in order to gain muscle mass and thereby increase weight is just as unwise as feeding it to gain fat.

To understand whether your pet needs to gain weight, you need to find out the reasons for thinness. If in doubt, do not make any decisions before consulting your veterinarian.

Observe your pet, collect anamnesis and consult a doctor with extensive experience. It is possible that your pet has no problems. You need to be wary if the weight loss is significant, the dog looks weak or unhealthy. Let's look a little more closely.

Read also: Important rules for building a dog enclosure

Causes related to food

What effect does thinness have on the body due to malnutrition and poor quality nutrition? During puppyhood, the most common consequence is a decrease in activity and coat quality.

If your puppy is four or more months old, gets tired easily on walks, is not interested in playing with his family, and looks thin, it is possible that feeding is not balanced. Struggling for survival, the body deprives “minor” organs of nutrition, namely skin and fur.

Important! If you notice hair loss, brittleness or a sharp change in the structure of the coat, peeling of the skin and other alarming signs, review your pet’s diet or immediately contact a veterinarian.

The two main causes of feed-related underweight are:

Malnutrition – incorrectly calculated portions or frequency of feeding will lead to weight loss, even if you feed your puppy with high-quality food.
Unbalanced, poor quality or unsuitable food - when choosing food, rely on the individual needs of your pet. You should not feed your puppy products for adult dogs and vice versa. Read the food ingredients carefully, as its quality is critical.

If you are sure that you are feeding your puppy fully and balancedly, and the daily food intake is calculated adequately, you need to rule out pathological causes of thinness. Do not panic ahead of time, if you doubt your conclusions, it is better to consult a doctor and remember that the main indicator of a puppy’s health is its activity.

Causes not related to food

There are many reasons for weight loss that are absolutely not related to nutrition. The puppy may have congenital ailments that you do not know about and the breeder did not know about. Many purebred dogs suffer from hereditary diseases that can affect the process of growth, maturation, formation, and so on. Let's look at the most common pathological causes of underweight in puppyhood.

Read also: A place for a dog in an apartment: how to arrange and train your pet to use it

Note! Slow metabolism leads to delays in development, growth and weight gain.

Dogs usually have an excellent appetite. Many of them eat as much food as is available to them and gain weight well. Often, domestic dogs weigh even more than is allowed by the breed standard or the characteristics of their constitution. But in some cases, pets need increased nutrition, so any dog owner needs to know how to fatten a dog if necessary.

When to fatten a dog

Malnourished dogs need a special diet. Exhaustion can occur after a bitch feeds too large a litter - over 10 puppies, after suffering a serious illness or surgery.

Exhaustion occurs in dogs that work a lot and do not receive the necessary caloric nutrition. This is especially true for sled dogs that travel long distances and carry loads. Sometimes it is necessary for a dog to gain weight before a show. Fashion includes not only certain breeds, but also some individual characteristics of dogs within the breed: color, height, weight, external fatness. Therefore, dogs are forced to lose and gain body weight due to body fat and muscle mass.

Old animals are often capricious and refuse to eat due to poor health. They quickly develop exhaustion due to disruption of metabolic processes in the body. Before changing their diet, they should be taken to a veterinarian to determine the cause of this condition.

How to formulate a diet for fattening?

The easiest way to fatten a dog on natural food. It has a distinct smell and taste that dogs like so much. Industrial food is not as attractive and does not have a variety of taste. Some animals get bored and bored with them. If the animal receives industrial food, then it can be made more interesting for the dog. For example, mix dry granules with finely grated cheese, boiled and chopped meat, fish, eggs; many animals willingly eat industrial food, to which a little cottage cheese, kefir, and low-fat sour cream are added.

It is very important for puppies and pregnant/lactating bitches to receive dairy and fermented milk products: kefir, fermented baked milk, cottage cheese, cheese, natural yogurt. This improves the digestive system, improves stool, populates the intestines with beneficial microorganisms, and also supplies the body with calcium in an easily digestible form. Feeding dairy and meat products should be spaced out over time, since their combination has a bad effect on the dog’s well-being. Once or twice a week you should include boiled fish with the bones removed in your diet. Porridges are made well with fish broth diluted with water. Only low-fat fish should be given.

Bird eggs are an excellent source of healthy cholesterol and vitamins. They are given boiled. If some dogs like to drink raw eggs. The dog should not be allowed to do this while it is sick, has not gained the required weight, or the bird that laid the egg is showing signs of ill health.

Plant foods - cereals, vegetables, fruits - are a source of essential carbohydrates and a stimulator of the gastrointestinal tract.

An emaciated animal needs to be fed more often than usual: three to eight times a day. If it completely refuses food, you need to drink it with warm water from a syringe and inject glucose medications. Which products should be included in the diet for fattening depends on the individual situation and health status of the animal.

Nutrition for malnourished dogs

Here's how to fatten up your dog after it's exhausted. First of all, she needs to be given meat. Meat for dogs is a source of essential amino acids that these animals cannot get from plant foods and even fish. If an animal has been starving for a long time, then it should be given only heat-treated meat, since it is better digestible, and low-fat, since excess fat upsets digestion, which leads to even greater problems. The daily portion should contain 75-80 percent meat.

The remaining volume should be occupied by products of plant origin. For example, meat goes well with cereals. Buckwheat, rice and oatmeal are good for dogs. Allergy sometimes occurs to corn grits. Wheat cereals are not recommended for feeding predators. Cereals are cooked in water without adding salt. In the resulting porridge add chopped meat and grated raw or stewed vegetables and fruits in their own juice: carrots, beets, apples, spinach.

Fattening puppies after an illness, for example, enteritis, involves including semi-liquid pureed foods in the diet: boiled meat, fermented milk products, liquid oatmeal, thick vegetable soup with pieces of meat. Fattening the bitch after weaning the puppies involves increased nutrition according to the scheme prescribed for her feeding during whelping and lactation.

Feeding for fattening for other reasons

To fatten a dog quickly before a show, it is enough to reduce its physical activity and increase the daily portion of food. There is no need to change your diet. Firstly, if a dog participates in a show, then it is in good shape and gets everything it needs from its menu. Secondly, changing or introducing new products can cause adverse consequences in the form of an allergic rash, dulling and matting of the coat, hair loss, delamination of nails, runny eyes or nose, redness of the eyes and ears. All this will significantly reduce the dog’s chances at the show.

What not to do

Old textbooks on dog breeding advise puppies and adolescents to feed semolina porridge cooked in milk or meat broth. You shouldn't do this. Dogs do not digest wheat well (and semolina is a product of wheat processing), and many dog breeds are allergic to this grain.

You should also not include lamb and pork in your animal diet due to their high fat content. This has a harmful effect on the liver and pancreas and creates a significant additional load on the gallbladder. In addition, pork is a highly allergenic product. The ideal option is rabbit, turkey, veal, horse meat. They are boiled, and for animals in good health they are scalded, chopped and fed with herbal supplements.

You should not replace meat with offal during the fattening period. By-products are less nutritious and are also less digestible. The exception is the liver. It can replace a third of all meat in the daily diet a couple of times a week. You can only feed boiled liver.

To fatten a dog so that it gains weight, you need to increase the calorie intake. Carbohydrate foods provide clean calories, so your dog needs to cook porridge and soups with vegetables and cereals in broth diluted with water.

Fattening supplements

The diet will be significantly enriched with meat and bone meal, fish meal, fish oil, seaweed, St. John's wort, eleutherococcus leaves, nettle, plantain, and dandelion leaves.

What do you prefer to feed your pets?

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Porridge with various additives 46%, 8370 votes

Excessive thinness of a dog can indicate a number of diseases, but this is not always the case. Pets adopted from shelters or from the street may be underweight due to a lack of protein, vitamins or microelements. Weight gain, as well as weight loss, should always be approached with caution, the main goal is not to cause harm by “disrupting” the animal’s metabolism. Let's consider what to feed your dog so that it gains weight and what measures need to be taken.

Naturally, the best option is to show the dog to a doctor and undergo a full examination. Firstly, a visit to the clinic is not always possible, and secondly, a comprehensive examination requires significant financial costs. To begin with, let’s exclude possible options “on the surface” that are logical:

Important! Diarrhea and vomiting lead to rapid... If you are confident that you have the situation under control and are not going to see a veterinarian, add rehydron to your dog’s drink to avoid rapid loss of muscle mass.

Excessive thinness is always alarming. This applies to both people and animals. But does the visibility of bones through the skin always require surgical measures? Is this evidence of dangerous illnesses? What do experts say about the problem?

About the causes of thinness in animals

Let us immediately note that pets taken from the street or shelters do not gain weight due to a lack of protein and vitamins. Having taken them home, you should not suddenly start fattening them or give them large portions of food, because good intentions can only do harm. Both weight gain and weight loss must be approached carefully. The main thing is not to harm the animal’s metabolism. It is best to take your pet to a veterinarian and undergo a full medical examination. But not all owners have this opportunity. Therefore, it is worth excluding possible causes of weight loss.

Perhaps your pet is nursing multiple offspring? Then she really needs to increase her diet, because the growing body of puppies takes more and more nutrients from the mother every day.

Sometimes, if there are two dogs, one can simply eat the other, less active and fearful. Observe both and draw the right conclusions.

With dysbacteriosis, food will also not be fully absorbed, which means the dog will lose weight. If there are undigested residues in your pet's stool, then this disease is most likely the cause. In this case, it is necessary to take a course of probiotics.

Your dog may be too young. Some representatives of service breeds gain full weight only by 2-3 years. You should not try to fatten them at a young age by exceeding food consumption standards or increasing the frequency of food intake. A hyperactive metabolism is the norm for such dogs at a young age.

Or maybe the reason lies in malnutrition? Are you sure you are offering your dog enough food to get enough calories? Start by weighing your pet. Cynological tables indicating the minimum and maximum weight depending on the breed and gender of the dog will help you determine whether the result complies with generally accepted standards.

Calculate whether your dog is getting enough calories per day. Please note that for 1 kilogram of weight per day, representatives of small breeds should receive 85 kcal, medium - 70 kcal, large - 60 kcal. If your dog is really not getting enough calories from natural feeding, then it is recommended to gradually, over the course of a week, increase the portion size by 5-10% to the required daily allowance.

How to fatten a dog correctly?

If the dog is very thin, then it should be fed not twice, but three or four times a day. After all, an animal’s small stomach simply cannot accommodate a lot of food even if it wants to.

Experienced dog breeders recommend that if your pet is extremely thin, switch your pet to special high-energy food. Their packages contain precise instructions and dosages corresponding to the weight of the dogs. Follow these recommendations strictly. Make sure your animal always has access to fresh water.

Also, if the dog is very thin and eats ready-made food, it is recommended to replace it with canned food. If within a week the animal begins to gain weight, it means that it is simply tired of the monotonous diet. In this case, you can consider the option of changing regular food to a higher quality one or switching the dog to “natural” food. But combining it and industrial feed is strictly not recommended.

When feeding a natural diet, you need to make sure that your pet gets enough B vitamins, especially B12, which is found in eggs, liver, and lean beef. In case of catastrophic weight loss (for example, after a serious illness), veterinarians advise offering sugar-free baby formula as a “snack”. Energy supplements will not harm overly playful, active dogs. These are complexes of substances that stimulate metabolism. If within a week or two after all the actions taken you do not notice any improvement, that is, the dog gaining weight, then you cannot do without a comprehensive examination of your pet friend.