Exercise

Hi everyone, I have a question. Since Winnie my Lab has been a bit more aggressive at the dog park I havnt been taking her. She was on Innova and because she wasnt running around the park and from the Innova she gained weight. She isnt huge but she is chunky. So I decided that her and I will start an exercise routine. I plan on walking her two times a day. But I was wondering what is a good amount of walking that will eventually help her loose weight? I was thinking an hour walk in the morning and an hour walk at night. Would this help her loose weight if this is all the exercise she will get? I also switched her food to Chicken Soup b/c it has fewer calories and still has great ingrediants. Thank you!

 

does she chase balls and play with toys???

I'd say that would help out much more. Vigourous walking and running to play with the ball are two diffrent things....The playing will increase her heartrate and case to burn more calories. Also cutting back on her intake of food.

 

Sams....she started playing agian with the puppies, when I first got my 3rd dog Lana, Winnie was very unactive and didnt play with them. She now plays with them a lot more, playing tug , chasing things I throw in the house, and some wrestling. I was thinking of feeding her once a day instead of twice but i dont know if that would do anything.

 

Another thing that can make a huge difference is cutting down on treats. I am veyr guilty of giving Cameron a lot of treats- but when our vet said she was getting a bit chunky, I started making an effort to cut down on the amount that we gave her, and also, instead of giving her biscuits, I started giving her kibble as treats-- not only are the kibbles smaller, but I imagine they're probably healthier. I have noticed a difference in her weight after only about a month or so.

 

Do you have any large bodies of water by your house that isn't really that populated with people? Swimming is a great way to burn fat and that doesn't put stress on joints.

 

Thanks for all the replies....I dont give her treats anymore and havnt for a while now. She does get bones to chew on, but the compressed rawhide ones, so they last a long time. My mom has a pool and she lives really close to me unfortunatly she wont let the girls in the pool, she is worried about the hair. Thanks agian everyone.

 

Whatever you do don't cut back to only one meal a day. Keep the two meals but just slowly cut back on quantity fo a bit to get the weight off. One meal could cause your dog to gulp too rapidly from hunger and could cause a bloat episode.
It's strange but I have also experienced Duke being aggressive at the dog park. I watch him very carefully. If another dog so much as looks sideways at Duke they get into one of those scary snarling matches without actually coming into contact. As soon as I call to Duke he breaks off and runs up smiling and happy as if nothing had happened. Our theory is that Duke has to tolerate Frekles aggrivation and knows he can't "deal" with him so he takes out his suppressed aggression at the park.

 

Actually, when I was trying to get 5lbs off of Natalie I switched to a lower calorie food and went from 2 meals per day to 3 meals. From what I understand several small meals help speed up metabolism. She lost the extra weight and I did'nt even have to increase her exercise.
Dukesdad had a good point too regarding bloat.

 

in this months dog fancy, there was an article on dog on dog aggression and how it it becoming more frequent, I was in the vets office so I didnt get to read all of it. would be interesting
to read the whole thing

interesting nern on the 3 smaller meals

honeybeaer

 

Thanks for the replies...I have another question about feeding her. I'm giving her Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul. On the back it says for her weight to feed a minimum of 3 1/3 cup of food a day. I know that they tend to tell you to feed more then you should, so should I not give her 3 1/3 cups a day. If I shouldn't how much should I feed. I'm just worried that I might end up feeding her to little. She weighs 72# and is probly 10 pounds over weight. Any ideas?


oh and once I figure out how many cups a day I will take nerns advice and try the 3 small meals a day. Thanks!

 

I would probably start with 3 cups a day and see how it goes. How many cups of Innova was she getting?

 

Nern...I was feeding her 2 cups of Innova a day.... I'll give her 3 cups and see how she does...thanks