Home-made food and weight loss

[Joy]

I had to collect some wormer from the vets today so I was able to get Molly weighed and I'm pleased to sat that she has lost another 2.25kg since her surgery in March. She still has 2.75kg to lose but at least now she has a waist and is moving much more actively. (I do feel rather ashamed of having let her get so fat but no point in looking back.)
I know I had written about starting to cook for her back in January somewhere but can't find the thread so thought I'd put something here. The really good thing about it is that she can have so much food throughout the day (and it's such good quality) that my OH no longer feels the need to sneak her unhealthy snacks (yes I'm blaming him ) and also she isn't constantly demanding food. I feel she is on a similar path to me, able to eat when hungry.
As her target weight is 40kg Molly gets 800g of food a day (2% of 40kg). Of this 200g is cooked veg (always some broccoli because we always have it in the house and then others such as green beans and spinach). The rest is made up of cooked animal protein - chicken thighs with skin removed, beef mince with fat drained off, eggs, white fish, tinned tuna, tinned sardines, low-fat cottage cheese. Her liver (lamb's) allowance is given in the form of home-made liver cake as treats and the flour that is used to make that is the only grain she has. Oh and I grind eggshells to a powder in a coffee grinder and she has a small teaspoon of that a day for calcium.
Molly has one 'proper' meal a day in a bowl which is all the veg with 150g of animal protein and then the rest she gets throughout the day in kongs or as training treats. The only extra is a couple of raw carrots which don't appear to get digested as they appear in her poo!

 

[Selina27]

Well done Joy on getting Molly eating healthily and losing weight. It sounds like she's enjoying it all and feeling so much better, as you are too!
Gosh though, a target weight of 40kg! She must have a big frame I guess, are chesapeakes bigger than labs?

 

[Atemas]

Well done @Joy at getting her weight down

 

[Joy]

are chesapeakes bigger than labs?

They are a few inches taller, at least the ones I've seen in real-life, though having just googled the breed standard it doesn't seem as if females are supposed to be heavier than about 32kg. Molly is just over 60cm tall and she does have a very broad chest - bone structure rather than fat. I think some Labs on here are around 40kg without being overweight.

Anyway if we get to 40kg (which I think should be the end of August) and she still looks too fat I can cut the food down by a little more. I'm eating a lot less than I was without feeling hungry, so I suppose my stomach and appetite has shrunk, so I'm hoping the same will be true for Molly.

 

[Selina27]

Oh no , I didn't mean that she should be less than that , not at all . I know it's how they look , with a waist etc. I was just surprised I guess, cassie has stayed at about 27.8 kg now for 2 or 3 years and I don’t think of her as small. They are all different I know no one weight for all

 

[Candy]

Oh no , I didn't mean that she should be less than that , not at all . I know it's how they look , with a waist etc. I was just surprised I guess, cassie has stayed at about 27.8 kg now for 2 or 3 years and I don’t think of her as small. They are all different I know no one weight for all

Yes, I think they vary enormously. We were told that Solstice should not go above 30kg and she usually hovered around 29-29.5. She was a big dog, but very fit and active and had a clearly defined waist.
Little Joy however remains around 20.5 and is small but perfectly formed.

 

[Boogie]

We work hard at keeping Tatze to 27Kg.

I think the secret is fish cubes and sprats for treats, she loves them and the are really low cal.

Oh, if only human chocolate were the same for us - delicious and really low calorie!

She‘s on Skinners senior light and has exactly half the amount it says on the bag. She’s shiny, fit and very healthy at eight years old.

 

[snowbunny]

They are so different! Despite Squidge being rounder in shape than the other two, she really doesn't look as if she should weigh so much more than them. Lead legs, I reckon.

Great work with Molly, @Joy!

 

[Loraseal]

Great work Molly and @Joy! Yes carrots do like to make a second appearance don't they!!!
Well done to you both,

 

[SwampDonkey]

Well done to you both. It's hard work

 

[Natalie]

I'm interested that you've seen that fairly significant weight loss with Molly, @Joy , I didn't notice any weight drop with Monty when I switched him into home cooked ( albeit only 50% ) and though he's been back on 90% kibble recently I've seen no difference again... Though I honestly think his breath smells better on mostly dry food.

Maybe I'm just consistently stingy and he's permanently on starvation rations - both boys would concur!

 

[Selina27]

It's interesting @Natalie what you say about Monty s breath. Lately I have been adding some meat to Cassie s diet , really because I thought she would enjoy the variety, but I have noticed it makes her more smelly. If she only had her kibble and doesn't take any ad hoc snacks when out and about l
That doesn't happen .
I am tempted to do home cooked for her enjoyment, but ad she doesn't go hungry on her kibble and she maintains a healthy weight I don't want to rock the boat.

 

[Joy]

@Natalie I'm sure Molly would have been an ok weight on kibble if I had fed her less (or fewer extras) but she was constantly demanding food - I mean hitting the fridge hard with her paw and whining to the point where it was almost a howl sometimes. And yes I suppose I should have steeled myself and not given in but with three adults in the house someone always caved.
I think most dogs seem fine on kibble. Home-cooking is not something I'm trying to persuade other people to do. For Molly I just like the fact that she can eat frequently with the home-cooked food so she's not hungry and still lose weight - so it seems to be a solution to a problem that undoubtedly I caused myself by bad management.

 

[Candy]

@Natalie I'm sure Molly would have been an ok weight on kibble if I had fed her less (or fewer extras) but she was constantly demanding food - I mean hitting the fridge hard with her paw and whining to the point where it was almost a howl sometimes. And yes I suppose I should have steeled myself and not given in but with three adults in the house someone always caved.
I think most dogs seem fine on kibble. Home-cooking is not something I'm trying to persuade other people to do. For Molly I just like the fact that she can eat frequently with the home-cooked food so she's not hungry and still lose weight - so it seems to be a solution to a problem that undoubtedly I caused myself by bad management.

In the end I think whatever works for you, your dog and your situation is what's probably best. All my dogs have been fed slightly differently, according to what seemed to work best.

 

[Atemas]

In the end I think whatever works for you, your dog and your situation is what's probably best. All my dogs have been fed slightly differently, according to what seemed to work best.

This

 

[Selina27]

Yes, it's totally about what works for us and our dogs
It is interesting to discuss

 

[Boogie]

@Natalie I'm sure Molly would have been an ok weight on kibble if I had fed her less (or fewer extras) but she was constantly demanding food - I mean hitting the fridge hard with her paw and whining to the point where it was almost a howl sometimes. And yes I suppose I should have steeled myself and not given in but with three adults in the house someone always caved.
I think most dogs seem fine on kibble. Home-cooking is not something I'm trying to persuade other people to do. For Molly I just like the fact that she can eat frequently with the home-cooked food so she's not hungry and still lose weight - so it seems to be a solution to a problem that undoubtedly I caused myself by bad management.

They are very good at asking and will do anything that works! And if it works once they’ll try it again and again and again.

I have a strong ‘no more now’ signal for Tatze - open hands and the words ‘all done’. And I mean it, she gets absolutely nothing after the signal. So she sighs and goes lies down with several more sighs before snoozing.

Her Kongs are soaked and frozen kibble from her allowance. At 5pm (when ‘starvation’ is really setting in!) she gets sprats in her slow bowl to put her on ‘till tea time. She adores the fish cube treats so they are what I use for her sniffy training.

 

[Atemas]

They are very good at asking and will do anything that works! And if it works once they’ll try it again and again and again.

We accidentally dropped a chip one day - Red immediately ate it. Then next time we cooked chips, she was there ‘where’s my chip?’ I gave her one surreptitiously and again the next time. F saw me the following time and was rightly cross. I stopped it but she’s still interested when we are cooking chips - she lives in hope....but is always disappointed