What can I add to my dog’s diet to help him gain weight?
He’s already eating 10 cups per day of quality high calorie dog food but he is under weight. He is quite active for his breed (mastiff) and is just over a year old.
He is UTD on all vaccination, deworming etc and shows no other signs of being unhealthy, just very hard to get some weight on.
How many calories is he getting?
Does he have a clean fecal?
What exactly is he eating?
I’d look to get him on a higher calorie food and up his fat through salmon oil (or something similar) if he checks out from a veterinary perspective.
I would agree with adding fish oil. And as he is a slow maturing breed, I would still have him on a puppy food.
This is one of those questions like “how much does the hay weigh, not how many flakes?”
What kind of food are you feeding? What does your breeder or vet recommend for quantity of food per day? (Because 10 cups sound amazingly high to me - but my intact, adult male gets <2 cups of food a day…so it’s not possible for me to really advise you). Is it a huge amount for a Mastiff, and yours is somehow unusual? Or would other Mastiff owners say – “That’s not enough?”
What makes you think he needs weight? (He is skinny/ribby? Or always hungry?) I would think that lean would be good…and that he would not develop a lot of “mass” until 2 or 3.
Long way of saying “we need more info!” Fish oil is a great supplement but it wouldn’t seem to me enough to gain serious weight. I only give my dogs 1/2 teaspoon/day. Maybe you could give 1-2T but still…not a huge # of calories…depends on what he needs.
I agree, we need more info and possibly pictures.
What kind of food are you feeding? How many kCals?
Have you doing a weight plan?
I can type in the numbers if you want me to, I just need the type of food, dogs age, weight, and goal weights.
He is still young and active. Remember, an idea dog is easily palpable to feel the ribs, but they aren’t necessarily visible because of minimal fat covering. The waist should be very noticeable.
Just because you can feel them, doesn’t mean he is skinny. That is why most of the dogs we see in the clinic systems are FAT.
Google “satin balls recipes.” Old timer breed-ring trick, at a google* glance now popular with Pit body builder types.
*I wanted to google “satin balls” first to make sure I wasn’t directing you to google hits of porn paraphernalia or something :eek:.
He’s currently eating…
http://www.earthbornholisticpetfood.com/us/dog_formulas/meadow_feast/
I can see his spine and hip bones. Not horribly, and not when he lays down certain ways.
[QUOTE=Bicoastal;8039310]
Google “satin balls recipes.” Old timer breed-ring trick, at a google* glance now popular with Pit body builder types.
*I wanted to google “satin balls” first to make sure I wasn’t directing you to google hits of porn paraphernalia or something :eek:.[/QUOTE]
LOL!
I was reading about ‘satin balls’ last night. From my understanding there are pros and cons?
for a giant-breed puppy, it’s VERY GOOD to be able to see a hint of bones. Skinny is best for those dogs. You need to be very cautious about stimulating growth of these giant dogs through adding foods willy-nilly.
Think of some skinny teenage boys you see- nothing but skin and bones. It’s normal during certain stages of growth for young animals to look thin.
That said, why did you select that particular food? the calcium may be too high for a giant-breed puppy (it says it’s not less than 1.2%- 1.2% is ok, but if it’s much higher than 1.2% it could cause some real problems).
The protein is barely high enough at 27%. It is also a fairly low calorie per cup food at only 400 kcal/cup.
If you’re concerned, your best best is to switch to a large-breed puppy food with more calories per cup and a known proper calcium level.
For example, look at Orijen large-breed puppy food. It provides a maximum amount of calcium (1.2 to 1.5%), necessary for proper bone growth in puppies- too high, you get serious problems.
It also has a more reasonable level of protein at 36%, and it has 456 kcal per cup so you’d feed less or feed the same and put weight on the dog.
Course you’d probably go broke trying to feed Orijen to a growing mastiff.
Natural Balance dog food roll is what I used to put some weight on my youngest corgi who was too ribby. She’s still thin, but not the way she was
Absolutely agree with Wendy.
The way you describe the dog, he sounds FINE and not needing any weight. I’d not want to add anything if you can only see a touch of rib and spine when he lies in certain ways. I’d likely want him just slightly thinner–I try to keep my puppies just barely ribby.
You could feed 8.75 c of the Orijen to hit the same calorie content.
When I was “dog running” (basically I was a dog walker who ran them instead of walked them) my labrador would tag along with most of my runs because he was a nice calming influence. As a result he was running 10-15 miles per day 5 days per week with me and although he was very happy and fit and eating a high quality dog food in large amounts,it was hard to keep weight on him.
My SO looked online, found a few recipes for “satin balls” and made up a few batches. My dog LOVED them, so we kept making them for him, modified a bit based on what we had in the kitchen at the time. Because his caloric needs at the time were so high, he simply didn’t want to eat more kibble and even canned dog food wasn’t that exciting to him, but he always eagerly gobbled the satin balls and begged for more.
what kind of mastiff? 10 cups sounds enormous! What is the AKC (if admitted) standard for his/her weight range?
[QUOTE=luvdogz72;8040518]
what kind of mastiff? 10 cups sounds enormous! What is the AKC (if admitted) standard for his/her weight range?[/QUOTE]
My 70 lb Ridgeback eats 4 c of Orijen in the summer (when she’s outside a lot with us) so 10 c for a potentially 200 lb dog just doesn’t seem out of line to me at all.
2nd the satin balls - you need some more calories-- 10 cups even divided into 2-3 meals- Id worry about bloat.
Hello guys! Great info given on this post. I was searching online for the same help. My dog had surgery done recently and had lost a lot of weight. I went online and started looking around for help. Glad I came across this forum because of all the help given. I was curious to know what you thought of using a weight gainer supplement that’s designed to help add weight to canines? I found this one on Amazon that had looks good from the reviews. I wanted to see what you guys though about it before buying it. Look forward to your replies! Here’s the link below
https://www.amazon.com/Muscle-Bully-Gains-Weight-Serving/dp/B0198WQ9ZU
Cottage cheese, 4%. Easily digestible source of protein that provides calcium as well. Plus it’s easy to feed. Pop the lid, scoop, and feed.
My Belgian Malinois is hard to keep weight on. The best we found as far as calories per cup is Evo. The Red Meat is 509 cal/cup and the Turkey and Chicken is 516 cal/cup, so quite a bit more than the 400/cup your dog is getting with the Earthborne. My dog just wasn’t all that interested in eating a lot of volume, so the calories per cup were very important for him. It works. 
Good luck!
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