Weight Issues

Hi

When I got Oliver in Nov he was 2 years old and weighed 14 pounds.  He was healthy.  Last week I  weighed him and he is up to 16.8 pounds so I want to get him to lose some weight.  I switched him to a low calorie diet.  In a week he went down to 15.8 pounds.  I am concerned that is too fast so I am going to give him 1/2 and 1/2 old and new food instead.  I'm not sure how accurate home scales are so it may be off a bit.  Is 1 pound in a week too much to lose?

Thanks

Don

Hi Coasterdon, are you feeding Oliver dry or wet food?

Wet food is better than dry in terms of loosing weight. Dry is carbs and wet is proteins.

And is he having enough exercises? Is he neutered? If he is, his activity levels will be lower and have to get him to exercise more to shed some weight too.

Has the vet told you what his ideal weight is?  The main concern is fatty liver disease when calorie consumption is too low.  The rule of thumb is to go no lower than 15 calories per pound of ideal weight per day.  Often wet food doesn't have the calorie count on the can, you can usually find it on the food's website.

Hi

He eats dry food. I have tried wet but he likes to graze so the food goes dry and a lot is wasted.

Are you free feeding him dry food? If you are, then he can chomp on the food all day and may eat more.

Try rationing the dry and give him wet more frequently. Wet food does not spoil so easily as dry. Wet food can be left out for longer than usual. Provided no insects or flies get to the food. Yes, it'll dry up but all you need to do is add in water to make it moist again.

Some canned food has calories labeled on them and like what Advisor Denice said, some might not have so look it up on the food's website for it and follow her recommendation of no of calories per pound of ideal weight per day.