How much food to gain normal weight

Iaintthewalrus said:

Hi friends,
Glad I found this site, it looks as the ideal companion for the long journey of being a responsible Basset dad.
My female pup was acquired from a breeder who I think was not feeding her enough; her ribs show and her bones just below the collarline are easy to feel. (where the spine meets the collar) Right now she's going on 12 weeks and I'm feeding her just under 2 cups per day.Claude

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You should be be able to see the ribs on a puppy and the wither should be easily felt. Longer term health problem are associated with overfeeding not underfeeding. Most peoples perception of what an ideal basset should look like is that of an obese dog hence with their puppy or dog is not obese they think it is too thin see

Corpulent Canines?

I have assessed the weight on hundreds of dogs of a variety of breeds over the past year at seminars all over the country and a conservative estimate is that about 50% of the dogs that I see are overweight; approximately 25% are actually obese. These are not couch potato dogs. These are dogs whose owners expect them to jump in obedience, to run over rough ground in retrieving tests, and to perform in agility ...

People don't know how to determine the correct weight for their dogs. Dogs vary in height, bone structure, and muscularity, so there is no one correct weight for a dog of any given breed. The best way to determine whether a dog is overweight is to test 3 different parts of the body: the neck, the ribs, and the hips.

1. <LI type=a>To check the neck, press your thumb and index finger deep into the side of the neck just ahead of the shoulder, and pinch them together. If your fingers are more than 1/2" apart, the dog is overweight. (Note: this is where old dogs tend to carry most of their excess fat, and they may actually be thin in other locations.) <LI type=a>To check the ribs, stand with your dog beside you, facing his butt. Place your thumb on the middle of his spine half way down the back and spread your fingers out over his last few ribs. Then run your fingers up and down along his skin. You should be able to feel the bumps of his ribs without pressing in.
2. To check the hips, run your hand over your dog's croup. You should be able to feel the bumps of his two pelvic bones without pressing down.

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dog Diet Do's and Don’t's

University College of Veterinary Medicine, your puppy can be fed a regimen of specific caloric intake compared to his body condition score (BCS), using a simple one to five scale, from overly thin to obese. Using manufacturer feeding recommendations as an initial starting point, feed your puppy to a score of two and maintain this weight until he's fully grown.

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2 = Thin - Ribs easily palpated and may be visible with no palpable fat. Tops of lumbar vertebrae visible. Pelvic bones less prominent. Obvious waist and abdominal tuck.

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no one can say feed so much food to a particular dog there are way too many variable not the least of which is the amount of calories in a cup of food varries greatly from manufacture to manufacture and even between food from the same manufacture. I general recommend starting at 10-25% less than the recommended feeding guidelines on the back of puppy food bag based on the size and age of the dog. I also recommend large breed puppy formula for a basset even though they are marginal on most large breed scales. The reason being that large breeds formula were done mostly to minimize orthopeadic problems that are more prevelent in large breed the same orthopeadic probems are prevelent in bassets and given the basset has more bone mass relative to it size than any other breed oit has the skeletal structure of a large breed.


Also keep in mind most owners are vary poor judges of their own dogs weight most severly underestimating how overweight their dogs is
Purina® Study Confirms Link Between Body Fat and Chronic Health Conditions

Other Purina research found that most owners couldn't accurately assess their dogs' body conditions. When owner and expert scores were compared, only 28 percent of owners characterized their pets as above ideal body condition, while 79 percent of the experts scored those same animals to be above ideal body condition. Dr. Larson says this gap is serious because pet owners are not likely to recognize that their pets are overweight and even moderate excess body fat can lead to problems.

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Purina releases results from first life span study