[Roo_Boo]

Hello! I need help figuring out how much my baby should weigh. He’s 7 years old, is 38.5 inches long, and weighs about 88 lbs at the moment. The vet wants him down to 70 lbs, but it feels like that’s wrong. I did all the checks for obessety with him, and he seems fine. His activity is high, he has a waist, his abdomen is smaller than his chest, you can feel his ribs, and you can feel the bone in his tail. Yet everywhere I look at online says he should be no heavier than 60 lbs. please help..

 

[Mikey T]

there is no ideal formulation to determing correct weight. but some rules of thumb 1. If the vet say 70LBS that is likely still High given that most vets do not like having the your pet is fat conversation in the first place. Any length x height formula is arbitrary as it does not take into acount bone and muscle mass. When using a Body condition chart most owners still thonk their pet is much thinger than it rally is. On a morbidly obese dog you can easily feel the ribs what you should not feel is any fat between the skin and bone, Same goes for not seeing ribs. if under all ciricumstance you can never see an outline for tibs the dog is overweight, My largish Male basset hound @ 64" was skinniest basset around. When in peak form competeing in agility he was 48# for most dog even suposedly skinny ones tther is often weight to lose for ultimate performance.

see https://www.canineacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/corpulent-canines.pdf

People don’t know how to determine whether their dogs are overweight. This is a very common problem. Dogs vary in height, bone structure and muscularity, so there is no single “correct weight” for a dog of any given breed. The quickest way to determine whether a dog is overweight is to feel the thickness of the fat over the last few ribs. In this area, the ribs lie right under the skin. If there is any subcutaneous fat, you can feel it between the skin and the ribs. Take your thumb and index finger and pinch deeply into the skinand tissue below. Then pull the tent of skin outward. You will immediately feel the layer of fat slip out from under your fingers (Figure 1). In a canine athlete, that layer of fat should be as thin as tissue paper. As you help your dog lose weight, feel that fat layer to monitor weight loss. It’s more convenient and just as accurate as using a scale.

 

[Mikey T]

there is a great size range in basset hound much biggiger than the typical 40-60 lb range often site. Leila had a single litter smallest is Xena Aglity champion in CPE agility and trick dog champion

weighs in the mid 30's #

this his her slightly bigger brother 17" tall and super sized @ approximately 100#