Food to put weight on my Husky

We know what the quality foods are, that's not the issue at all. The issue is that no food is putting weight on her, and she simply does not eat enough of it.

She has NOT eaten any Pedigree, Iams, or grocery-store found foods since I've had her. She's eaten Blue Buffalo, Canidae, Evo, and who knows what else...

As far as the Science Diet goes, we're not aiming for a low-phosphorus food. The vet thinks that the Homemade foods have too much workload on the kidneys, or perhaps too much phosphorus. She won't eat the Science diet, anyway.

Just wanted to add that both Sizzle and I are having trouble keeping weight on dogs with TOTW. In case you were thinking of trying that.

Teehee, maybe I should switch Archie to TOTW next, then

PWC is right - Ilsa is too skinny right now, and she's been eating TOTW exclusively for the past few months. After this bag is done, we're switching.

I have a hard time defining "too skinny" for sport dogs. For dogs who are just pets, it doesn't really harm them to have that extra rib covering.

So, I have different standards for "too skinny" and "fat" depending on what the dog does.

That was really random... hah, hit enter before I was done... whoops.

Meant to say that... I haven't had a weight problem with TOTW, but that's probably because I needed to take weight off my dogs. They've been doing what I want them to do... so we'll see what happens when I try to get them to maintain a weight.

Its hard to tell from the second pic, but she doesn't look emaciated in those pics, thin yes, but not emaciated -although, it would be hard to tell with her fur.
Do you have an idea of how much weight you'd like to put on her?

She doesn't look very tall, and according to the ACK website (http://www.akc.org/breeds/siberian_husky/) she isn't too far under the weight for females.

Can you feel all her ribs when you run your hands down her sides, or just the last one or two? I'm not advertising Purina, but they have this: http://www.purina.com/dogs/health/bodycondition.aspx on their website that shows different body conditions of dogs. (I'm sure there are other sites, this is the one that came up first on my search)

Sizzle, I think I'm going to end up having to put Frodo on a different food as well, unfortunately.

I'll admit, when I read your post I was a little confused as to who you were talking to, LOL.

I'm sort of in the same boat with Izzy. She is losing on TOTW, which is what I want. But if she is like Frodo, once she hits the right weight even upping the amount doesn't really slow down the weight loss much, just more poop.
I really, really hope this isn't the case though, Izzy has a very sensative stomach and this is the only food, other then Canidae, that she seems to do well on. We'll see what happens when I try and get her to maintain weight.

YEP - that's *exactly* what happened to Ilsa. I like keeping my dogs trim and fit, but I'm beginning to be able to feel her pelvic bones, and some of her vertebrae. She's 75lbs right now, and she should be 80lbs. When you've got no hiar to hide it, 5lbs of lost weight SHOWS!

Not to mention that with my guys, 5 pounds is roughly 1/4 their body weight!
Since I just bought a 30 pound bag of TOTW the other day (they were sold out of 15 pound bags), I think I'm going to try mixing it with another food. They were on a mix of TOTW and Canidae before and maintained weight.

All I know for sure is that they really need to make a TOTW for humans. Eat all you want and lose weight, sounds good to me.

I agree... I want a TOTW for humans!

If it does become a problem, I do have another safe food... it's just a little more expensive, and not grain free. The only two foods Buzz has done *well* on is Fromm Salmon and TOTW pacific stream (no chicken in either, no corn, no other garbage...).

*Sigh*

She is definitely underweight. Her hipbones, every single rib, and pelvic bones are very apparent when you look at her. I mean, you can see every single rib right through her coat. Of course you can feel them.

5 lbs ago, she began to lose the fat stores on her head. From my understanding, that is the last to go on their body when they've lost all their fat. She had no muscle mass, and her stomach caved in to literally nothing. I can still fit my hands around her waist now, but before, I could with my fingers touching with ease; overlapping. She was literally nothing, and that was only 5 lbs ago-- at 25 lbs. It was so scary for me to see her then.

She's a normal sized husky, but she has no bulk to her. Huskys should be relatively thick for their size. She's incredibly lean, and like I said, her bones are still apparent. The vet says she's still too thin and unstable for him to spay her.

I suppose I'm aiming ultimately for the 40lb range, or whatever it takes for the vet to feel comfortable spaying her. At that point, hopefully she'll be adopted, and the adopter can get her to her peak condition. Unless it takes longer, then that will be my job.

And by the way, I tried mashing up the Satin balls with warm water to the consistency of canned dog food, and mixing it with her Canidae-- She licked all the Satin Ball right off of the canidae, and dropped most of the kibble out of the bowl.

Tonight, I food-processed the canidae very finely, and then blended it with the satin balls, to the consistency of canned dog food. She seemed to like it, but I'm not feeding her another meal 'till the morning. I'll see how she likes it then.

I'd really recommend getting Mordy's opinion on all this. She is a pro and her site is www.dogfoodproject.com Well, that's one of her sites. She has info in her siggie too.

I'm sure you can find a raw diet that is tailored for KD if you talk to her.

As for throwing up food, Nanook did this when we first got her. I fed her smaller meals more frequently and always added water to her kibble and she's fine now.

Adding water to the kibble is always a good idea. Especially for dogs with KD or other kidney problems. Even for healthy dogs it's a good idea.

Thanks! Mordy is a member of Chaz, then?

my comments were not said to frustrate you. geesh. I was just going by the pictures you posted.

will the dog eat the kibble alone, without the satin balls. its my understanding that kibble and raw meat digest at different rates and shouldn't be fed together at one meal.

I apologize, it wasn't that... It was just describing how skinny she was before, I don't like going into detail. I feel like it was my fault, sometimes.

Anyway, someone said that once on a different thread, and members replied that that was not true. That the kibble and raw meat digest at different rates. It makes sense to me, but I'm pretty sure I remember people saying that. Do you know that for sure?

Besides, she won't eat kibble alone anymore. If she's not hungry hungry, she won't eat. That means if I feed her Satin balls in one meal, and try to feed her kibble the next meal, I'd probably have to wait for days to get her to eat again.

I don't have any medical information to back it up, but my guys always had diarreah if I fed them kibble and raw together. They were fine when I gave them in separate meals. I've always heard that they digest at different rates here.

Huh... Kenna didn't eat even half of what I gave her just now anyway. She is totally anti-kibble now. Aaargh, I just don't know what to do with her! She doesn't have digestive problems, with switching foods or anything normally. Like I said, back when she weighed nothing, we tried every kind of food under the sun. She'd eat this for a few days, then this, then she'd feel more like that... etc. She'd eventually quit eating each thing we gave her. That might have been a part of her illness, I don't know.

What about canned food?

Same thing. It's like it's not any more enticing than the dry.