How do you balancing treats/food?

[Speed]

How do you balance treats/food?

Good Morning,

Ever since I adopted my dog I have wondered how to balance food/treats/extra food after training classes or long hikes.

We hike 4 miles/day on week days, up to 8 miles on weekends. We take a 1-hr agility class once per week.

He's a 15-month old Portuguese Water Dog weighing 41 lbs. He's not skin and ribs but he's not fat. I feed him a scant 1 cup 2x day of Eukanuba dry food. When I do give him a dog biscuit, I give a weight control biscuit figuring he cares only about being rewarded and not about the size and calorie content of a biscuit.

My question is how do you balance your dogs food on days when he/she is working hard at a competition, or when the dog had 2+ hours exercise in a day? If you reward with treats during training, do you reduce the dog's dinner by a few kibbles to balance out the rewards he received in training class?

I'm conerned that as I get more focused on training, that I may slowly creep into feeding him too much and not realize it.

TIA and I'm really enjoying this forum!

Lois

 

[Dekka]

I would get him off the eukanuba..esp if you are doing performance things. That will help in keeping him trim and healthy. (and you pay wayyyy to much for that food for the quality it is...all the money goes to advertising)

I tell my students to figure out how much food they used in training (and make sure they use healthy treats like liver, cheese etc) and deduct that amout from the dog's dinner. If the dog is a thin active kind (It is a constant battle to keep weight on Sizzle) then I say don't worry about it.

 

[luvs2showdogs]

Sounds like your dog gets enough exercise! My dogs are probably jealous now lol!

I just guestimate. If I worked with the dog and he got a lot of treats then I cut back a bit on his food. Maybe only feeding him half of what he normally gets.

As for competitions, I don't compete in agility (yet!) but I do do conformation. I usually feed my dog a few hours before he goes in the ring and make sure I take him out a little while before we show so he can go potty.

II know this is more activity in agility compared to trotting around a show ring so I'm not sure how helpful I am being. Sorry.

i don't think you have to worry about feeding your dog too much though, you are spending more time thinking about all this then I did when I started out. I don't think about it all that much, just go with what seems right for how much my dog ate in treats.

I feed my dogs the same amount even if they did get a lot of exercise during the day. Granted our exercise is hiking. If I feed them more trying to compensate for their activity they tend to gain weight. Especially my Beagle.

On the other hand my Brittany is underweight (bad owner before us) and so if he gets a ton of exercise I will give him just a little extra. My brittany normally gets two and a half cups a day, while my beagle gets one.

I don't know if any of this helped. I wish you the best of luck with your dog!

 

[BostonBanker]

I don't feed any dinner at all the night/s we have agility classes or practice. Meg gets plenty of high quality treats while working (usually deli meats, cheese, or occasionally the less-quality hot dogs or peanut butter). Many people choose to "fast" the dog for one or two meals a week, so I figure a few small meals are okay.

Meg's food rations are basically balanced at this point to include the rather large number of treats she gets in a day hiking or training. If I haven't really given any treats that day, I'll add an egg or something to her dinner to give her a bit more calories, but that is the exception rather than the norm.

And I agree with Dekka - you will probably want to rethink the Eukanuba. You can do much better for your dog for pretty much the same price. http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=main has lots of good information.

 

[adojrts]

Hi
Glad you are enjoying the forum.

It really is a balancing act, actually I also think it is being very aware of the energy going out vs the food going in. It is also an skill of developing an eye to watch their weight.

The fact that you are concerned about it and looking for info now is an excellent sign, therefore I doubt you will get big weight changes. Being aware is the first key.

I look at my dogs everyday, feel them everyday. I also make sure that the rewards that I am training with are Nutritious i.e home baked Liver/heart, Salmon Cakes etc. I avoid store bought treats as much as possible and very seldom use weiners even the low sodium chicken ones esp. during the warmer/hot months.

I absolutely reduce the amount of a meal on a training day but it depends on how much I am rewarding when training as to how much (sorry I know that is vague).
Also keep in mind that the further along in training you are, the less you are rewarding with food because of the variable reward system. But always keep your rewards as small as possible, much easier and far more rewarding to your dog to be given many tiny rewards than one or two larger ones.

Hope this helps

Lynn

 

[Speed]

Thanks to everyone for your input. I think it will be wise for me to change how I feed him on days we train, especialy since we're in the early stages of training and using food rewards. I will check out the forums on dog food too.

Lois