What dog weight loss supplements could be useful to your dog when dieting?

Supplementing your dog’s diet with Omega-3 acids (found in fish oils) will help your dog to burn fat by improving carbohydrate and fat metabolism. A diet high in omega-3 fatty acids is also essential to maintaining a healthy coat and skin during dieting. L-carnitine (an amino acid) is another dietary supplement that could help your dog lose more weight while dieting by increasing the chances that the body will use fat for energy as opposed to storing it. Both of the above supplements can be found in many weight management foods. Be sure to ask your veterinarian if these dietary supplements are appropriate for your dog and what dosages.

Which Diet Dog Food is Best for Your Dog?

When faced with the decision to choose which diet dog food would be best for your dog, always start with the label. The ideal diet dog food possesses 4 qualities to ensure optimal nutrition for dieting. So what qualities should your diet dog food have?

1)High levels of protein: Protein is necessary to maintain muscle mass. Diets high in protein help to minimize muscle loss caused from the reduction of calories during dieting. Muscles are the biggest burners of calories so losing muscle will also decrease the calories burned daily and will slow weight loss. Foods with 35-50% of their calories from protein are common for weight loss diets.

2)High levels of fiber: Dietary fiber is important for colon health. Higher levels of dietary fiber stimulate expansion in the stomach and intestines and signals satisfaction to the brain. This makes less food more satisfying and tends to decrease begging behavior in the dieting dog. Fiber content greater than 20% is common in diet foods

3)High levels of vitamins and minerals: Dieting dogs get fewer of the vitamins and minerals necessary due to the reduction in calories. Diet dog foods are fortified with extra vitamins and minerals to make up this difference. Dieting animals on non-diet food require vitamin and mineral supplementation. Your vet can help with the dosing.

4)Moderate to low levels of fat: The body needs fat for optimum cell, skin, and coat health; however, excess levels of fat are easily stored by the body and will reduce fat loss during dieting. A fat content of 8-10% will meet the body’s needs without adding extra calories

All of the veterinary weight loss diets of Hill’s, Purina and Royal Canin possess the important 4 qualities of an ideal diet dog food. Over-the-counter low calorie foods are typically high in fiber but fall short for the other requirements. Their feeding guidelines are often too generous for weight loss. There may not be a magic food for weight loss but there is a magic number of calories to feed and it can change during the diet. That number can be difficult to figure out and requires help from your veterinarian. Ask your veterinarian which brand they recommend from the names listed above and with help calculating the ideal number of calories for your dog for dieting.

Next Post: Feeding the thin dog inside – finding the magic number of calories that promotes weight loss.

Dr. T

Keeping Your Dog Food Fresh

Weekly Wellness Tip: After opening a bag of dry food, store it in a container that can be sealed from the air. Vitamins and fats are easily destroyed by room air. Plastic containers with tight fitting lids will do the trick.

Dr. T

Which dog food is best for your dog, Wet or Dry?

Welcome back, pack!

Which dog food to feed, wet or dry?


Most dog owners will answer dry because they have been told that dry is better for dog’s teeth. The belief is that dry food needs to be chewed and therefore cleans teeth. Actually this is not true. Anyone who has seen or stepped in dog vomit knows that it looks the same as dry food, just wetter. That is because like their wild ancestors, dog’s tear, crack and swallow without chewing. Chewing during a kill would limit food intake. Modern dogs still share the same wild eating behavior. Without chewing, food has no cleaning action. Dry or wet, it doesn’t matter to teeth.

The choice to feed wet or dry is really based on expense and lifestyle. Dry food is much cheaper per serving than wet or canned food. It is also easier to store and convenient to feed. That is why its popularity has grown steadily since WW II. Up to the war years, dogs were mostly fed table scraps. But with the men off to fight and women in the factories, dry food was a perfect choice for feeding Fido.

Most dogs love canned food. It is equally nutritious compared to dry food despite the high water content. Fur quality often improves after adding canned food to the diet. It is definitely more expensive per serving. The odor, inconvenience of the can (opening, storing partials, disposal) and not eaten food turns away many dog owners.

Feeding a combination of wet and dry is a great plan that most dogs readily eat and is more satisfying. Adding wet food to the diet often decreases grazing behavior like eating poop, sticks, leaves, toys, etc.

Remember, if you add wet food to the diet, you must subtract dry food from each meal. The number of calories from both wet and dry must add up to your dog’s daily calorie requirement!


Next Post: Picking a low calorie diet food


Dr. T

More great dog health tips at www.trimthepack.com

What is the best food to feed your dog?

Welcome back, pack!

Feeding the normal weight dog:

I am frequently asked which food is the best for dogs. The answer depends on the dog. Like humans, every dog is different, especially when it comes to digestion. The best food to feed is the one that:

1) The dog likes and will readily eat
2) Produces a sleek, shiny coat and a healthy gleam in the eye
3) Produces the smallest amount of non-smelly, well-formed stool

This won’t be the same food for every dog. That is why there are so many brands available that have owners that will swear to the superiority of each brand. I have seen dogs that eat the cheapest of generic brands that love the food, have glossy coats and produce modest amounts of stool.

Why are these 3 things important to judge food?

1) If a dog sniffs, pushes the food bowl, takes a long time to eat or frequently won’t eat there is probably some smell or taste the dog does not like. Forcing the dog to eat a food it doesn’t like just because someone said it was a great food makes little sense. Missing meals and then gorging due to hunger is not healthy and can actually be dangerous for large breed dogs. Their stomach can bloat and twist (Think Marley & Me). With so many brand choices, find the one your dog likes.

2 ) A glossy coat means that the fat balance in the food promotes skin and cell wall health. Foods that lack this quality will produce dull looking, brittle, flakey coats and should be avoided. Changes in coat quality requires weeks to months to occur after starting a new food.

3) The proof is in the pudding! Healthy dogs that produce large amounts of smelly formed, semi-formed, or soft stool are probably eating a food that disagrees with them. This usually means less food is being absorbed and is just passing through undigested. Awfully expensive poop! Dog food companies are not required to meet any standards of digestibility or more correctly, bioavailability. The food that produces small amounts of non-smelly, formed stool means good bioavailability. This is why homemade diets are so popular. More about that on a later post.

Today’s tip: Review the last blog. Feed dry or canned food by the ounce not the cup or guesstimate in order to measure the correct number of calories.

Next Post: Dry Food or Wet Food, which is better?

Dr. T

Don’t trust the label for feeding instructions!

Welcome back, pack parents,

Don’t trust the label for feeding instructions!

A recent study of 44 weight loss or weight management diets showed that these foods varied as much as 200 calories per cup or can. The researchers concluded that the variability of commercial diet foods could actually contribute to the failure of weight loss programs. Further research has documented the inaccuracy of the “cup” measurement for delivering accurate amounts of calories. So how do we feed our dogs correctly? Determining the optimum amount of food to feed your dog should ideally be measured by the ounce, not the cup. To calculate your dog’s daily caloric needs in ounces use these 4 easy steps.

Calculating the correct feeding amount for your dog:

1) Buy a kitchen food scale ($5-30)

2) Ask your veterinarian for the appropriate daily calorie (actually kilocalories or kcal) needs for your dog

3) Go to website of your dog food company to find the kcal/kg of food (it is not required that this information be provided on the dog food package. If it is there – Great!)

4) Calculate the ounces to feed:

Kcal/day ÷ kcal/kg ÷ 28 X 1000 = ounces of food per day

Example: A dog needs 500 kcals/day (per your Vet) and the food contains 3800 kcal/kg (find online)

500 ÷ 3800 ÷ 28 X 1000 = oz./day

500 ÷3800 = .132 ÷ 28 = .0047 X 1000 = 4.7 oz./day

Ideally, dogs should be fed twice daily, so this dog would receive 2.35 ounces of food per meal. Accurate feeding is the key to weight management!

Today’s Tip: WATER is the most important nutrient for dogs!

Dogs do not have the ability to sweat to reduce body heat. Panting is their primary cooling strategy. Evaporation of water from the tongue and mouth provides the necessary body cooling (think swamp cooler). Unfortunately, this loss of body water needs to be constantly replaced. Dogs should have access to large amounts of clean, fresh water. The water bowl should be the largest feeding utensil, not the food dish.

Releasing the Trim Dog Inside

Dr. T

*Calculating the generic caloric needs of dogs will be the content of later postings.

Welcome to the inaugural edition of “Releasing the Trim Dog Inside”. This blog in conjunction with “Trim The Pack” Dog Weight Loss Campaign is dedicated to providing information to promote a better understanding of the complexity of America’s biggest pet health problem- malnutrition from poor diets.

50 % of our dogs are overfed and as a result overweight or clinically obese. These extra pounds are causing health problems in our dogs that decrease their quality of life and ultimately shorten their lifespan. The list includes:

- Diabetes
- Cancer
- Heart problems
- High blood pressure
- Kidney problems
- Skin problems
- Asthma
- Arthritis
- Anesthetic risk
- Post-surgical complications
- Drug dosing difficulty


More alarming is that many of these dogs are on diet or low calorie pet food with little or no results. Why is dog weight loss so difficult? A few reasons include:

1. A dog’s metabolism naturally slows down when dieting in an attempt to compensate for a decrease in calories.

2. Calorie restriction in dogs is generally underestimated because the calories per measured amount of dog food is extremely variable

3. The amount of calories burned during exercise is inadequate.

The list goes…Our mission is to provide the latest information about nutrition, fitness and weight management issues so that you can make the best possible lifestyle choices for your dog. Together with your veterinarian, we hope to improve the lives of America’s dogs and release the trim dog inside.

Today’s Tip: Size Matters!


The size of the pet food bowl should be the smallest that will hold the required amount of food for one meal and accommodate snout size. A full appearing bowl is less likely to be topped off with extra calories.

Look for our next installment and latest tip.

Dr. T


For more dog weight loss strategies, tips, etc. go to www.TrimthePack.com